Help! Camera broken or idiot user?!?

chrisfowler

chrisfowler

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Chris
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Had my second film back from the Zenit E - this time it's in date and I paid more attention to proper exposure. I used a cheap roll of Kodak Color Plus film but the results were covered in huge white bands. Tesco (who developed) also gave me a corrupt CD with the images (which was nice) but here's a quick pic of the index card to give you all an idea:

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My first impression was a problem with the shutter, but then I wondered if perhaps I didn't fully wind the film on between shots? The first roll of film was perfect, although my exposure settings were bad. This roll is unusable.

Help?!

Chris
 
It looks like a wind-on problem, you need to waste a film watching it wind with the back open to confirm. Did you get more exposures than you were expecting? The first few frames on the right look OK.
 
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Looks like shutter problems to me. You could try and spend an evening just cocking and firing the shutter at various speeds, that may sort out the dragging shutter.

Or, if it has no sentimental value just chalk it down to experience and dip your hand in the ebay pot-luck bin and have another go.

They're basically not worth having CLA'd so unless you can sort it yourself you may as well break it for parts or use it the next time you need to knock a wall down.
 
Perhaps I should just run a whole film through and see - I got 27 shots back from a 24 exp film....
 
Sticky shutter curtain by the looks of it, or possibly a hole/thin patch in it.
 
chrisfowler said:
Perhaps I should just run a whole film through and see - I got 27 shots back from a 24 exp film....
Click to expand...
That's not unheard of.
I used to get 27 with no probs and usually 39 out of a 36.
If I was really clever I often got 40 shots out of a 36 exp film.
 
If you live near south Bucks you can borrow mine for a few years...mind you I've just used it once and waiting to have the film dev to check it out.
 
I really should dig my Zenit EM out & run a film through it. It hasn't been used since 1985.

This link goes through a repair for what looks to be a similar problem with the pictures to yours: http://www.lomography.com/magazine/tipster/2012/07/20/zenit-e-shutter-curtain-repairs

Good luck.

If it is dead & you are after another M42 mount camera I would think about a Praktica MTL5 over another Zenit. Generally East German build quality was better than Soviet build quality back in the 80's.
 
I spent half an hour moving between shutter speed and firing the camera, then loaded a new roll of film and tried again - this roll seems to be fine so perhaps just a stuck shutter. Should shutter curtains be oiled somehow?

I assume if I use the camera regularly it should be fine from now on...

Here's some bigger examples of the failed shots, in a way the over exposure adds some appeal but I'd still rather have clean shots!

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9181083727_414850a52d_b.jpg
 
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