I've helped create a monster

Comments · 105

• TH

  @theinstantcameraguy · 1 month ago (edited) · pinned

  EDIT (added information about a potential list of TICG &apos;approved&apos; techs)<br><br>Still not super happy with how this video came out, but I&apos;ve been putting it off for months now. <br><br>I&apos;d like to reiterate that this video only covers a small amount of the things I&apos;ve seen over the last year or so. Everything from people taking money up front then ghosting clients, to lying to clients, to stealing and more. &nbsp;My aim is not to name and shame here, but to encourage everyone to be better. <br><br>It&apos;s also not just me that has witnessed this. Yongmin (of the SX-70R PCB) is constantly fielding questions from people having to troubleshoot lousy SX-70R conversions and DrSX-70 and I chat near daily about the wild things we are seeing in the industry. <br><br>I might try follow up this video with a &quot;green flags&quot; list of things to look out for in a technician - so as to improve your odds of finding someone competent.<br><br>Edit: Many of you have commented suggesting I make a list of list of &apos;approved&apos;, &apos;T.I.C.G.-trusted&apos; technicians. &nbsp;I really don&apos;t want to do this, as it has its own inherent issues. <br>Firstly, I don&apos;t want to be responsible for some kind of naughty and nice list like I&apos;m a bouncer at the Berghain. <br>Additionally, there are more random technicians popping up than I can keep track of, and no real way for me to check their work unless I see several exampes of their cameras and/or see them at work. This will inevitibly lead to people asking to be added to said hyperthetical &apos;list&apos;. Yongmin already has this issue on his website, which lists examples of people offering SX-70R cameras. He gets requests to join regularly and no real way to judge experience from thousands of miles away. <br>I also don&apos;t want to end up with people then reaching out to me if they DO have an issue with somebody else, expecting me to police the situation. <br>There are many other reasons I could list, but this comment is already getting too long!

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• AT

  @atlefisk7726 · 1 month ago

  I love your community work. You helped me get my camera upp and running ♥️

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• FA

  @famouswhatnow · 1 month ago (edited)

  I can personally confirm this. I trusted the eBay repair seller in Southern California with my vintage Polaroid, and unfortunately it came back with damage and additional problems that Jake then had to correct.<br><br>This camera is incredibly sentimental to me—my grandfather gifted it to me before he passed—so seeing what happened to it was genuinely heartbreaking.<br><br>Thankfully, Jake took on the mess he was left with and brought my grandfather’s camera back to life. I’m sharing my experience because these cameras are special, and people deserve to know who they’re trusting with them. Forever grateful to you, Jake.

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• SX

  @SX-70RYongmin · 1 month ago

  Jake, you&apos;re absolutely right. <br> <br>There are indeed some poorly skilled technicians on eBay and other social media who, after studying your videos, start recruiting customers and copying your results. But you&apos;re absolutely right; any paid repair should be of good quality. If the camera isn&apos;t properly overhauled, it won&apos;t actually work reliably or be converted to an SX-70R. <br> <br>We don&apos;t need to judge who&apos;s right or wrong; instead, we should learn from these low-quality repair cases. Your videos have actually helped many people; they serve as excellent demonstrations and repair experience references, showing people how to do things correctly, instead of leaving them with only a superficial understanding and then being exploited for quick profits. <br> <br>If these technicians are to provide customers with the same excellent overhaul service as you, they should proactively take responsibility, not just copy your results. They shouldn&apos;t deceive customers because of their ignorance. A technician should have a responsible attitude, complete knowledge of the SX-70, and strong technical skills. <br> <br>Only in this way can more people experience the true charm of Polaroid.

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• AN

  @Andrew-jh5uv · 1 month ago

  Had a very bad experience with Brooklyn Film Camera so choose wisely

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• BO

  @bojack616 · 1 month ago

  For me as a fan of your work Jake, I view the majority of your videos as a historical record of something we are all interested in. I get a stir of excitement when I learn an interesting technique which Polaroid did to achieve this very unique camera&apos;s operation or just something about the current atmosphere of avid intelligent people still interested in furthering the &quot;Frankenstein&quot; development (like the battery packs and flash bars) of some very old cameras we cherish. The bad actors will always exist in any community, I feel you have doing your part to educate us on how fragile and cumbersome refurbishing these cameras can be so it is more on our part to make sure we are finding the right technicians to work on our cameras. I don&apos;t want to get long winded so I&apos;ll just say keep posting your content because even though I personal haven&apos;t had any of my cameras refurbished yet I enjoy all things Polaroid you do for the community.

• MA

  @mattweinberger8733 · 1 month ago

  Thanks for this. I was nervous that I might have picked the wrong tech, but I now I feel like I chose well. Zac did a great job and still offers support as needed

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• WO

  @wouterx333 · 1 month ago

  Ive seen a couple SX-70s for sale here in Europe allegedly worked on by you but advertised for less than what you would charge to work on them..<br>Your videos helped me tinker on a broken one I got for cheap, I had to wait over a month for the film just to figure out the film counter doesn&apos;t work but it was fun to fiddle around with.

• DA

  @Daedalus33 · 1 month ago

  I think a green flags video would be super useful and maybe a video going in depth into what to actually expect an SX-70 to be capable of in terms of picture quality and hardware life

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• LI

  @linusandhiscamera · 1 month ago (edited)

  I&apos;ve had a few cameras refurbished that have come back from refurb broken and been unable to meter properly. I sent them off to the same place twice, and once returned...each time were still broken. I ended up sending both cameras to Jake, and he then sent me photos that seemed as if one of the cameras had never even been opened and worked on at all.

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• WH

  @Whenitraveltheworld · 1 month ago

  The video I&apos;ve been waiting for, I enjoyed this one.<br><br>Not sure how I would feel about someone selling a refurb that you did , but you had nothing to do with it. Tricky to get around that unless all cameras start coming with a certificate of refurb matching serial numbers on your end to show you did them, but then people could still spoof that unless you charged for a serial number refurb verification.

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• AL

  @AlfredoCastil · 1 month ago

  My Retrospekt lasted two packs. I have two from TICG and could not be happier.

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