Nice RB67, but there's this one little thing

Yeah, I've always heard that they're completely light tight. I'm going to block up the seam with gaffer tape and check in the dark one more time to make sure.

Sure enough, the light is coming from in between the two pieces of rotating adapter. Placing tape over different parts confirmed. It looks like the metal ring that connects the two pieces can come a little loose. It takes some pressure to break the seal... So rotating the back, for instance, lets the light through for a moment.

There are clips that hold the ring down. I was able to tighten those a bit and now I can only see light coming through if I apply a significant amount of wrenching force. It should be good until the new back arrives. Weird, though. This camera had been in storage for a long time before it was sold to me, so maybe years of changing temperatures without any actuation of the parts loosened it up somewhat... Just a guess.

You do realize that the rotating adapter is a separate part. You can replace it with other types of adapters. And there are different versions of rotating adapters out there, depending on when the camera was manufactured and shipped (with the rotating adapter of the day usually).
A new back will not include another rotating adapter.

Yeah. You'd hope even I could see that back and adapter are separate pieces after taking them apart. Maybe I switched up the terms though.

I have an eye on getting a new adapter, although I have yet to develop the roll of portra I shot after tightening up the one I've got. If it still shows leakage, I'm going to mail it off to you, Paul Ron, per request, for the sake of curiosity.

The new one I'm eyeing is a ProSD adapter. My understanding is that it wouldn't be a problem to sandwich it between a Pro S mirror box and back.

Now you say you can separate the halves? no no no... then you are missing clips that keep the halves together. Id really like to see this rotating adapter. Ive never seen one leak light in my 45 years repairing RBs.. its almost impossible unless a gorilla were trying to separate it n even then I doubt it will leak unless they break the clips. Those clips have very little play in them and certainly not enough to allow light leaks.

take the rotating adapter off.... rotate it slowly and look for the 4 clips that keep it together? as you partially rotate it, you will see one at a time, silver 3/4" steel clips each with 2 small screws in them. If you see they are missing screws or completely gone or perhaps broken... you may have a case. If someone was DIY repairing it and left out the springs or put them back in the wrong place, you may have a case.

if anything is leaking on that camera.. it would be the bellows or the seals, not the rotating adapter halves. Are you perhaps mistaking the film back separating from the rotating adapter?

I wish everyone included their location in the prifiles.
where are you located?

Doi you regularly use a lens hood?

I don't! Maybe that's part of the problem. Having dealt with a real severe light leak now, it definitely looks different from the color shift I was posting about for the first pages of this thread.

paul ron said:

Now you say you can separate the halves? no no no... then you are missing clips that keep the halves together. Id really like to see this rotating adapter. Ive never seen one leak light in my 45 years repairing RBs.. its almost impossible unless a gorilla were trying to separate it n even then I doubt it will leak unless they break the clips. Those clips have very little play in them and certainly not enough to allow light leaks.

take the rotating adapter off.... rotate it slowly and look for the 4 clips that keep it together? as you partially rotate it, you will see one at a time, silver 3/4" steel clips each with 2 small screws in them. If you see they are missing screws or completely gone or perhaps broken... you may have a case. If someone was DIY repairing it and left out the springs or put them back in the wrong place, you may have a case.

if anything is leaking on that camera.. it would be the bellows or the seals, not the rotating adapter halves. Are you perhaps mistaking the film back separating from the rotating adapter?

I wish everyone included their location in the prifiles.
where are you located?

Click to expand...

This is the part I'm talking about. This is where the leak was coming from... in between the two halves of the adapter. Gaffer tape over the seam between each half of this adapter eliminated the leak of visible light coming from an LED inside the camera. Removing the tape made the light visible again. The tape strip did not cover any part of the camera except this adapter. No tape even close to the film back or the rest of the camera body at all.

Yeah, the way the metal ring on one half fits inside the track on the other, I can't say that the clips hold it together. The ring doesn't look like it's made to ever come apart. But the clips seem to provide some pressure that squeezes the ring against the track? At least that's how it seems.

The light leak is gone now. I tightening the small phillips screws (visible in the pic), which almost completely eliminated it. But taking it out for a test roll of Portra 400 on a sunny day showed that the light leak was still there in very very reduced intensity.

...so I put some thin strips of adhesive-backed light seal material along the inside curve of each corner of the adapter. That's some serious jury-rigging! But it should keep the camera leak-free until the ProSD adapter arrives.

Once the replacement is here, I have half a mind to loosen each of those phillips screws a back up by a quarter turn each, peel off the foam and see if the leak returns when I do the LED test again. If it does, I'll mail it to you paul ron.

The vibe I get is like I'm telling the thread about how I saw Bigfoot. But I swear this is real! Of course, that's what all the Sasquatch hunters say too...

But hey, maybe the prior owner of this kit liked to carry it around by the back... just letting the rest of the camera & lens hang. I could see that warping the adapter over time.

youve got me curious. id love to see that rev adaptor before you monkey with it?

no matter how they carried the camera, that rev back will not split open.

ill pm my address...

btw, why dont you include your location in your stats?

Took the RB67 out for some night shots with the new ProSD adapter. I can't see any light leaks on this thing when I do the LED-in-the-dark test.

Just to recap, the light leak I had before looked like this:


Then I stuck a bunch of light seals around every set of mating surfaces that looked at me funny, and swapped in a new rotating adapter. Did some indoor shooting and everything seemed fine.

But these roll I just developed had a few frames that looked a little weird. e.g. -





Anyone recognize what went wrong here? Think it's a light leak again, or maybe an agitation or spooling issue during development? I develop manually so there's always room for error there. Or maybe some kind of micro crease or smug in the emulsion? Tried scanning from different positions on the flatbed platen, but getting the same results.

PS - don't worry about the slapdash color correction, just look at the odd formations near the top-right of the 2nd and 3rd images.

I think it might be Bigfoot.

Seriously, though, I'm unsure. I lean towards agitation/development but anything's possible, I guess.

Looks like flare/internal reflection in an extreme circumstance.

Try a test where you don't have so many brilliant light sources within the frame.

(Re-edit based on better viewing on my screen)

I think it may be development - an agitation issue perhaps.

Theo Sulphate said:

(Re-edit based on better viewing on my screen)

I think it may be development - an agitation issue perhaps.

Click to expand...

I guess that would make more sense than a light leak. After all, streaks coming from the top of the scene appear as though they would have to be coming from light intruding from the bottom of the camera, and that doesn't make much sense considering that all the point light sources were shining down from above. I mean, it's not impossible, but it seems unlikely. Maybe there were some kinks in the film. ...Although I use a Hewes reel and it's pretty good about keeping the film in shape. Maybe I just didn't move fast enough getting the blix poured in after draining the developer or something..

Saw a similar blemish on negatives posted in the fbook Nikon F2 forum, the general consensus was an issue with the lens.