Leicaphiles, I hereby summon your experience, IIIc negatives inside.

I have a IIIc that a recent batch of negatives came back questionable. I'm confident in my skills as a technician I can get this thing apart and do it right, but what specifically am I looking for to cause this? Probably half of them look exactly like this. I don't see any pinholes I put a bright flashlight under the camera and ran the shutter a few times and didn't see anything. The speeds sound about right, especially the slower 1 second and 1/2 seconds those sound spot right on. All of these were done on a 15mm f4.5 that does not move the RF arm inside the mount, I know on the Zorki-5 this can be a problem you're not supposed to dry-fire it without a lens or fire it with a lens that doesn't actuate that arm, is this a IIIc thing too?

This was done on 400 speed film and most of these appear to be in the higher speeds which would be 1/500, the indoor shots at slower speeds seemed fine. I know the uneven exposure has to do with the speed governor and one curtain moving faster than the other.

I know this thing needs a CLA now, what do I look for when I pop this open? It will be my first Leica but I have done many Soviet rangefinders based on it and came out well.

First off I would repeat your experiment with a 50mm lens. I have no idea how to do anything inside a Leica.

I really like picture 1 and 4.

1, 3 and 4 are from thin shutter curtains, meaning they need to be replaced. 2 is capping. The second curtain is catching up to the first meaning it needs service.

If there are pinholes in the shutter curtains the pressure plate would block the light from your flashlight, so that method wouldn’t work very well.

cramej said:

1, 3 and 4 are from thin shutter curtains, meaning they need to be replaced. 2 is capping. The second curtain is catching up to the first meaning it needs service.

Click to expand...

This.

Classic example of holes in the shutter and shutter capping. And you can fire the shutter on it w/ or w/o a lens, that little arm that rides on the lens is only for the camera's RF, it has nothing to do w/ what you're seeing. I'd recommend you get a shutter tester too, I've had numerous cameras where the shutter sounded right but when measured they were anything but right.

Holes in the shutter where the light has spread in the time between exposures so not precise pinholes, but I think there's also something else going on that's noticeable in 4.jpg especially.

Fair enough, I have never done a shutter before if this were one of my Soviet cameras I'd think about it, who i the master IIIc whisperer? I'll just send this one off and have it done right.