How Does This Thing Work?

Ever since I was a child, I’ve always loved to take things apart to find out how they worked. Maybe that’s one of my fascinations with photography – the fact that I love how cameras work. I remember one of my first cameras in high school – a Minolta SRT-101. A fairly simple camera, but it was what I could afford, and it worked well for yearbook photos I took. But after a couple years, my curiosity got the best of me, and I had to take it apart. First, just the base plate – to make sure it didn’t need cleaning, or lubrication. Then, I had to remove the top as well. I was amazed at the wires, strings and pullies that made that mechanical marvel work. Needless to say, the camera never quite worked right again. Oh, it took pictures (I didn’t mess with the shutter), but the dials and knobs never quite did precisely what they were supposed to do again. So, I learned a valuable lesson: no matter how curious you are, it’s not a good idea to take your camera apart. If you must, it’s better to find one that’s already broken to experiment with.

I’m still amazed by how mechanical things work. I had an old laptop that was so slow it wasn’t worth trying to use anymore, so I removed the hard drive (as I always do before disposing of a computer) and thought it would be fun to dissect. I just bought a set of tiny tools, that I used to open another laptop and replace a bad SSD – so I thought I would give it a try. My new tools were perfect for the various sized star screws used to hold this hard drive together. In only a few minutes, the drive was opened and I could see all it’s parts. It’s amazing how this does what it does.

Well, this is my interesting thought for the day. Are you like me? Do you love to explore the mechanics of your clocks and cameras? I think it’s a good thing to have curiosity – and to want to find out how things work. In a way, I hope it’s something that I always have.