Bad shutter curtain?

[jprofita]

I was given a pristine Canon 85mm rangefinder lens, so I did what anyone would do and purchased a clean body on Ebay. These test shots tell me that the speeds are accurate but there is this pattern on all the negatives. The only thing I can think of is holes in the fabric shutter curtain...the camera is as old as I am. This is difficult to check as the body is a bottom loader. Any other thoughts or fixes? Thanks, Joe, 71

 

[Sirius Glass]

I suspect the shutter curtain too.

 

[ic-racer]

Good news is that this should be very 'repairable' if it is due to faulty shutter fabric. Which camera? It might be expensive but then you will know the camera is in good shape. High quality cloth focal plane shutter cameras should last a long time.

 

[jprofita]

I believe it is a Canon IIIa....it is a very nice example. I paid $120 for it. Has anyone done a DIY repair? Any recommendations for a repair person? I really don't need another camera...but love this old stuff.

 

[awty]

It's pretty easy to take the case off to get to the shutter curtains. There's a lot of detailed tutorials on the net, most barnac style cameras come apart the same way.
There are a few methods of patching holes with stuff like liquid electrical tape. You have to do it sparingly and be careful not to get much build up.
I haven't been successful with it, best to replace the curtains.

 

[btaylor]

I believe it is a Canon IIIa....it is a very nice example. I paid $120 for it. Has anyone done a DIY repair? Any recommendations for a repair person? I really don't need another camera...but love this old stuff.

I think Youxin Ye will work on the Barnack replicas (he serviced a Tower for me).

 

[Don_ih]

Those pinholes are tiny enough that you might be able to fix it with a quick single thin coating of flat black acrylic paint. Check which curtain the holes are in. Put a short strip of film in the camera, advance it with the lens covered, point it at a bright scene for a minute, cover the lens and press the shutter. Keep the lens covered while you advance the film and press the shutter with the lens covered. Uncover the lens and point it at a bright scene for a minute, cover the lens, advance the film to the end and develop it. If there are spots on the first frame, you need to coat the shutter with the shutter cocked. If there are spots on the third frame, you need to coat the shutter with it not-cocked. Just a very very light coat of flat black acrylic paint and, when it's dry, grind up some pencil lead into graphite powder and brush it onto the paint to ensure it's not sticky. Don't touch it for a few days.

Liquid electric tape is what often gets recommended for such repairs. Avoid that stuff like the plague. It takes years to lose its tack and it's too thick.

But I agree with awty - curtain replacement is the best option. Any fix is far more temporary. You never know when new pinholes will form. So you'll never trust the camera.

 

[jprofita]

Thank you all for the replies and detailed recommendations. I think I’ll set this one aside for now…hard to justify spending $200+ on a $100 camera, then again…

 

[Dustin McAmera]

I painted the shutter of my Zenit (the original Zenit) with Dylon brand fabric paint. I had to do it through the lens throat, because the camera loads through the bottom, and I didn't trust myself to take it apart (I nearly did - I even bought some shutter cloth, but I lost my nerve). I gave each blind two coats, and allowed it overnight to dry between; so it took me four sessions of about five minutes each, over four days. The repair's lasted years.

 

[Don_ih]

Thank you all for the replies and detailed recommendations. I think I’ll set this one aside for now…hard to justify spending $200+ on a $100 camera, then again…

It really won't hurt to try painting it. Those really are very tiny pinholes. I have a Leica IIIb that must've spent years on a shelf facing the sun - the arc of the sun was burnt into the shutter curtain. It must've been moved once - since there were two arc burnt. That shutter needed to be replaced.

 

[Tel]

A couple of thoughts. I've owned a couple of cameras with patched/painted light leaks that worked well, but they were both cases with a few clearly defined holes, probably caused by burning or puncturing. Yours are tiny and scattered all over, so would require a lot of painstaking work to find and cover. But the fact that they are tiny and scattered would also indicate that they're caused by deterioration of the rubber coating in the curtain fabric and as you use the camera and flex the curtain, more are going to appear.

On the optimistic side, you could try the painting method and see if it works--if it doesn't you haven't lost anything but the small cost of the paint. And you could pick up a Canon P which used metal shutter curtains.

 

[4season]

I think I’ll set this one aside for now…hard to justify spending $200+ on a $100 camera, then again…

That's the reality with a lot of older cameras. To date, I have fabricated new shutter curtains for a handful of cameras, though I wouldn't say that I'm expert at it yet. It's labor-intensive, because metal rollers and laths get reused, so it becomes a craft project requiring a fair degree of precision. Whereas in the old days, the techs would have replaced curtains/laths/rollers as a single, pre-assembled unit, because it really speeds up the process. But in 2023, even if you could find NOS factory parts to fit your camera, I dunno that you'd want to bother installing rubberized silk which may be more than a half century old, if not a lot older, so it's back to painstakingly rebuilding those parts.

Cameras with metal focal plane or leaf shutters have their own maintenance requirements.

 

[reddesert]

You could get a Canon 7 rf body that has steel shutter curtains and is generally reliable and pretty inexpensive. It also has back loading rather than bottom loading. The P mentioned earlier similarly has metal curtains, but tends to be more expensive than the 7.

 

[jprofita]

I decided to try the shutter paint method and will report back. I have removed the screws holding the outer shell on to the guts of the camera in order to more easily access the shutter curtain. The shell will not come off...what else needs to be removed?

 

[Don_ih]

what else needs to be removed?

Probably the slow speed dial. I'd try painting the shutter without taking the camera apart, first.