Olympus Mju ii Problem

[Miloas]

Evening all,

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, please redirect me if I'm wrong. I've had a mju ii for a while now, and i've noticed a very specific light leaking problem which only occurs in direct sunglight or near a bright light. Can anyone tell me how to fix it? Or if it's even Fixable? Here are some pictures to illustrate.


Many thanks!
Milo

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

Hi Milo,
Welcome!
I'm not sure these are typical light leaks from the back.
They are very specific and circular in shape.
That leads to me thinking they come from the front.
Mind you I have never had or used a Mju II.
One suggestion: open the back and with the clamshell open shine a torch from the front and look from behind in a darken room.
I'm thinking it might be from the focusing rails or something like that.
Good luck!

 

[Kirks518]

Check the black 'paint' or flocking inside the light path through the lens. Could be reflections bouncing around inside from paint that has worn off. If it is, not sure how you'd fix it without an almost complete dis-assembly of the lens.

 

[thuggins]

I second the comment about those not looking like normal light leaks. I don't have my Stylus (Mu) at hand but I seem to recall that the light seal is actually an "O" ring type material, as the camera was billed as weather resistant. It is pretty resilient but if it were damaged it would be quite apparent.

 

[Steve Roberts]

I have a couple of mjuIIs and they both suffer from light leaks around the back cover. However, I've never seen leaks like these before and would think it most likely that they are coming from the seals between the sliding/moving lens barrels. My mjuIIs are both the fixed focal length weatherproof type and I was very disappointed to find that a camera with such great potential to be a useful take-everywhere camera suffered from such a basic fault. I'd have expected better from Olympus.

Steve

 

[JW PHOTO]

I also think it's probably the light seal around the lens.

 

[thuggins]

Just got back home and checked, and the light seal around the door is definitely an "O" ring type material. It would be clearly visible if it were damaged or out of place. There is a foam seal around the window that allows you to see the film canister. That looks like a problem waiting to happen and it is possible that it could produce odd shaped leaks. A piece of black tape over that window could solve that mystery.

As the OP stated it was a Mu II it is difficult to see how this issue could be coming from around the lens. That designation was specific to the fixed focus 35mm/f2.8; as far as I can tell it was not used for any of the various telephoto models from that series. Perhaps the OP can "shed some light" on whether this is indeed the fixed focus 35mm or one of the telephoto models.

 

[Miloas]

I've had go at shining a light through the rear of the camera, to no avail unfortunately. Also checked the foam seal around the film canister window, that appears to be in good condition as well.
Mine's a telephoto model, that, combined with the fact that the leaks are circular and only appear around the edge of the image, makes me think that it's not an issue with the rear of the camera, or of any light coming in at the rear.
Another thing I was considering, was weather or not the leaks occurred when the camera was zoomed in? In which case the obvious solution would be to never zoom...

I'm off to South East Asia for 4 months on Wednesday, and i'll be taking this with me. So either I don't look at direct sunlight, or buy something else out there second hand.

Milo