Weird Lens Behaviour (Elmar 90/4)

Rich Silfver · 03-05-2006

Posted this in pnet's Leica forum as well and I'm really curious about what the reason for this is...

So..tonight I scanned some photos taken with my Leica III (F) and an Elmar 90/4.
There is very heavy banding in the sky and I am not quite sure why this is.

Other photos taken with the same camera but with a 50/3.5 Elmar does not show this - and it doesn't appear to be visible in any areas apart from the sky.

The lens had a FISON hood (yes, wrong hood) and a dark-yellow/orange clamp-on filter.

terrafirmanada · 03-06-2006

Were you usin the same shutter speeds with both lenses? I have seen banding like that with very fast shutter speeds before. If you used a slower speed with the shorter lens it might explain it.

jonasv · 03-06-2006

I'm not of much help here I'm afraid, but I did want to say that I love the simplistic composition of that second shot - it's really nice!

Rich Silfver · 03-06-2006

I was shooting at about 1/125. Can't figure this one out...

Brian Sweeney · 03-06-2006

Just to clarify: Is the banding visible in the negatives and prints?

Off hand it looks like non-uniformity in the scanner. The sky is uniform intensity. Slight variations from the scanner's sensing elements will appear where the scene is uniform. When there is a lot of structure, the slight variation gets covered up.

Now, if it is in the negative: back to the drawing board. Is it an uncoated lens that the glass hase built up a "glaze" that acts as a coating, but is uneven? A very old filter that the color has faded?

doubs43 · 03-06-2006

Rich, thank you for posting this thread. I developed a roll of film Saturday night taken with a Leica IIIf BD and every shot with sky in it has the horizontal streaks just as yours does. I'm as puzzled as you are about the cause.

Brian, the streaks are clearly seen on the negatives in the sky areas. My shots showing sky were all taken with an uncoated 5cm Summar. I used a FIKUS hood.

Oddly enough, shots without skyin them look great.

My film was Arista EDU-200 Ultra, exposed at 200 and developed in straight D-76 for 6 minutes. 15 initial inversions and 5 more inversions at 4:30, 3:00 and 1:30.

Walker

Brian Sweeney · 03-06-2006

Rich: I think I can also see the streaks in the sand-portion of the picture.

These are not "Dork Bars" as FrankG labels them: the direction is wrong for the horizontal travelling focal plane shutter. If the "slit" was uneven, as in jagged, I could understand it.

Try again using a slower shutter speed, close to X-Sync. If they are still as prevalent as the higher speeds, I can't think of anything the shutter could do to cause this.

This is happening on the Uncoated lenses. Could the bright horizon be reflecting into the image? It would be most noticed in the Sky, where the reflection would add to the brightness. The multiple surfaces could reflect it into what looks like several bars. I'm grasping here, but seems possible. Mount your camera on a tripod, aimed at horizon and "look deep into your lens".

FrankG: how do these compare with what your CL does (hopefully used to do)?

doubs43 · 03-06-2006

I've just loaded my IIIc with the same Arista EDU-200 Ultra film and I'm going to take pictures with sky in them using my uncoated 5cm Elmar and two different Summars. We'll see if there's a repeat of the streaks using a different camera.

I should have mentioned that the 5cm Summar I used on the IIIf BD for the shots that show streaking in the shy areas is as clean optically as you're likely to find.

Last Saturday I shot most of my roll of EDU-200 Ultra using a 1940 uncoated 13.5cm Hektor that has slight haze between the elements. I used a FICUS lens hood. None of those shots show sky and most were taken at 1/100 & 1/60 at f/6.3 or f/4.5 as I was shooting in fairly deep shade. There's no streaking that I can see in those shots but again, no sky areas either.

BTW, I seem to recall that old, weak developer can cause that problem but I'm going from memory and I don't want to state that as fact.

Walker

Ronald M · 03-09-2006

I`m sorry for not catching this sooner. I thought the problem was the dark area in the center.

The horizontal streaks are light leaks in the curtains, one or both.

The problem can be so obscure you can`t see the holes with your eye even with the shutter mechanism out of the camera and shinning a light thru it.

Wnen the problem is slight, the streaks show only at 1/1000 and 1/500 and as it get worse, it appears at slower speeds.

DAG replaced curtains in my 111f several times but he used defective material and could not make the problem dissappear. I sent the camera to MarkHama.com in Atlanta. All fixed in record time.

Just got a 111c with the same trouble, but worse. New curtains.

Replace both. These things are all ancient and dried up rubber.

Gabriel M.A. · 03-09-2006

Wait, isn't the shutter supposed to travel horizontally, not vertically, on the Leicas?

I think what you're experiencing here is a byproduct of the heavy noise/grain-reduction you're applying. I'd check to see if the negative doesn't have any streaks; perhaps this is being picked up and being "translated" as streaks when doing the noise reduction. Just a thought.

lmd91343 · 03-09-2006

Do you have a picture with that camera/lens with sky in portrait mode?

jaapv · 03-09-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronald M

I`m sorry for not catching this sooner. I thought the problem was the dark area in the center.

The horizontal streaks are light leaks in the curtains, one or both.

The problem can be so obscure you can`t see the holes with your eye even with the shutter mechanism out of the camera and shinning a light thru it.

Wnen the problem is slight, the streaks show only at 1/1000 and 1/500 and as it get worse, it appears at slower speeds.

DAG replaced curtains in my 111f several times but he used defective material and could not make the problem dissappear. I sent the camera to MarkHama.com in Atlanta. All fixed in record time.

Just got a 111c with the same trouble, but worse. New curtains.

Replace both. These things are all ancient and dried up rubber.

I don't think so. The streaks should be straight in that case. These are curved slightly and not quite parallel to the picture edge. Couldn't it have happened during developing?

Ronald M · 03-09-2006

I don`t think so.

I even had them start on the left and fade away as the bottom example shows.

.