Three dead cameras?

Lankysnapper

Lankysnapper

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Chris
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Sorry folks, not posted for a while but life intrudes on hobbies sometimes. I went on holiday recently and thought I'd shoot some Tri X so my first "go to" was a K1000. Glad I gave it a look over as my lens had developed the most amazing mould bloom! So I went for my trusty XA2 and shot a roll. I rated the film at 800 iso and when I got the film back most of the pictures have a 3mm dark band on the right of the image with a central area of correctly exposed image an about a quarter of the left hand side underexposed. Have I pushed this camera too far and should I have just stuck in the mid range of film speeds? I was in the Med so it was quite bright some of the time, but I was trying to go for grainy reportage style images. Am I expecting too much of this camera?

When I got the photos back I was upset that I didn't have a useable 35mm so ran a Poundland Agfa through my old Vito B and found that the shutter now sticks/doesn't fire on about one in four of shots attempted.

I've bought a new lens for the Pentax quite cheaply but not had chance to get the film developed but should be ok. Hopefully.

Any ideas about the XA2 and Vito B?
 
Lankysnapper said:
I rated the film at 800 iso and when I got the film back most of the pictures have a 3mm dark band on the right of the image with a central area of correctly exposed image an about a quarter of the left hand side underexposed
Click to expand...

A picture is worth a thousand words...:)
 
Hi Chris......Any pics to show the problem?

Hey John shouldn't you be in bed...I'm the night watchman :D
 
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No. I can't scan and Peak wisely didn't charge and provide me with the cd I confidently asked for. The bands extend all the way down so I'm guessing it's a shutter problem. I'll try a Poundland through it before I give it up as it's been reliable so far.
 
Lankysnapper said:
No. I can't scan and Peak wisely didn't charge and provide me with the cd I confidently asked for. The bands extend all the way down so I'm guessing it's a shutter problem. I'll try a Poundland through it before I give it up as it's been reliable so far.
Click to expand...

No digi shots of the neg?
 
I'll try but it may be a little while as I'll have little time over next few days as I'm travelling.
 
As far as I know, the shutter is a between lens one, so the obvious cause of banding from a faulty focal plane shutter doesn't apply. The dark band on the right could be explained if the case wasn't fully open and obscured part of the image, but that fails to explain the underexposure on the other side.
 
I'm not sure about the shutter dragging on the XA but the camera won't fire unless the clamshell is fully retracted. There's a small microswitch that's triggered by the clamshell when it clicks fully open.
 
The Vito B is a tough camera. The best cure for a sticky shutter is to repeatedly dry fire it - you will need a cassette of scrap film to do this. The shutters are designed to run dry so there is no lubrication to dry up and therefore no need to try and remove the (non-existent) dry lubricant - keep away from the naphtha. 20 minutes or so dry firing should free the shutter just fine.
 
john.margetts said:
The Vito B is a tough camera. The best cure for a sticky shutter is to repeatedly dry fire it - you will need a cassette of scrap film to do this. The shutters are designed to run dry so there is no lubrication to dry up and therefore no need to try and remove the (non-existent) dry lubricant - keep away from the naphtha. 20 minutes or so dry firing should free the shutter just fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks John, I'll give that a try.
 
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