Canon AE-1 seals replacement

[Odot]

I just replaced the seals on my AE1 and i do wonder if this is really good enough? Particularly the foam that i added in the "frame" (lack of a better word, see photo) can hardly be seen.

Btw, these are the other seals that i have replaced.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

The one you're concerned about has what amounts to a light baffle. The seal just helps keep the dust/dirt out. Did mine earlier this year and it looked just like that and there's no problems.

 

[Odot]

The one you're concerned about has what amounts to a light baffle. The seal just helps keep the dust/dirt out. Did mine earlier this year and it looked just like that and there's no problems.

Are you sure? I thought the seals also regulated light leaks such as these

 

[ransel]

Back in the mid 80's my cat climbed into my camera bag and pee'd on my Nikon F2. I had to remove the seal that was in the baffle all around the camera back. I never replaced it and have never had a light leak in the past 30 years of shooting.

 

[StephenT]

Looks like you did a good job. Congrats.

 

[Odot]

Back in the mid 80's my cat climbed into my camera bag and pee'd on my Nikon F2. I had to remove the seal that was in the baffle all around the camera back. I never replaced it and have never had a light leak in the past 30 years of shooting.

so what could be the reason for light leaks if not the seals? everything else just seems fine.

 

[ransel]

Odot, could very well be the seals. The Canon back baffle may not fit as tight or deep as the Nikon. What you could try is remove the lens, set shutter on B, and in a dark room trip the shutter and shine a small flashlight around inside the camera front while closely inspecting all around the camera back to see if any light is escaping the closed back. That may help narrow it down.

 

[BAC1967]

often the leak is around the door hinge, they can be difficult to seal sometimes. It may be leaking on the film after you take a shot and advance the film onto the take-up spool. You may not be able to see that doing what ransel suggested but I would still do what he suggested.

 

[DWThomas]

Not a regular AE-1 user (have an A-1) but have one inherited and offer a "thinking out loud."
You only show the image area -- what does the rebate area on the film look like?

If there is light struck area extending beyond the frame and in alignment with what's in the image, it's likely a light leak. And in the Ax-1 family, that door hinge seal is a likely candidate.

But -- the shutter is a focal plane that travels horizontally -- I speculate the pattern seen could at least be possible if there is something misbehaving in the shutter travel. In that case, the rebates should be clean. I think maybe the edges aren't square and clean enough to be from that cause, but it's worth a thought.

Light leaks are always interesting because they can be happening between the film gate and the supply or takeup spools/cassettes/whatever, as opposed to while a given bit of film is facing the lens. As such it can be tricky to determine when and where the problem is happening

 

[Odot]

Odot, could very well be the seals. The Canon back baffle may not fit as tight or deep as the Nikon. What you could try is remove the lens, set shutter on B, and in a dark room trip the shutter and shine a small flashlight around inside the camera front while closely inspecting all around the camera back to see if any light is escaping the closed back. That may help narrow it down.

I just did that and there were absolutely no light leaks. I really hope that the issue has been resolved (shot a test roll which is at the lab as we speak) because it would annoy me to havbe to look even further for the solution.

 

[Odot]

often the leak is around the door hinge, they can be difficult to seal sometimes. It may be leaking on the film after you take a shot and advance the film onto the take-up spool. You may not be able to see that doing what ransel suggested but I would still do what he suggested.

I will wait for the test film i shot after adding the new seals and if it did not help, i may double up on the door seals. I really do hope that its ok now though