Gérard Wiener was born in 1939 in Paris, France. At the end of the 50s he fled from France to Caracas, Venezuela to avoid conscription into the French Army and its fight in Algeria.
After he studied at a movie college in Venezuela, he pursued an education as a precision mechanic and repaired cameras “at the end of the world”. At the beginning of the 70s, he moved to Germany and opened a camera repair shop in Munich in 1973.
His status is legendary in Germany. At a used camera equipment flea market I heard a vintage lens collector say: “I hope Gérard never dies. Otherwise, we’ll lose the best repair expert in the country.” Every analog camera has its own sound; Gérard Wiener can tell the model when he hears the “click”.
Gérard did a service inspection on my Nikkor 85mm f2 Ai lens and cleaned the aperture blades of oil for a very fair price. May he continue his repair shop for many years to come!
https://www.tz.de/muenchen/fotoapparate-sind-sein-leben
http://mein-laden-mein-leben.de/die-laeden/foto-werkstatt.htm
https://www.yelp.de/biz/foto-werkstatt-wiener-muenchen
Gérard Wiener – Monsieur Foto from Max Hofstetter on Vimeo.
His repair shop is in the middle of Munich on Landwehrstrasse:
The German Newspaper “Süddeutsche” published a full page about Gérard Wiener on February 11, 2014:
Gérard got my Bell & Howell 70D Filmo 16mm camera from the year 1941 running after a 10 minutes repair session:
If you have an idea, how to get analog 16mm movie film in Switzerland, please leave a comment.
Some more pictures of the repair shop:
don`t understand how he can find anything, but seems to be a very interesting person
wish my city had a flea market for used camera stuff
Dear Mr Wiener
I am an old Leica user since 1954 (I´m now 86 years old but still making photos) I have been searching for a lens repair service of my Leica lenses, mainly cleaning, polishing and recoating. I wonder if you could provide that service, to start with two Summarit 50 m/m f 1.5 and later on with two Summarex 85 m/m f 1.5 and perhaps more lenses later on. Please let me know how to proceed to use your facilities.
Freundlich Güssen
Tomas Silva