Shutter Lightleaks Anyone ?

TheBigYin

TheBigYin

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Last night I souped the test reel from my recently purchased Fed-3 rangefinderski. After a quick look at the negs, it was clear that everything was not quite hunky-dory.

The second half of the reel had a similarly shaped "artifact" on the image - some to a greater extent, some less so - not related to the shutter speed the image was shot at either :thinking:

So - I took the lens off, just to make sure it was clean at both ends, and as I did, looked into the body. It was full of little black powdery bits, formerly the ruberised coating of the fabric shutter. :bang:

You can see here, where the coating has parted company with the fabric...



and if you shine a light into the lens opening, it's clear where the artifacts were coming from...



Fortunately, only one of the shutters seems to be suffering - the camera had been in the bottom drawer of a wardrobe for the last 20 years, never used, and the shutter never moved, so I guess that the air had got to the exposed one and the rubber perished. Looks like some careful work with black latex fabric paint is in the near future for me :lol:
 
Had something similar with an Exakta Varex IIa, the mirror does not reset after firing, it only comes down when you advance the film. So, taking a shot and then putting the camera down on a sunny ledge for an hour is not the best thing you can do for the shutter!

Was a neat little hole though!
 
Ah yes, the old solar pinhole :lol:

Fortunately, as you can see in the shots above, the fabric itself is still intact, so as long as I can get something opaque and flexible painted onto the shutter I should be able to get the thing working. I've just picked up some latex based fabric paint from the bay of fleas, which doesn't need heat curing or ironing to fix it, so I may still be okay. I think my hand is steady enough for that, if not for a total dismantle and fitting of new shutter material :lol:
 
airbrush that out no problem :D
 
The other thing is that is its a huge problem to get it fixed then buying another FED is a cheap option whereas if it were a Leica you'd be looking at big money!

I have a spare FED 4 ;)
 
The whole thing only stands me a tenner, including the cost of the test reel of film, so to be honest, i'll give the fabric paint a go, and if it don't work, what the hell :shrug:
 
Exactly thats why I like the Ruski cameras so much. My Jupiter 8 on my modern Bessa R is a fantastic lens, its so good I'm putting my Canon 50mm 1.8 up on ebay as I don't feel I need to have two great lenses.
 
... bet that's an FD?
 
Nope, L39 or whatever the screw mount that fits Leicas is.

4169344313_5b67fa4a45.jpg
 
Still won't fit the 3M then, that's M39 so focal distance all wrong I think. Poo :(

Arthur
 
Ambermile said:
Still won't fit the 3M then, that's M39 so focal distance all wrong I think. Poo :(

Arthur
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You get adaptors to fit LTM to M with no loss of function at all. My 50mm Nokton is an LTM and I use it on my M6 with an adaptor with no problem
 
What, on a Zenit 3M I mean? I think you can do it the other way around but...
 
... the 3M is an slr though so needs a greater focal length... which is why I think you can use 3M on Leica but not the other way around :(
 
Update: fabric paint arrived this mornings post - i've given the offending areas a thin application and so far the indications are looking positive. The main block area is down to a couple of pinhole leaks and the others seem to have pretty much sealed. I'm going to give it 24 hours in a warm place to cure properly before running the shutter though. May need a second application, but I'd rather that than ladle to much on in the first place, and end up with a rigid shutter fabric. Fingers crossed now :thumbs:
 
Update 2: Gave the pinhole dots a second touch with the fabric paint last night, left the camera in the airing cupboard overnight, and this morning everything is dry, and appears light-tight. Better still - the shutter is still flexible, and works at least as well as it did before the original rubberising de-laminated. Shutter speeds sound (very scientific - NOT) to be in the right kind of ball-park - well - you can tell that 1/125 is faster than 1/60, and so on up the scale, Though i'm a bit unsure about 1/500, it's not noticeably snappier than 1/250th - then again, it probably wasn't exactly right beforehand either :lol:
 
just about to soup said test reel now - i'll soon find out if i've been successful or not :shrug:

Update 3: Well - they're out of te soup and hanging to dry - first impressions are favourable - i.e. the lightleaks seem to have gone. There is an overall impression of darkness to the negatives though - kind of feels like the shots may have been a trifle over-exposed. Probably due to the extra weight of the fabric paint on the shutter slowing the curtain down. I'll reserve judgement until I get the shots out of the scanner tomorrow though. I'm not scanning 'em tonight - i'd sooner let them dry thoroughly, i'm sure that the emulsion "cures" if you leave it a while before fafffing around with it :)
 
Cracking job, well done :thumbs:
 
Cool, not a bad pic either for a testrun - not flat at all!
 
Ambermile said:
Cool, not a bad pic either for a testrun - not flat at all!
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Thanks - have to say, I pretty much shot everything with a +1 and -1 stop bracketing. Overall, allowing for operator error :bonk: I reckon that the shutters running maybe half a stop slow according to my Mk1 eyeball. Overall I liked half of the "as indicated" shots and half the 1 stop faster shutters - absoloutely none of the -1's.

For the purposes of this exercise, I took along my digital camera and set the shot up until I was happy with the exposure, then transferred the settings to the FED, cross checking with the lightmeter Ujjwal sent me - i've never faffed about so much for a dozen or so shots in my life :lol: The good thing is, the lightmeter that Ujjwal sent was pretty consistently one stop over the digital slr's version, so If I stick with it's readings and err on the conservative side, I should be fine. Might not shoot E6 for a while in there, mind :lol:
 
So result then, and Ujjwal strikes again! I just got a roll of FP4 out of the Rollei with the 1.4 lens... locals are digging up and old church so went there for some piccies, but like you got poo light. Dunno why, maybe a bad time of year for togging?
 
I'd call it a result, yep. It's a shame actually - today's far brighter, and there are occasional chinks of blue in the sky. Sadly, I'll not be out shooting in it, as I've yet another visit to the quack to check on progress for my knee - had a MRI on it monday, got to get results as to if i'm under the knife or not :gag:

Still - got some decent shots yesterday...





 
Aye - not too bad, and good luck with the white coats. Been to see the mad nurse today to see if I needed counselling... apparently not, I am always like this! Took damned near 90 minutes to figure that out though, back to the occupational therapists now (they are letting me do two half days a week starting May :thumbs:)

Bloody annoying this health lark :(
 
Well - the good luck message must have worked - after checking the MRI results, consultant at hospital says that at the moment his recommended treatment is basically a continuation of what i've been doing for next couple of weeks, followed by staged physio plan to get things working smoothly again. Sadly, that means i'm still off the bike at the moment, and no walks over a couple of miles in duration, so where-ever I go to shoot something, it has to be within 1/2 mile of a car-park :( That's pretty much bollixed up my plans for this month's POTY competition entry :'( And with 6 days to go to get something in the can, then cross-process it at home, and get it online, I'm praying for some fine weather asap :shrug:
 
Great shot BigYin. I really need to go out on a shooting trip with guys like you, Arthur etc to learn how top frame a good shot. Why am I so lousy in that?:bang:

Ujjwal

P.S : To clarify, before anyone thinks I am selling stuffs on the sly; I didn't sell the lightment to BigYin, I sent it to him as a friendly gesture keeping in the spirit of the forum
 
What's really funny is that I sent Big Yin a lightmeter too (no payment) Wonder how they compare?

The one I sent was a Weston master II which did you give away Ujjwal?
 
That's a real shame you're still going to be off the bike, my knees are knackered but if I couldn't get out now and again I'd be devastated!

Were off to the Euro Singlespeed championships in the Forest of Dean next month, I shall be the strongest person in the race! Ie the person holding everyone else up ;)
 
Richard....its a etalon light meter....

Certainly weston will be a better make, more rugged and more accurate...
 
pepper said:
What's really funny is that I sent Big Yin a lightmeter too (no payment) Wonder how they compare?
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It arrived this morning - I haven't been able to compare them as yet - that's on the agenda for tomorrow :)

pepper said:
That's a real shame you're still going to be off the bike, my knees are knackered but if I couldn't get out now and again I'd be devastated!

Were off to the Euro Singlespeed championships in the Forest of Dean next month, I shall be the strongest person in the race! Ie the person holding everyone else up ;)
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I'm sort of off the bike because of the bike - i.e. because I stacked it on the bike. Rode into a little puddle, that turned out to be a foot deep hole. Front wheel stopped, I went up in the air, toppled to one side, wrecking a nice XT/XC717 wheel and spit me off down the cutting and into a canal bridge edge capping knee first. Fortunately, it was only a mile and a half carry to a roadside, and another 2 miles of limping back home as i'd totalled my mobile phone :( Went to A&E for a checkup, and was told nothing broken, but it seemed like I may have damaged a couple of the bursa's in my knee - come back in a week and we'll give it another look. This was 2nd March, and I've still got a comedy swollen knee and a banning order on anything more strenuous than scratching my harris! If it's not down by next week they're going to drain it. Eeewww. But I should - repeat should - be able to get on the turbo-trainer for a half-hour a day as soon as the swelling's sorted. May be back on roadbike by end April with a bit of luck.

ujjwaldey8165 said:
Great shot BigYin. I really need to go out on a shooting trip with guys like you, Arthur etc to learn how top frame a good shot. Why am I so lousy in that?:bang:
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Thanks Ujjwal - though there are plenty of guy's on here that you'd be better served learning from - I just get lucky with occasional shots :)
 
Despite fitting beartraps, Avid juicies and a butterfly bar set up so I can go, stop and steer, I still cannot ride mine again yet... been over a year now too :(


Ujjwal, I agree with BY, there are better people to learn from! Why not start using those cameras? Do you have one in your pocket all the time? Why not?
 
When I go up hills on my bike, some cars stop because they think I'm dying........no joke, true.

I'm thinking of carrying a board saying "Thank you I'm not dying just out of breath".
 
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