Zorki 6 light leaks and shutter problem

[Gordon Coale]

I got my first roll back from my Zorki 6. Some of the frames had this light leak. Any ideas?

[Gordon Coale]

The slower speads worked fine but 1/250 and 1/500 did this. Underexposed and the right half with no exposure. A couple of frames had the funny red marks on the left. Any suggestions?

[vladhed]

Originally posted by Gordon Coale
The slower speads worked fine but 1/250 and 1/500 did this. Underexposed and the right half with no exposure. A couple of frames had the funny red marks on the left. Any suggestions?

Hmm, could be a couple of things at work here. That sort of problem at high shutter speeds may be an indication of uneven curtain tension - in your case the closing curtain is going faster than the opening curtain, so the right (beginning) side of the neg is getting more light than the left. This is, of course, less noticable at lower shutter speeds. If I take the plate off the bottom of the shutter box of my Zorki 4, there are two screws that if I loosen, allow me to adjust the tension of the curtain take-up spools. I've never had to do this. You can see them in the last photo of this page from Rick Olsen's web site.

You could probably do the TV trick to check this out. Remove the back and lens and look through the shutter at a TV (a channel of pure static works great). Because the TV "paints" one frame in 1/60 of a second, from top to bottom, when you trip the shutter at 1/250 you should only see a diagonal strip from Top right to bottom left of constant width, about 1/4 of full screen. If your strip narrows towards the bottom, you have a closing curtain that is going to fast. If it is fatter at the bottom, it is closing too slow.

Can you scan the whole width of a few frames? Does the "fog" extend beyond the edges of the frame?

[Gordon Coale]

vladhead -- The fogging seems to be localized to the frame. I don't have a lens cap (yet) and some of the frames that were fogged were when the camera was out of it's case for a period of time. I will do the TV test and look into adjusting the curtain tension.

The main thing I was worried about was pinholes in the shutter curtain. That seems to be OK.

And it sure was fun shooting with this little Zorki! It's frustrating not to be able to use it right away. My FED 2 should be arriving anytime soon. Maybe it will work out of the box. I'm not giving up on the Zorki, though. Onward!

[pshinkaw]

Try opening the back in a dimly lit room and pointing a bright flashlight toward the lens from the front. Look at the curtains from the film side. It's possible that the shutter curtains are leaking light, not from pinholes (which would be more defined) but through either cracks in the lining or from being threadbare. If you are getting these leaks over a period of time and the image is still this definable, it could be more of a fogging efect than a bright flash of light that is getting past the curtains.

If the effect is limited to the negative frame and not getting to the sprocket holes, the leak is coming from in front of the shutter.

-Paul