| Author | Message | ||
     Matthew Padden Rating: N/A |
Hi Jon, I made some more intensive investigations tonight. Here's what I found. The upper and lower door seals seem to be good, as do the hinge and latch seals. No dents or uneven edges etc along the metal door edge, or along the film rail guides or the pressure plate. However, if I shine a torch into the front of the camera, in 'fired' state and with the door open, light can be seen spilling out below the viewfinder eyepiece as well as through the eyepiece itself. There is a gap in the Zenit body just here, so that directly under the eyepiece there is nothing above the door seal material. So what I am wondering is, the light is breaching the door seal at this weak point and running down across the back of the film. The door seal itself shows no signs of weakness (it's an Interslice one that I fitted a few months ago), but the light source in this case is impinging directly onto it at a point where it's not as well secured as elsewhere along its length. On several of the frames the rough position of the leak corresponds with the sides of the bodywork gap under the eyepiece, which strengthens my suspicions. In an alternative scenario, if I fire and lock open the shutter on 'B' speed, and then shine torchlight into the eyepiece, I can see light leaking around the edges of the mirror. However, I'm dubious about this being the cause. The coloured leaks sometimes occur at frame boundaries, suggesting they are happening independently of the shutter being fired. I also found that torchlight shone into the eyepiece can be clearly seen from the lightmeter window, as you mentioned. Thereby the reverse path is also possible, leaking through onto the film back via the gap under the eyepiece. So my intentions are to close the gap under the eyepiece, and also shroud off the lightmeter window from the rest of the camera's upper body. Does that make sense? Best regards, Matt |