Where are these light leaks coming from!?

[TIPSinc]

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To reply on all of you:

The light leaks are there for around a year now. On different rolls of Portra 400, Portra 800 and Kodak Tri-X. In this post I included a couple of frames, but there are frames with a lot more intense light leaks.

I just had contact with Leica and they said, and I quote ‘’It looks to me like light coming in through the viewfinder’’. So I searched the forums for that particular problem and I found this thread: 

 

It seems that he has the same issue as me. Also I found this: https://havecamerawilltravel.com/viewfinder-long-exposures-cover/

So I think there might be the issue? I already send this to my tech too.

 

 

[andybarton]

Letting your tech guy test a roll would have been a good idea and he could have come to that conclusion about the viewfinder too (if that is indeed the cause of the problem). That would be almost impossible to check without running a film through. This is not the sort of thing that would normally be covered by a CLA as it is extremely unusual.

[Ouroboros]

40 minutes ago, wattsy said:

The blue colour intrigues me. The leaked light must either be a cooler source than the ambient (unlikely unless the OP has some kind of flash sourced light bouncing around in the camera) or it is being filtered on its way in. Does anyone know what kind of coating is on the main VF window? Maybe the VF is filtering the light that is going through a pinhole into the film take-up chamber (albeit they are on opposite sides of the body) or something like that? Or possibly a similar problem to the one reported by @Ouroboros but in the OP's case perhaps a much smaller pinhole leak?

 

In the case of my son's M-A, the light leak was in a fixed position on every frame due to the obvious hole illustrated in the linked images that was somehow missed by the myopic prat at The Mothership who signed the QC inspection card.

The OP's issue is different because the leak position is clearly variable; sometimes at the bottom of the frame, sometimes at the top, sometimes at either side.  Because of the variable area of leak exposure, my feeling is something in either the wind-on or rewind mechanism could be just loose enough to let light in in different places, possibly via the viewfinder assembly, when being operated but not obvious when not being wound on or rewound without a thorough light proofing investigation with the right equipment to do so.

I'm assuming the camera was bought used in good faith by the OP who likely knows nothing of it's history.

It's pointless asking for a diagnosis on here, all anyone can do is guess and that's not very helpful to the OP.   This camera needs to be sent to a competent Leica technician who can test it properly.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Ouroboros

[wizard]

vor 30 Minuten schrieb wattsy:

Maybe the VF is filtering the light ...

That was my first reaction when I saw the blueish reflections on the shots. I am pretty sure the VF is the culprit here. Had a similar issue (not blueish though, as the M3 viewfinder windows are uncoated) with my M3 years ago after the camera was serviced at Leica in Solms. If I recall correctly, it took two more trips to Solms until the issue was finally found and corrected.