Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/29

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Re: A question I'm hating to ask, but. . .
From: "Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 13:34:13 -0000

Ericplatt@aol.com write:

>Just received the slides for the last two rolls I shot... On some of
the shots I'm having
what appears to be a light leak problem.  The very top of the slide,
say just
down from the mount edge, appears to be at a lower exposure than the
rest of
the slide.  On one slide, there is a serious amount of what I would
call
"glare" like a window reflection, although there was no glass (outside
the
camera) in the photo.  Light angle appears not related to this, as in
the
shot where it is the worst is where the sun was directly behind me.


This sounds like the problem I had earlier this summer when I
reported:

>My M6 is making one of its rare appearances away from the Leica
repair
department, so I took it to the Paris Air Show as my working camera.

>Looking through the resulting photos, I'm puzzled to see that one
just
three of the 73, there is a blue haze and general washed-out look on
the right-hand side of the frame.

>On the negatives which show the blue-haze problem, I can see that
that
there is a darkening which stretches into the gap between the
negatives, i.e. onto film which isn't exposed in the film gate! It's
hard to see how light could "leak" around the edge of the film gate...

>Even more mysterious is the presence of a band of slight
under-exposure along the horizontal edge of some frames - sometimes
along the top edge and sometimes along the bottom edge. This band has
quite a sharp edge, and only appears in about 20 per cent of the
frames - frames with the band can appear on either side of frames
without it. On frames where it does appear, it runs at a constant
density across the entire width of the image.

One of the guys who replied said he'd had the "blue haze" problem and
had noticed that it occurred  each time he'd changed lenses. The
consensus of several subsequent relies from other people was that one
should take care to change lenses in the shade of one's body and not
let the sunlight shine into the camera. No-one commented on the
under-exposed bands.

I recently ran a slide-film through my M6, partly to check a
newly-purchased 20mm Russar and partly to re-check the "light-leak"
problem before heading off on vacation. I took care always the shade
the camera when changing lenses, and had no problems with the
resulting pics -- no blue haze and no under-exposed bands. (Though I
did have a wonderful "UFO" in the sky during one shot taken against
the light - its outline matched that of the Russar diaphragm!) But I'd
STILL love to know what caused the under-exposed bands...

So there is a good chance that if you follow the same precautions that
I did, all will be well.

I notice you were using an M4-P, which like my M6, is a camera made
after the Wild takover - I'd never been particularly careful when
changing lenses on my Leica, IIIg, or M2, and had never experienced
this light-leak problem with these pre-1974 Leicas.

Regards,

Doug Richardson