Fixing the lens on a Canon Auto Zoom 814
Sep 1, 2025
Tags: cameras camera-repair super8mm movie-camera
As we’ve been making preparations for our upcoming wedding (!), we have been talking with a friend who is going to shoot some video footage for us. I pulled out my 2 super8 cameras for an inspection, cleaning and possible fixing. I have two cameras, a Minolta Autopak-8 D4 and a Canon Auto Zoom 814, both of these were purchased at flea markets and they both power on. The Minolta I’ve actually used once before, in 2017. For a trip to the Madonna Inn for Catrena’s birthday I bought some film and shot it and then we plumb forgot about it. I just had it developed last year. To my delight it was exposed well with the exception of one section - I clearly changed a setting on the camera and was not paying attention, eventually I change it back and the exposure returns to normal.
This is the unedited footage which I think turned out pretty great. I would love to have some moments from our wedding shot like this!
Canon Auto Zoom 814
The reason I didn’t use this camera from the get-go is because it had a problem with the focus ring. The zoom feature works fine, it zooms in and out fluidly and easily, but the zoom ring twists just past 10ft and stops. It should continue to twist all the way towards that infinity sign.
I’ve know about this problem for a while and haven’t ever had the gumption to take it upon myself to take apart and fix. Disassembling a lens feels like a pretty scary task! Plus I wouldn’t say that I have exactly the right tools for it. But I was feeling spicy and since I’ve had this thing for so long I wasn’t going to let it just rot away never being used, I’d rather take it to task and fail than never try and not be able to use it. So I made the decision - I’m going ot figure out what’s stopping this lens from moving. Something had to be stuck in there, maybe a piece of the aluminum housing sheared off and got lodged in the helical threads that cause the lens to spin. The first thing I did was a thorough visual inspection of the lens.
Now, I’m no expert but to me, that looks like a washer. And it doesn’t look like it should be where it is, sticking out from behind a housing into the optical path of the lens itself… yeah. Something’s going on in there. My next step was to look up any information that is going to aid me in the process of taking this thing apart and the best resource I found was this Australian website, Super8 & 16mm Cine repair. They have a lot of teardown resources for a variety of Super8 and 16mm cameras, it’s a pretty valuable resource. They didn’t have my specific camera but did it looks like canon reused this lens on a few of the canon 814 models, so I followed this teardown.
Disclaimer
I’m not an expert. I’m not even particularly skilled in taking apart cameras, though I’ve brought a few back to life in my day. If you are coming here because your Canon Auto Zoom 814 is having a focus problem, if the focus or zoom rings are stuck then heed the warning and proceed at your own risk. I have confidence in you but take it slow and learn from my mistakes!
The first struggle is making sure you have screwdrivers small enough for the flat-head screws that need to be removed. I found it easiest to clean the screws first, there was a fair amount of crud stuck in mine. I took a safety pin and hard bristled brush and carefully cleaned out the grooves, trying my best not to damage the lens housing or gouge out the screw.
It took me a couple of screws before I got the feel of extraction, they are so small they don’t off the same kind of tactile feedback a larger screw would, but if you take your time you can begin to recognize when the driver is slipping, the screw is turning, etc. With those three screws of the outer housing out, I had to make a decision. Do I buy the right tool for this job or proceed with a Macguyvered fix? I don’t own a lens or watch spanner, something you generally need to remove the retaining rings from round things. On the top of the lens there is a threaded ring that has two grooves on opposite sides that let you put in a two-pointed spanner and twist. You can put a screwdriver in one slot, tap the back and try to release it that way, but you run the risk of slipping and scratching the lens, bending the housing or damaging the ring. I don’t remember where I saw this trick, but someone had suggested once that you could use a sacrificial pair of calipers set to the correct measurement.
This actually worked great. I have two sets of these kind of cheap digital calipers (probably from Harbor Freight), one of them sits pretty in a case and the other - this pair - thrown with abandon into a tool box. They are good for measuring gross stuff or performing abusive tasks, such as this. And I have to say it did this quite well. I think it was helpful the ring wasn’t deformed or damaged, and it wasn’t extremely tight.
CYBERBUFFALO SAYS:
Remember! Be gentle when removing the lens elements and by god remember how they were oriented!
The Problem
Well, it turns out I was right. Well, half right - there was something stuck in the path of the zoom lens, but it wasn’t aluminum or some foreign entity, it was a screw! TWO screws, in fact. The two upper-most screws were gone!
One of them was out in the open - I removed that and the two other washers - but the problem remains. I was hoping this was as far as I’d have to go but this entire housing needed to come out. Not only does this need to get removed, I need to take it apart and in order to do that, I need to be able to unscrew it but that black tab is in the way. That black tab is also confirming the problem is within because that tab should rotate all the way from one end, to the other, but is stopping about half-way, just like before. We’re close! But that tab is also preventing us from opening it up. I’m going to attempt to bend it forward just enough so it doesn’t break - but to let it clear the housing.
Success! Now that I can unscrew this, we’re in. Deeper and deeper into this thing, much more than I had hoped we needed to go. The further in you go the further you are from the start, making getting this thing back together that much more difficult. But we persist. With that tab pulled up we can now unscrew this housing and …
There’s the culprit! Set let she was born there, my god. This thing was LODGED into the soft aluminum so much i needed a pair of tweezers to rock it out. I think from years of trying to twist this may have stripped the screws because while it screwed in, it never felt tight. I’m considering I should have left it out altogether, what if it were to dislodge itself again? Ultimately I kept it in because the lens was nice and tight, it had never felt more secure. Plus if it comes out I know how to open it up.
Putting it back
I think the hardest thing about this entire ordeal was putting it back together. I had made some registration marks on the exterior housing of the lens, but since there is nothing to justify the housings to any specified point on the interior, it all becomes relative. I should have done a better job of keeping track of how the casings came off. The lens elements were easy to track, I placed them down on a soft cloth the way they came out and marked up a post-it note next to each. The biggest mistake I made? There were two different sized tiny screws and I didn’t realize this before reassembly. Well that smaller screw fit right into the hole of the exterior housing and… got stuck. It wasn’t making contact with the threads so I couldn’t unscrew the thing - it lived there. I tried three things to get this small screw out of it’s larger hole prison - dental pick, magnets, safety pin. None of it worked except super glue.
IF THIS EVER HAPPENS TO YOU! Get yourself something smaller than the screw. I used the head of a small safety pin but I bet a sewing needle or something would work. I pushed the pin into a new tube of super glue, cleaned it off so it was just concentrated ever so slightly at the tip and stuck her in. I wish I had some kicker but time will have to do the kicking. The pin stuck! I pulled slowly and… it didn’t work. But what it did do was give the screw enough purchase into the threads for me to slowly back it out. So task failed successfully and all that!
Conclusion
She’s back together! I think correctly. I can focus this to infinity, it seems to hold its focus no matter how much I mess around with the zoom. I need to order a couple of 1.35v mercury cell replacement batteries because the meter on this camera uses separate batteries from the 4 AA batteries that power the motors. I’m going to get a few cartridges of film stock and shoot some test footage. I was thinking this morning as I was writing this about how I should test the cameras. I think I’ll save this for another post, for now, I hope that this can give someone a little courage in taking apart a camera they were just going to let sit around. Better to learn than to waste.
Additional Images
Here are some more pictures I took that didn’t fit into the post. Maybe these could provide some insight.
