I bought a Moskva 5 recently, but I've only had the opportunity to put a couple of rolls through it -- Tri-X that I developed in Kodak D-76. My camera is fairly worn, but still serviceable. One thing I noticed about it was when I open the bellows, the front standard does not always snap into place. I have to physically shove the right bracket forward until it locks into place. With my first roll, I failed to do this, and the images were soft on a right corner. Once I learned of this "feature," the images were sharp across the frame. I mention this because a few members above mention some softness on the sides of their images, and I can't help but think that their Moskva-5s have the same problem mine does.
As for the two red holes, mine are light tight. When I first got the camera, the metal slides were stiff, but a bit of light lubrication and just pushing them open and closed took care of the stiffness. When I was shooting with the camera, it was during the depths of winter and the days were overcast and somewhat dark, so there wasn't any problem the film suffered from leaving the sliding shutters open. I don't recall if I closed them after advancing to the next frame, or left them open. In the future, however, I think I'll be more conservative and keep them closed between exposures.
I've uploaded a couple of images to show what I mean by corner softness. In the first one below, a photo of a frozen bird bath, the top right corner is soft whereas the rest of the photo is in focus. In the second photo of the trunk of an old oak tree, there is little evidence of corner softness. I had learned to ensure the frame rails were locked in place by the time I took that photo.
Ah well, worth a try.
