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Strange Photo Plus Results...


peterv

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Hello all,

 

Just came back from Berlin.

 

Had a wonderful time with my new MP (and my wife).

 

Did 9 rolls, all turned out fine, except for the 'Photo Plus 200' I thought I might try... (penny wise, and pound foolish?)

 

Please took a look at the screencapture below.

 

I've never before seen this. It's all over the negatives...

 

Question:

 

Is it:

 

- the film?

- my beloved MP?

- me?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Peter

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I don't think it could be the light trap. It sometimes is in two places on a frame and is too even throughout the roll. Also it seems to be focused.

 

Does the pattern extend all of the way to the sprockets of the film? If so, since it a bargain brand of film, and your other rolls tuned out fine, maybe it was damaged in manufacturing. (penny wise, and pound foolish?) Very likely.

 

I guess it is possible for this kind of fogging to occur from the processing equipment or loading procedures, but that is hard for me to picture wiht this detailed a pattern. Especially if all 9 of your rolls were processed at the same time and place. (But since I don't know how they load film into their processor, I can't rule out that a mistake can happen.)

 

I really can't see how a camera light leak or the shutter could be doing it as it is such an evenly lit pattern with such brief exposure times.

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Does the pattern extend all of the way to the sprockets of the film?

 

Thanks for responding guys.

 

Strangely the pattern only shows within the borders of the image.

 

The sprocket-area looks normal.

 

I'm afraid I don't have a clue as to what this is...

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Just one over-exposed line would suggest a sticking shutter. Some of these frames show two sticking lines, which must mean something else.

 

 

It is possible that as you wind the next frame the shutter is slightly open forming a thin strip. Then if you pause while winding, rather than using one full stroke, it would burn an overexposed line. (Or two if you paused twice.) I bet this could produce this exact pattern. I thought of this originally, but I don't see why the line would be so even in exposure where it crossed a dark part of the scene while winding.

 

This seems unlikly but would be pretty easy to see just by opeing your camera and loooking at the shutter as you advanced it. (Try setting different shutter speeds.)

 

Maybe this is re-spooled left over motion picture film that has been damaged in some kind of system.

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If it isn't covering the sprockets that is strange, and would suggest that it occurred in camera.

I know of no processing equipment that could cause this and I've owned most commercial processing gear in my 20 years as a lab owner. Sometimes film retrievers cause this, but it would go into the sprocket area and rarely past the 5th frame.

Light trap faults can occur twice or more on each frame if it is tightly wound but as Alan suggested it might be too defined to be light leak from a canister, and generally gets weaker as the film is advanced,

Very strange, as it isn't on any of your other films and this was a cheap one I'd probably suspect that film, but no fogging in the sprocket area makes me think in camera problems.

Personally I'd put it down to experience and hope the film was at fault, If it occurs again it could be light leak from the back or even a shutter problem as suggested.

 

EDIT: What you could do is line up all the cut film and measure the distance between the lines and try to see if that corresponds to any where inside the camera, but even this is doubtful as the are not in the exact same place.

Let us know if you find out any more!

I hope you never see it again though :-)

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This looks suspiciously like a shutter fault, I had something similar on an M3. Was this the last roll you shot by any chance? (i.e. why its not on the other films).

 

If the lines appear only within the exposed frame area then it must have happened during exposure within the camera - processing faults etc would affect the whole film area.

 

Easiest way to check is shoot another roll at various shutter speeds and have it processed asap.

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Its a shutter fault. Probably the second curtain catching the stuck first and pressing it on or something like that. Happy to provide Leicas official verdict if they chose to enlighten me when my new out of the box MP comes back from fix up for the same problem.

 

The problem wont go away by itself. It will keep on happening when conditions are right for your camera. Mine is on hot days with bright sunlight.

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This looks suspiciously like a shutter fault, I had something similar on an M3. Was this the last roll you shot by any chance? (i.e. why its not on the other films).

 

If the lines appear only within the exposed frame area then it must have happened during exposure within the camera - processing faults etc would affect the whole film area.

 

Easiest way to check is shoot another roll at various shutter speeds and have it processed asap.

 

Again, thanks for the response guys.

 

It was roll # 3 out of 9 all together developed at the same time by a very large Fuji lab in the Netherlands.

 

All other rolls came out just fine.

 

I used shutterspeeds between 1/15 and 1/500.

 

Since my hands are partly paralysed, I can not cock the shutter in one single movement and there is a pause while winding.

 

Here's another screencapture of the same roll, plus two snaps to take a look 'up close'.

 

Thanks again for helping me out.

 

Peter

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In that case, it definitely looks to be a shutter issue - it looks like the curtains haven't closed tight together properly, and as you wind on in two movements, the pause causes the light leak.

 

It would be worth having the camera checked out.

 

Strange that it only happened on this roll, though.

 

As an aside, did the lab do these scans for you?

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Andy I wind on in one movement. I lost three rolls out of forty something on a recent trip, so I have in the order of one hundred and ten images showing either one line or two lines across the frame. I may have one or two images with three lines, but these are very close to the edge of frame. The rolls were not consecutive. Conditions on the days it happened were similar. It seems inependent of film type, Ive had it on REALA, Fuji100, Fuji200, Fuji asia hooch, APX100, APX400.

 

The best I could come up with in explanation was the first shutter sticks at a spot...or two. The second shutter gets close to the hanging first curtain, and knocks the first shutter along. The second curtain still has shutter speed separation wait before it follows. The misclose between the location of the first shutter sticking and the second hanging before it follows again would then be over exposed. I believe it has been happening on 1/1000th or 1/500th but since I wasnt logging every exposure, and I had the rolls processed in a batch when I got back home, I couldnt confirm.

 

I shall wait to see what they say at the Leica service, but these things take time. Maybe someone else has taken an MP apart and can see a better explanation. Hopefully when it is fixed I can find out what was actually happening and what caused it. I am in wait and see mode with maybe another couple of weeks to go.

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In that case, it definitely looks to be a shutter issue - it looks like the curtains haven't closed tight together properly, and as you wind on in two movements, the pause causes the light leak.

 

It would be worth having the camera checked out.

 

Strange that it only happened on this roll, though.

 

I'm afraid I'm going to have to do that, although right now I can't rule out X-Ray problems; I just realised this particular roll was in the camera when we went through security visiting the Bundestag...

 

Do you gentlemen think that this means the X-Ray is to blame for this?

 

As an aside, did the lab do these scans for you?

 

I do my own scanning on an Epson V750 PRO. It works just fine. I apologise for the really ugly scans I posted; couldn't bring myself to make an effort on these...:(

 

Here's a photo I took during that same trip that I am happy about:

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/people/32007-drinking-grog.html#post336034

 

Kind Regards,

 

Peter

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I feel like a junior detective here. It makes sense that the the streaks are caused by light leaking between the shutter blades while pausing during film advance. And your explanation of how you advance the film would explain the start and stop process that is required. But it seems as if your wife took some of the photos and presumably advanced the film in the same manner.

 

I bet the shutter slit is not open during normal winding, otherwise the film would be somewhat fogged everywhere. But when you stop and start the film advance, maybe it momentarily pulls the curtains apart slightly.

 

I think we can close this case.

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I had exactly the same problem very recently with a roll from my japan trip. I thought it could have been an X-ray machine (although any of the other 20 rolls shot before and after showed any problem), but reading this it seems there are other more probable causes.

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Euginio,

 

This may be of interest to you and others who encounter this problem:

 

I've brought up the same question over at RF here:

 

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45870

 

I think the most plausible explanation came from a member named 'x-ray'. He said:

 

quote:

 

"It's not x-ray exposure but is the shutter not capping when you wind the last partial frame. When you wind the shutter and film on the last frame and if won't wind to a complete frame that you can expose then rewind the film the shutter doesn't cap properly and there's a small slit that allows light to strike the film. Your film is EXACTLY what happened to me. It only happened some times and was only when the camera would'nt wind the last full frame. "

 

unquote.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Peter

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There's something I don't get, if it is just a problem with the rewind technique, lets call it, that needs to be done in one single stroke and not in two steps... well, why should the camera needs to be taken for repair?

My camera fell to the ground a week before the film was shot, and I now think it might have to do with that

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