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- Nige
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I've been testing a Lipka Rollop II that I was given a couple of years ago. I've cleaned it up and it looks in pretty good condition. It seems mechanically sound, there're no noticeable defects in the glass, and the shutter speeds all work ok (and seem relatively accurate). Not bad for a sixty-year-old camera. I did notice, however, that the light seals had decayed, but decided to run a roll of film through it anyway.
From the first roll around half of them had some degree of light leakage, but a number of other images were perfectly fine, with not a sign of light leaks. The light leaks on many of the frames involve an arc of brightness across the middle of the frame, as below - the second frame shows some more "traditional" light leaks around the edge of the frame too, which I put down to the worn seals:
Based on this, I fitted some new foam and gave it another test with a second roll of film. This time every shot was fine except a single frame exhibiting the same arc of light as shown above. It seems a very specific shape and only appears intermittently (moreso on the initial roll before new foam was fitted). It doesn't seem to be an artefact of the camera being pointed at a bright light source as I have examples of the camera being pointed in the same direction where it only appears in some of the shots.
Any clues as to what might be the cause?
It'll be a shame if it can't be resolved as it's quite a nice camera and the lens is pretty sharp.
From the first roll around half of them had some degree of light leakage, but a number of other images were perfectly fine, with not a sign of light leaks. The light leaks on many of the frames involve an arc of brightness across the middle of the frame, as below - the second frame shows some more "traditional" light leaks around the edge of the frame too, which I put down to the worn seals:
Based on this, I fitted some new foam and gave it another test with a second roll of film. This time every shot was fine except a single frame exhibiting the same arc of light as shown above. It seems a very specific shape and only appears intermittently (moreso on the initial roll before new foam was fitted). It doesn't seem to be an artefact of the camera being pointed at a bright light source as I have examples of the camera being pointed in the same direction where it only appears in some of the shots.
Any clues as to what might be the cause?
It'll be a shame if it can't be resolved as it's quite a nice camera and the lens is pretty sharp.
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