Light Leak me thinks..

[Steve-B]

After a bit of a chat with Asha in the show us your film shots thread yesterday, I decided I would try and get some pictures of some discription from a Kodak no1 A pocket that I have had sitting on a shelf for the last thirty years..anyway I managed to get it to work with 120 film and took it out for a test run this morning.. The result as below shows what I would think is a light leak....
Whilst I had a film in the camera I taped the red window on the back with black tape along with the sliding cover from which you used to scribe the film and also all of the joints were taped just in case..and when taking the film out I did in my dark room and straight into the tank.

All of the shots from the film had the over exposed bit in the same place...after developing the film and noticing the over exposed part I have had another look at the bellows on the camera and have found 1 tiny pin hole on the right hand side of the camera and closer to the film than the lens...

Will one tiny pin hole cause the marks that I am getting on the film ? ? ?




Also if the pin hole is causing the problem, whats the best thing to do with it, A bit of glue and a black marker pen ? ? ?

All in all apart from the marks on the film I was quite impressed with the camera given it's age...love the 9 x 6 cm negs as well..

Thanks for looking..Steve.

Here is the offending camera being used in the field...and it was being used in the middle of a field.. picture taken by my Mamiya C330 f, I thought I had better keep this all film.

 

[Asha]

Wow did the camera squint at the brightness of daylight following 30 years sat on a shelf?

Delighted to see that you got the film sorted.......you didn't hang around did you?

As for the light entry, yes pinholes can cause ths ...remember although light travels in straight lines it comes from all directions so can effectively "draw" white markings of all sorts of shapes on the film depending upon how the camera is moved about.

As for repair...tbh I've only ever "repaired" one tear in a set of bellows using gaffa tape and film backing paper on the inside .....something that I later discovered isn't ideal as the tape can dissintegrate over time and cause additional problems...for the moment however it seems to be ok.

I don't know for sure that there isn't a product on the market available to deal with pinholes....if i come across it i'll drop you a link!

In the meantime I would simply cover the camera with a dark cloth........

EDIT .....Black liquid fabric paint is one answer I have found!!.........iirc someone recently used a similar product on here to repair a shutter curtain!

 

[steveo_mcg]

I read of some one refurbishing an older slr and they painted a substence to the shutter curtain to make it light proof again, I wonder if that would work for pin holes.

 

[medwaygreen]

See TBY post on using a form of black paint for a degraded curtain, as it looks like bellows leak from the camera end.

 

[Steve-B]

Thanks for the info Asha, Steven & Richard ... I called into a real old school vintage camera shop thats on our doorstep, To see if the guy in the shop had anything to fix the bellows and he said just stick a patch of soft leather on the inside of the bellows...so when I get 5 mins spare I will sort it out and run another film through it to see what its like....

But on leaving the shop I accidently purchased a Zeiss super ikonta circa 1930's in fairly good nick complete with it's lovely Carl zeiss jena.. tessar lens ... so once that one is cleaned up I will be running a film through it as well...

 

[RaglanSurf]

But on leaving the shop I accidently purchased a Zeiss super ikonta circa 1930's in fairly good nick complete with it's lovely Carl zeiss jena.. tessar lens

And so it begins

 

[Asha]

on leaving the shop I accidently purchased a Zeiss super ikonta .

"ACCIDENTLY"...................yeah right ........sure beats my excuse : " It was too good a bargain to pass by"!

 

[Steve-B]

"ACCIDENTLY"...................yeah right ........sure beats my excuse : " It was too good a bargain to pass by"!

Normally I just buy stuff and bring it home and leave it hanging around, and when questioned " when did you get that " ... I just just say... " Oh that old thing, I have had that ages "

 

[TheBigYin]

...Black liquid fabric paint is one answer I have found!!.........iirc someone recently used a similar product on here to repair a shutter curtain!

See TBY post on using a form of black paint for a degraded curtain, as it looks like bellows leak from the camera end.

Yep - I used black latex based fabric paint to repair the shutter on my Fed3a...

Before...

Lens Side by The Big Yin, on Flickr


Film Side by The Big Yin, on Flickr

the Effect it caused...


Fed3 - Test reel - frame 30 by The Big Yin, on Flickr

I haven't actually any shots of the shutter now - it sort of looks like a shutter with a slightly ropey hand painted layer of black latex paint on it

but it definitely sealed it. It also sinks into the fabric/leather of belows - I gave the Perkeo's bellows a light coating around the corners and creases after it appeared a little iffy with the flashlight test, and had no more problems. Stuff I used was called DecoArt SoSoft Fabric Paint (Lamp Black) - cost a couple of quid from fleabay

 

[Steve-B]

Thanks for the info Mark, I will get some it looks like it could be usefull