Are these pinholes in my shutter curtain?

Kirks518 · Sep 8, 2016

Shot two test rolls in a new to me Canon IIb. All the frames seem to have measles. The lens (Serenar 50mm 3.5) is clean, with only normal internal dust, and that's checking with a flashlight, so the only other thing I can think of is pinholes/deterioration of the (1st) shutter curtain. Because of the Barnack design, I can't just hold a light on the other side of the shutter, so I turn to your expertise.

Some examples of the frames (every frame has the same pattern, and some are worse then others):

summicron1 · Sep 8, 2016

it is fascinating how, on all three frames, the dots follow the same general pattern...I am betting that, yes, sadly, the curtain -- which on that camera is probably a mere 70 years young -- has rotted out, and if you could put a flashlight flush against the base of the camera with the bottom off so some leaked up into the film area, you might see it in a dark room with the lens off.

bummer. perhaps youxin ye can replace? Certainly worth it.

Kirks518 · Sep 8, 2016

That's what I was afraid of. While the cost of the material is certainly cheap enough, I don't feel comfortable doing the repair myself after reading up on it. And to have the repair done by a reputable repair person is cost prohibitive (around $400 from what I can figure, as it would include a complete CLA, etc.). It is a shame, as the shutter speeds all appear to be spot on, (based on what I can see in the negatives), and the camera really is in great condition otherwise.

I'm tempted to give it the fabric paint or liquid rubber treatment.

onre · Sep 9, 2016

Unfortunately, this curtain looks way too far gone for such treatments to work.

elcabezagrande · Sep 9, 2016

Youxin Ye can fix that, and the cost will not even be close to $400. I think it was about $240 to put a new curtain, a new beam splitter, and a CLA in my Leica IIIf.

Jim Jones · Sep 9, 2016

Fabric paint or liquid rubber that may work well for bellows are much less likely to be trouble-free in something that must be thin and flexible like the Canon shutter.

Sirius Glass · Sep 9, 2016

Sniff
That is sad.
Paint the shutter or get a new shutter or replace the camera

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 9, 2016

I don't think so. Don't most SLR shutter curtains travel? If there where holes in the shutter, I'd expect streaks from the traveling shutter. Am I right?

Kirks518 · Sep 9, 2016

I'm going to try and paint the shutter, using either fabric paint or the liquid rubber stuff. The curtain fabric looks to be in good condition (no holes or tears), but the original(?) rubber layer is missing for the most part. In the images above, the areas where the dots don't show corresponds to where the rubber surface is still present, so it's definitely the curtain. I've read up on it quite a bit, and it seems that there are quite a number of Leicas that has had their shutter curtains 'repaired' with the paint method, so it should be good for a few years. We'll see how it goes.

If the camera was a Leica, or rare, or a low serial number, (ie, having great value), I would have the curtains swapped. But at this point, I think the cost will outweigh the value of the camera. I don't plan on selling it any time soon, so the decrease in it's resale value doesn't come into play right now. It's going to be a user for a while.

Jim Jones · Sep 9, 2016

If repairing that shutter, first remove the remnants of the rubber. Then scrub the paint into the original fabric without building up significant thickness.

cooltouch · Sep 10, 2016

I used a product called Plasti-Dip to treat pinholes in my Canon IIIa's shutter. It wasn't as bad as yours. I had "only" eleven.

Plasti-Dip is available in paint-type cans and aerosol. I bought an aerosol can, and I chose black for a color. To repair the shutter, I used an old artist's paint brush with stiff bristles -- a fairly small one. I sprayed a quantity of the Plasti-Dip onto a paper plate so that I had a small amount of liquid to work with. I then dipped the brush in the liquid and daubed it onto the shutter curtains. I didn't know which one was leaking light, so I treated both. I daubed an even amount onto the shutter cloth, then let the camera sit for about a half hour, then wound the shutter and test fired it a few times to make sure it would work and not gum anything up. It worked. I then did the same with the second curtain. I went back over each curtain a second time for another thin coat. Fortunately, I hadn't added enough weight to the shutter curtains to affect the speeds.

The test roll I shot afterward showed no pinholes. That was about five years ago, and the camera is still working well.

onre · Sep 11, 2016

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I don't think so. Don't most SLR shutter curtains travel? If there where holes in the shutter, I'd expect streaks from the traveling shutter. Am I right?

No. Most of the time shutter curtains stay in place. In a rangefinder camera there's not even the mirror on front of them, so all light ends up on the film through the pinholes. In older SLRs without auto-return mirror, such as Exaktas, this is very evident too. Even if the SLR had an auto-return mirror, pinholes still tend to exhibit themselves like this as mirrors aren't usually light-tight.

nosmok · Sep 12, 2016

Them is pinholes all right. I used plasti dip on the Leica 3 I got from Goodwill, fixed them up pretty good, the only bad thing is that the 1 sec speed is now a bit long. All others were and are still perfect. The reason I did it on such a nice camera is because I know I will be replacing the curtain at some point, and now I get to wait until something else goes wrong.

Kirks518 · Sep 14, 2016

Just figured I'd update this.

Went down to Michael's and got a bottle of 'Tulip Soft Fabric Paint' in black, and a small, relatively stiff brush. I gave the first shutter 2 very thin coats (allowed first to dry about 20 hrs before applying 2nd). Took the camera outside, and at wide open shot a roll, and walked around between shots (trying to reproduce what I did the other day in the frame examples above). Developed the roll, and found there were 2 pinholes I missed. So applied another coat, and let it dry, then did the same on Monday. Still showed 2 pinholes.

So I gave the 2nd shutter one thin coat last night, and loaded a roll today. This time I played around, alternating advancing and not advancing, and shining light on each shutter for extended periods, as well as letting it sit without a lens in indirect sunlight. By advancing or not advancing, I was able to individually assess the curtains if there were still any pinholes.

And... no more pinholes. How long will this 'repair' last? Who knows. From what I've read online, it can last upto 10 years or more. If that is the case, I'll be crazy pleased. Total fix cost me $6 and a couple of rolls of 12 exp long-expired C-41 that I bought from a member here last year for 25¢.

Oh, I also shot a roll as a shutter test, and looks like all speeds are still good, so shutter doesn't seem to have been negatively affected by the fix.

Yay!

jimjm · Sep 14, 2016

Congrats on fixing the curtains! I've never seen pinholes this bad - usually the curtain material has flaked off enough to leave debris inside the camera.

If you do eventually need to get them replaced, I'd recommend Youxin Ye highly. He replaced the curtains and did a CLA on my Canon IVsb a few years ago for around $200. I had the camera back in less than 2 weeks and his communication is great.

cooltouch · Sep 15, 2016

Congrats on your success! I'll have to keep that fabric paint in mind as an alternative to Plasti-Dip (can't find my can of it right now . . . ).

Ronald Moravec · Sep 29, 2016

Don`t screw around. Replace it as it way to far past gone. Even if you fix it, it will not stay that way.

Are these pinholes in my shutter curtain?

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