[pure-silver] Re: old Leica and fast shutter speeds

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "shannon stoney" <sstoney@xxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 11:03 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] old Leica and fast shutter speeds


>I have an old Leica rangefinder camera from the thirties. 
>The other
> day I took it to the beach and shot a roll of film at 
> 1/1000 of a
> second, because there was so much light.  But, most of the 
> frames are
> only partially exposed on one side.  Can I conclude that 
> the shutter
> just doesn't work at that speed?  It seems to work fine at 
> the more
> usual speeds of 1/60th, 1/100th, etc. I wonder if this is 
> a common
> problem for old cameras.
>
> --shannon
>
  You can check the shutter action by removing the lens and 
examining it from the front. The shutter consists of two 
curatins of rubber coated cloth. The exposure is made 
through a slit between the two curtains. The two are driven 
by separate spring motors. If they are not correctly 
adjusted the slit can become narrower as the slit travels 
across the film. I think this is what is happening here. 
Actually, the slit is supposed to become slightly narrower 
as it travels in order to compensate for the acceleration of 
the shutter as it moves. this keeps the exposure time 
constant. At slower speeds the slit is wider so the 
variation may not be obvious.
  The camera probably needs to be serviced. It is common on 
older focal plane shutters for the rubber coating to have 
rotted. This results in pinholes, or if its bad enough, 
jamming. You can see the shutter curtains with the lens 
removed. Shining a flashlight into the loading slot behind 
the shutter will probably show up any pinholes.
  Old Leicas are not difficult to work on. They are very 
well constructed and well designed. I don't know a specific 
Leica thread mount technician but I can find out from Marc 
Small at the Rollei Users list. These are excellent little 
cameras and worth spending a little money on.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

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