Winding shutter past 40 and last frame

[gyoung]

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It seems to me that for some reason the 'gear' wheel did not engage with the sprockets on the film, thus the amount of film advanced is at the mercy of the tension on the winding drum and the way you advanced the lever.

With my M3 I always check that the sprockets line up with the shaft gears, and try a small advance of the lever to check all is well before closing the back.

It's a problem I haven't heard of before though and I would perservere , with a check as described above, and see if the it recurs.

 

Gerry

[rpopescu]

Hi Gerry,

 

I didn't perform that check (teeth engaging sprockets) for the first film, which I've had the issue with.

I did do that with the Kodak Gold, which came out fine, and I've done it for the Tri-X loaded now.

 

Cheers!

Edited July 24, 2012 by rpopescu

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[gyoung]

Good, I hope all is well, I've been using my M3 for more than 40 years, it might be slower to load but its more certain than my M6ttl!

 

Have fun! Gerry

[tobey bilek]

Possibly when you had the problem originally you simply broke the sprockets on the film at the end, so you will have a very overexposed last frame. You might have a VERY close look inside the camera to check for pieces of film, they can give problems if they get into the shutter.

 

Welcome to the forum, shame the first post is about a problem, but we try to help!

 

Gerry

 

Take this advice before you need a $300 repair. There is at most one extra frame on the film any brand.

[Scarlet]

I agree with Tobey. I bought an M3 but had to send it back after a few months because of intermittent light leak problems. The dealer found pieces of film hiding behind the pressure plate which had affected the film by giving uneven pressure.

 

When I got the camera back, the problem persisted. For weeks I had no idea what the problem was but I was reluctant to send it in again because the dealer was located overseas.

 

Then one day further pieces of film fell out of the camera. I really lost patience with the camera at that point and felt I couldn't trust it at all. So I returned it, money back (benefit buying from a dealer btw).

 

So check for film pieces.

[250swb]

Possibly when you had the problem originally you simply broke the sprockets on the film at the end,

 

It shouldn't be possible to 'simply' break the sprockets on the film. This in itself is a fault in the camera.

 

Steve

[rpopescu]

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Gentlemen,

 

The film is intact (and I got it back uncut from development because of the overlapped frames), so I should think we can safely rule out breaking the film in the camera, as there's simply no evidence of it.

 

Regards,

--

Radu

[AlanG]

Perhaps you accidentally moved the rewind lever and temporarily disengaged the transport at some point.

[earleygallery]

I thought of the rewind lever, possibly it was nudged and disengaged the mechanism.

 

However, why on earth were you constantly winding the camera on past 40 Just stick to loading correctly (check that the sprockets are engaged) and don't try to squeeze out more than an extra frame or two at most. If you can wind on beyond that you know there's a problem.

[rpopescu]

However, why on earth were you constantly winding the camera on past 40 Just stick to loading correctly (check that the sprockets are engaged) and don't try to squeeze out more than an extra frame or two at most. If you can wind on beyond that you know there's a problem.

 

Obviously, because I could

Seriously though, I film ends when it ends. I wasn't trying to squeeze out anything, in fact, I was merely paying attention to the people, the (lack of) light, and the rest of the things that go with taking photos, except the frame counter.

When I did notice I'm at frame 38 or so, I kept shooting because I was expecting to encounter the end of spool resistance I'm used to from my M6. When at least 6 frames after that didn't arrive, I just rewound and unloaded.

In short, I wasn't planning on achieving over 40 frames on a roll, as it's been suggested twice.

[earleygallery]

What I meant was, if you saw that you could wind on when the counter had already reached 40 frames you shouldn't try to keep cocking the shutter - there's a risk you could damage something.

 

Anyway, hopefully it was a glitch which won't repeat itself!

[rpopescu]

You're right, of course. I was very surprised and I thought I'd done something silly like not loading the film at all, so I wanted to check that the red dots were turning as the shutter wound, which they were. Then I thought hmmm just a couple more winds and I really should hit the film end. When that didn't happen either, I finally gave up and rewound.

Thanks for the good wishes!

The repair outfit here in Netherlands seems to think it may be a broken gear, but they've of course not seen the camera yet.

[TomB_tx]

If it has only happened to that first roll, I'd suspect that the film never engaged the sprocket; possibly didn't get centered between the rails? I have quickly loaded an M6 and immediately noticed the advance felt wrong on the first wind, and found the sprocket not engaged.

When you use film constantly you will notice loading and advance problems by the feel, but if you don't shoot often it's easy to miss. 40 years ago on a vacation I got some great shots on my Leicaflex SL, but when I went to use up the roll I noticed it was at frame 42... and the film was still in the cassette.

[rpopescu]

If it has only happened to that first roll, I'd suspect that the film never engaged the sprocket; possibly didn't get centered between the rails? I have quickly loaded an M6 and immediately noticed the advance felt wrong on the first wind, and found the sprocket not engaged.

 

Hi Tom,

 

This didn't happen, because if the film wasn't engaged, it wouldn't wind at all, right?

As I've mentioned, the entire film was exposed, but up to frame thirty-something the spacing between the frames increased gradually from a few mm to over 2cm...

[gyoung]

If the the rewind lever was in the upright position there might be enough pull from the take up drum to wind film through even without the sprocket wheel to help, although I can't try it as both Ms are loaded!

 

Gerry

[Scarlet]

We may have to place this thread in the infinitely vast archive of things we will never understand.

[gvaliquette]

Gentlemen,

 

The film is intact (and I got it back uncut from development because of the overlapped frames), ...

 

The overlapping frames clearly show that the film winding teeth had not engaged the film sprockets and that the film was entrained only, but less that a frame at a time, by winding up onto the take-up spool.

 

I had a similar problem with the first roll I loaded into my then new (to me) R6.2.

 

No mystery!

 

Guy

[rpopescu]

The mystery will most likely cease to exist within the next couple of weeks as I'm sending the camera off a couple of cities away for CLA and investigation into this issue.

 

Cheers guys!

[rpopescu]

I got the camera back last Friday from repairs.

 

It had a CLA and part of that they fixed whatever was wrong with the film advance.

 

The verdict into the issue was: "The whole camera was very dry running and we found a sticky axle in the film advance system" and apart from that "we found the camera in generally good shape".

 

My thanks to the repair service, they've been really great. I'm not sure what the policy on mentioning company names is, but if only for the customer relationship management and they deserve all the praise. Can I name them?

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[andybarton]

Yes, you can name them.