Captain Kidd

I was actually in touch with Peter yesterday from CRR in Luton. Ill outline the gist of what he said so it might help people later with the same problem. He gave me alot of his time and was extremely helpful. He said its extremely difficult to diagnose and rectify, and running film through the camera is really the only way to check if a leak has been remedied. It could be a possible processing problem M6's are not known for light leaks (unless camera has been dropped and base or top has been distorted) Shutter brakes produce definitive line always, normally, on the left hand side of the film plane. All M cameras can suffer from this but it doesnt bleed in to the sprocket hole area The M6 has teflon washers in the brake mechanism which extends the service life of the brake. (M1, 2, 3, 4, 5 have a graphite block which needs attention after 20 years, M6's unless heavily used tend not to exhibit the problem “but they are getting older”) To test: Open the back plate, wind and fire the shutter and point to a bright sky or CRT type tv. At 1/1000th of a second. If problem, it would be relatively easy to spot, by observing the left hand side of the 35 x 24 film aperature, a verticle brighter band of light about 2-3mm wide can be seen if there is shutter bounce The M6s can get burn holes in the first curtain (white spot) when metering into the sun, but they are easily noticed Check rubberised seal at the rear door hinge. The door can be removed by moving the screwhead sideways to the right, its in the top left corner, and works like a garden gate bolt. The seal is a strip of curtain material running the length of the back door. It shouldnt be kinded or worn.

Thanks Tom, I was in touch with a good technician CLA man in the UK, who seems a little baffled, he helpfully explained a few tests to do, so ill do them when I get home and then possibl;y run another roll through the camera to see how it goes. Thanks again

Thanks Tom B, is this an expensive issue to fix? its a recently bought camera, maybe I should get the whole thing CLA if something is wrong already.

After testing my first roll of film with my recently purchased Leica M6 I have noticed two images from the 36 frames that indicate what might be a light leak. I hope someone here can help me identify if this is in fact the case or possibly something that happened when processing the film. Some points to add. - The affect is also on the negative for these two frames, and expands to outide the frame lines. (This might indicate a leak from the back of the camera?) - The time between the bottom image until I wound on for the next picture was about 7 hours. - The time between the top image until I wound on for the next picture was about 3 minutes. - The film is a fresh roll and expires in 2018, though i bought the film off the shelf as opposed to one stored in a fridge - The two pictures were taken at the same shutter speed, though i took alot on that shutter speed and the other pictures weren't affected like this - I didnt change the lens at anytime during this roll of film I would really appreciate any help with this, Ive read so much about people having similar problems that continued even after being CLA'd, though i dont see any examples that looked like this. Thanks very much, and apologies fro the terrible scans, David