Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/03/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi, Jim, > I personally doubt if your cameras are scratching film. The more film used, > the smoother everything gets. It's physics... Makes sense to me, but the scratching is undeniable (I can see it on the film, in some cases; I can't see it but it scans...on more than one scanner...in other cases). > I personally would suspect dirty film canisters. The light seal fuzzy > material can collect grit very easily. Where and how do you store your > film... In every case the film was not stored. It was purchased fresh, removed from the box and plastic container moments before it was loaded into the camera. It's showing up on all kinds of film, too. Tri-X, D3200, P3200, Astia. I first noticed it on Astia, where it seems to have been most prounouced. > Do you reload cartridges? No. > Anyway... look at things other than the camera itself. Good advice. That's why I wrote to you. All the film is hand-processed by me. Loaded onto steel reels and into 16- or 32-ounce steel tanks or the Wing-Lynch machine, there isn't a chance for the film to be scratched from any source *except* the camera... > I have, over the years, scratched film. It never ever was the camera. > Always an external reason. The only thing that I can think of is dust in the camera. If the dust gets onto the film within the camera it could scratch the film as it's rewound and slides against itself in the cassette...although that seems mildly unlikely to me. What bothers me most is that I've scratched film too, described same as you, but *never* to this extent and by my long experience with the Nikons, never with the Nikons. Our students use all kinds of cameras (but no Leicas), they process their film on plastic and steel reels, in tanks and in the Wing-Lynch machine. They are notoriously sloppy, but scanning on the same equipment as me we don't see scratches from them! They load and process Tri-X and various types of factory load C-41. The only combination that scratches the film is my Leica M6's. Really. - -Gary colbyg@ulv.edu