Praktica LTL shutter stays open

ferditulum · Jun 30, 2020

Hello everyone! I bought a praktica ltl. The condition is really good. When I checked it before the purchase, everything looked fine. So the problem is the shutter stays open after fire in some speeds when the camera faces down. When it's aligned straight everything works like it should be. It stays open also when the camera is looking straight but vertical. That is a really strange problem. Everything looks fine. Should i lubricate a little bit the mechanism which raises the mirror and than lowers it? I can't down it manually with a hand. I need to align the camera to straight position and than load the shutter again.
Any help and advice will be helpful. I don't have any luck with these praktikas

Donald Qualls · Jun 30, 2020

Sounds like a loose part getting into the works. A CLA by a competent shop is a necessity; continued attempts to fire might lead to damage (or loss of the loose bit).

AgX · Jun 30, 2020

As a side note: I had a shutter act differently depending on the orientation of the camera, without any hint at a loose part.

ferditulum · Jul 26, 2020

There is a development on the topic. After more than hundred times firing on each speed, the camera is acting almost normally most of the time no matter the orientation. I think these prakticas get stuck while staying...

Helios 1984 · Jul 26, 2020

ferditulum said:
There is a development on the topic. After more than hundred times firing on each speed, the camera is acting almost normally most of the time no matter the orientation. I think these prakticas get stuck while staying...

I had this problem with my L set at 1sec when oriented downward. It eventually went away after firing the shutter a few dozens times. You can’t leave alone these old Prakticas for a long while or else everything starts to go wrong.

Donald Qualls · Jul 26, 2020

Helios 1984 said:
You can’t leave alone these old Prakticas for a long while or else everything starts to go wrong.

That's a symptom of needing cleaning and use of modern lubricants (old grease and oils tend to gum up with age, and while frequent exercise might loosen the gummed parts temporarily, it doesn't fix the problem, just masks it.

ferditulum · Jul 26, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
That's a symptom of needing cleaning and use of modern lubricants (old grease and oils tend to gum up with age, and while frequent exercise might loosen the gummed parts temporarily, it doesn't fix the problem, just masks it.

It's really sad, that so many cameras go to the trash because of some old oil and it's more sad that here in Bulgaria nobody try to fix...

Donald Qualls · Jul 27, 2020

ferditulum said:
It's really sad, that so many cameras go to the trash because of some old oil and it's more sad that here in Bulgaria nobody try to fix...

Sad that the skills to repair these old mechanical cameras have gone the way of replacement parts. You can most likely get it fixed at a shop in Germany, maybe in Russia (was the Zenit a Praktica copy?), but not sure it's worth it to you to ship it and pay the repairers. Are you handy with small parts and tools? The information on how to get into it and reassemble it is probably still available, somewhere.

AgX · Jul 27, 2020

In eastern Germany there are repairers spcialized on the Praktica.

The Zenit was an own KMZ developement based on their Zorki rangefinder camera. (The Zorki again was was based on the FED, but redesigned by KMZ for a more reliable shutter.)

Praktica LTL shutter stays open

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