Photos overly soft - film flatness?

Bill Burk · Dec 8, 2022

FotoD said:
Plus you don't have to wonder if you did remember to wind the film after the last shot.

That’s actually a problem with cameras like Bessa II which have no double-exposure prevention. Ikonta C, on the other hand, keeps you from pressing shutter release twice (you can make the mistake to trigger from the front but the regular shutter release has a lock)

glbeas · Dec 8, 2022

radialMelt said:
All the shots I took prior to my holiday are tack sharp across the frame. My process for shooting the camera has stayed the same. Nevertheless, it is an interesting point that I think I will experiment with.

And since like I said this issue popped up during my holiday, I doubt it is fungus. Although I will have a look to be sure.

Thanks all

Condensation on the lens will do the same and later evaporate to leave no clue as to what happened. Have to be cautious carrying the camera from warm to cold conditions or vice versa. Around here a camera carried from the air conditioned indoors to the sweltering humidity outside is sure to fog the lens for a while.

Melvin J Bramley · Dec 8, 2022

The left side of the image has more contrast than the right due to the subject matter.
I would suggest both sides are soft?

radialMelt · Dec 8, 2022

Melvin J Bramley said:
The left side of the image has more contrast than the right due to the subject matter.
I would suggest both sides are soft?

Very possible! In any case I would agree in that all of the images seem softer than what I was getting prior to my holiday, yeah.

koraks · Dec 9, 2022

glbeas said:
Overall softness can also be a sign of fungus on the lens elements.

Do you know how much fungus it takes on a lens to produce images this soft? You'd have to have a veritable mushroom farm going on in there to get these results.

radialMelt · Dec 9, 2022

For the sake of discussion I will add that I am slowly seeing a pattern to all of the soft shots, which also seems to explain why some look great. The top half of the frame's focus is thrown waaaaaaaay behind where I was actually focusing the rangefinder, following a split horizontally across the frame. I am now almost certain this is a case of one of the sets of lazy tongs not being aligned with the other, thus giving a tilt to the front standard.

As for the shots that seemed like there was no issue, I added another frame to the folder (#9) to show how the tilt actually worked in my favour, keeping the foreground (in the bottom half of the frame) in focus AND the stuff way in the distance (in the top half of the frame) in focus too!

radialMelt · Feb 26, 2023

To update the thread, I ended up sending the camera off to Mr. Binder (aka wizcam on ebay) and had him give it a going over. His service is a bit pricey, but comes highly recommended.

I got it back this week, looking and feeling excellent. I have yet to run it through its paces as the weather here has been rather disagreeable, but I did ask Mr. Binder what he did to remedy the issue. He mentioned that the springs that lock the front standard into place when extending the bellows go weak with time and don't consistently lock. He replaced said springs. This, to me anyway, would perfectly explain the behavior I was experiencing, where half of the frame's focus is radically different than the other's.

Anyway, looking forward to shooting with it again. Fingers crossed the issue is behind me!

Pieter12 · Feb 26, 2023

I haven’t read all the posts, but did anyone mention the Plaubel focus needs to be set to infinity before collapsing the bellows. Apparently, the focus arms can become bent if not.

dwlls15 · Mar 25, 2025

radialMelt said:
To update the thread, I ended up sending the camera off to Mr. Binder (aka wizcam on ebay) and had him give it a going over. His service is a bit pricey, but comes highly recommended.

I got it back this week, looking and feeling excellent. I have yet to run it through its paces as the weather here has been rather disagreeable, but I did ask Mr. Binder what he did to remedy the issue. He mentioned that the springs that lock the front standard into place when extending the bellows go weak with time and don't consistently lock. He replaced said springs. This, to me anyway, would perfectly explain the behavior I was experiencing, where half of the frame's focus is radically different than the other's.

Anyway, looking forward to shooting with it again. Fingers crossed the issue is behind me!

Hey OP did you ever figure out if this was the issue? I ask because i just purchased a Makina W67! i havent put film through it yet as i just purchased but i am worried the front lens segment when you pull it out isnt 100% parallel with the body? I'm not positive on the amount it would need to be off to throw off photos but its definitely got me concerned. Unfortunately i dont think there's a way to test without going through a test roll.

I guess could you visibly see your front segment with the lens was shifted one way or the other when looking at it?

radialMelt · Mar 25, 2025

dwlls15 said:
Hey OP did you ever figure out if this was the issue? I ask because i just purchased a Makina W67! i havent put film through it yet as i just purchased but i am worried the front lens segment when you pull it out isnt 100% parallel with the body? I'm not positive on the amount it would need to be off to throw off photos but its definitely got me concerned. Unfortunately i dont think there's a way to test without going through a test roll.

I guess could you visibly see your front segment with the lens was shifted one way or the other when looking at it?

Hi, I did indeed figure it out. Firstly, I wouldn't judge the alignment of the front standard (can I call it that?) by eye. On my example it never looked perfectly parallel to the body/case despite producing perfectly sharp photos (with caveat below). Only way to tell is to shoot a test roll, or rig up some ground glass and inspect with a loupe with the shutter open.

But to answer your question, the issue that plagued my Plaubel Makina 670 was that the springs responsible for locking the front standard into place once extended never quite did their job properly, even after replacement. Many times I would extend the bellows and I would feel the click of the front standard locking into place, but it wasn't fully locked: there remained a millimeter or two of play in the bottom lazy tongs, which of course would throw the top half of my frames out of focus to varying degrees. I learned that if I extended the lens all the way to the minimum focusing distance and then pulled a little, I could get the lazy tongs to properly lock and the camera would produce produce wonderful looking images.

That was of course until the film advance slipped and jammed, and then I dropped it packing it up for its 4th trip to Mr. Binder (wizcam) and split the case open. I sold it for parts and moved to the Mamiya 6 system.

Anyway, long story short, check the front standard for any slop/play/wobble when the bellows is fully extended. There should be none.

Good luck!

dwlls15 · Mar 25, 2025

radialMelt said:
Hi, I did indeed figure it out. Firstly, I wouldn't judge the alignment of the front standard (can I call it that?) by eye. On my example it never looked perfectly parallel to the body/case despite producing perfectly sharp photos (with caveat below). Only way to tell is to shoot a test roll, or rig up some ground glass and inspect with a loupe with the shutter open.

But to answer your question, the issue that plagued my Plaubel Makina 670 was that the springs responsible for locking the front standard into place once extended never quite did their job properly, even after replacement. Many times I would extend the bellows and I would feel the click of the front standard locking into place, but it wasn't fully locked: there remained a millimeter or two of play in the bottom lazy tongs, which of course would throw the top half of my frames out of focus to varying degrees. I learned that if I extended the lens all the way to the minimum focusing distance and then pulled a little, I could get the lazy tongs to properly lock and the camera would produce produce wonderful looking images.

That was of course until the film advance slipped and jammed, and then I dropped it packing it up for its 4th trip to Mr. Binder (wizcam) and split the case open. I sold it for parts and moved to the Mamiya 6 system.

Anyway, long story short, check the front standard for any slop/play/wobble when the bellows is fully extended. There should be none.

Good luck!

Very interesting....what a journey with that camera it's a bummer it seems like some people get lucky and never have issues and others its a long road of repairs to maintain. Extremely helpful what you noted about front standard being clicked in and locked. I suspect mine has a little play based on everything you said....I guess I will shoot a roll or two before I waste anymore time worrying about it. Could end up being totally fine

radialMelt · Mar 25, 2025

dwlls15 said:
Very interesting....what a journey with that camera it's a bummer it seems like some people get lucky and never have issues and others its a long road of repairs to maintain. Extremely helpful what you noted about front standard being clicked in and locked. I suspect mine has a little play based on everything you said....I guess I will shoot a roll or two before I waste anymore time worrying about it. Could end up being totally fine

I absolutely loved the images it produced, but yeah, my copy was nothing but problems. I do miss it and might gamble on another copy in the future, if I'm ever feeling particularly flush. Hope you have good luck with yours!

Photos overly soft - film flatness?

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