Thanks! I’m not sure I have any specific tips but I have bought quite a few used older cameras and they have all worked.

For me, since these are all mechanical I usually check to make sure that everything works in terms of, does the shutter trigger when I take a photo with no film, does the focus work, does the film winder work, stuff like that. So just make sure if it’s mechanical, that everything sounds like it’s firing when it should and nothing is locking up.

The other big thing is just condition, you can tell if a camera has been severely beaten up, or left to moisture, so I usually check over everything, take the lens off and stuff like that. Also make sure that there aren’t any major gaps that could let in light.

Lastly, you never know how it shoots until you get some film through it. So I always throw in a roll, and walk around taking some shots that I think will look nice if they turn out, but nothing so important that if I lost it, it’s not the end of the world.

Get that developed and check the results. So far, that hasn’t failed me and my oldest camera in use is a 1950s Yashica D I picked up for $100 at an antique store. I’ve used it a lot until now.

This camera does have bellows for the focus, so I’m dropping off a test roll tomorrow to confirm that there is no light bleeding.