Rolleicord Vb lens ghosting

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 4, 2013

If the dots appear always at the same place and with same pattern , it is lens.
Otherwise it is film or development.
Do you see the same at every frame ?
Try to shoot 12 frame to sky and develop it . Did you see the problem at single roll or many rolls.
Everyone is burning his nerves to help you. Write everything and every detail plus your film , expiry date and developer etc .

henry finley · Feb 4, 2013

Hard to see on the computer, but I DID see them to a degree. I'm thinking mildew on the film maybe. I'm not thinking lens related. Of course these days with Kodak film being replaced by all kinds of third-world film, who knows any more?

tkamiya · Feb 4, 2013

Those spots look like drying marks to me.

The sky is VERY bright meaning the film has gone almost all the way to fully exposed. The spots are appearing even darker meaning if they were optically produced, the sources were very bright. Lens flare won't leave that kind of pattern and neither does light leaks. I'm thinking drying marks which should be visible if you look at the film carefully.

Are you able to view the film under a microscope or at least a good magnifier and see what it looks like?

henry finley · Feb 4, 2013

tkamiya said:
Those spots look like drying marks to me.

The sky is VERY bright meaning the film has gone almost all the way to fully exposed. The spots are appearing even darker meaning if they were optically produced, the sources were very bright. Lens flare won't leave that kind of pattern and neither does light leaks. I'm thinking drying marks which should be visible if you look at the film carefully.

Are you able to view the film under a microscope or at least a good magnifier and see what it looks like?

Drying marks--excellent guess.

aferrarini · Feb 4, 2013

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
If the dots appear always at the same place and with same pattern , it is lens.
Otherwise it is film or development.
Do you see the same at every frame ?
Try to shoot 12 frame to sky and develop it . Did you see the problem at single roll or many rolls.
Everyone is burning his nerves to help you. Write everything and every detail plus your film , expiry date and developer etc .

No, the place and pattern does not appear always at the same place and is not present at every frame but only on some with very bright sky. This last detail made me think about internale reflections of the lens. I experienced, to some degree, the same problem both with fomapan 200 creative and efke 100 R film. Both films are quite "fresh" as they will expire in 2-3 years. In both cases I used rodinal developer. 1+50 for fomapan and 1+25 for efke.

tkamiya · Feb 4, 2013

I doubt it's an internal reflection....

You have a very well exposed and bright area - sky. Any reflection will need to overcome this brightness to show up. It's going have to be a one heck of a reflection to do that.

If you are in US and want to mail me a sample negative, I can put it under my microscope and see if I can see any surface contamination. PM me if you want to pursue this.

aferrarini · Feb 4, 2013

tkamiya said:
Those spots look like drying marks to me.

The sky is VERY bright meaning the film has gone almost all the way to fully exposed. The spots are appearing even darker meaning if they were optically produced, the sources were very bright. Lens flare won't leave that kind of pattern and neither does light leaks. I'm thinking drying marks which should be visible if you look at the film carefully.

Are you able to view the film under a microscope or at least a good magnifier and see what it looks like?

This might be a good guess. Or maybe they are just "bubbles" on the film surface which formed at some point during the development (?) and maybe that's more evident with bright skyes. I will follow your advice and get a look with an enlarging lens and/or a stereomicroscope at work.

aferrarini · Feb 4, 2013

tkamiya said:
I doubt it's an internal reflection....

You have a very well exposed and bright area - sky. Any reflection will need to overcome this brightness to show up. It's going have to be a one heck of a reflection to do that.

If you are in US and want to mail me a sample negative, I can put it under my microscope and see if I can see any surface contamination. PM me if you want to pursue this.

You are right, I did not think about it. Unfortunatly I live in Italy which is quite far from US and sending the negative would be unpractical. I have however access to microscopes and other stuff at work so I may try to get a look. Thanks anyway for your kind offer!

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 4, 2013

aferrarini,

Thank you for your reply, For your art , you bought one of the best cameras ever made and using 3 year expired foma and efke. I dont know if water spots could be cleaned with rewash but try it. And rescan the above photograph. Its a half hour business. I have a Rollei 35 S and it has the collection of every kind of mulfunction , lens oil , dirt , not working slow speeds etc. I wish your camera have any of lens problems.
And for good sake , use Kodak or Ilford film fresh. I suspect Rodinal long development could not be good for cheap expired film .
I dont think but cant be sure , that you have a lens problem. Buy a good film , put camera to safe place and shot many highlight pictures .
Best way and fastest way to be sure , use a good store lab and color negative film. Try with Kodak Ektar , its a high contrast film and reveal all lens spot at your camera.

Good , really good luck.
Umut

rolleiman · Feb 4, 2013

I've owned a number of different TLR's in my time. Dust, haze, fungus, coating disintegration,any of these can be present in the taking lens. minor dust should not be a problem, but if it is excessive and there is haze/fungus present, then it will need a clean, otherwise pictures lacking in contrast will result.
An easy way to test the lens, is open the back, open the aperture fully, then hold the camera up to the light, and press the shutter on "B" holding it open. any dust, fungus, coating damage will become apparent.
A professional clean is he only remedy. If there is fungus coupled with coating deterioation it may not be worth the cost of a clean. Only you can decide.

aferrarini · Feb 4, 2013

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
aferrarini,

Thank you for your reply, For your art , you bought one of the best cameras ever made and using 3 year expired foma and efke. I dont know if water spots could be cleaned with rewash but try it. And rescan the above photograph. Its a half hour business. I have a Rollei 35 S and it has the collection of every kind of mulfunction , lens oil , dirt , not working slow speeds etc. I wish your camera have any of lens problems.
And for good sake , use Kodak or Ilford film fresh. I suspect Rodinal long development could not be good for cheap expired film .
I dont think but cant be sure , that you have a lens problem. Buy a good film , put camera to safe place and shot many highlight pictures .
Best way and fastest way to be sure , use a good store lab and color negative film. Try with Kodak Ektar , its a high contrast film and reveal all lens spot at your camera.

Good , really good luck.
Umut

Thanks Mustafa,
for sure I will experiment again with it and I will switch back to Ilford (I'm a long time user of hp5+ and fp4+ Ilford film on 35mm). I tried foma and and efke only for sake of experimentation but foma gave me also some problems with scratches (it's a pity because I like it's tonality!) and efke finally gave up with the businness a couple of months ago and is no longer available. Only a precisation: the films are NOT expired and will expire in 2-3 years (sorry for my bad english, I probably made some confusion in my previous post). Thanks for your suggestions!

aferrarini · Feb 4, 2013

rolleiman said:
I've owned a number of different TLR's in my time. Dust, haze, fungus, coating disintegration,any of these can be present in the taking lens. minor dust should not be a problem, but if it is excessive and there is haze/fungus present, then it will need a clean, otherwise pictures lacking in contrast will result.
An easy way to test the lens, is open the back, open the aperture fully, then hold the camera up to the light, and press the shutter on "B" holding it open. any dust, fungus, coating damage will become apparent.
A professional clean is he only remedy. If there is fungus coupled with coating deterioation it may not be worth the cost of a clean. Only you can decide.

Hi rolleiman. As suggested by another poster I did the test against a light bulb and while no fungi or haze are present, some dust is present on the internal elements. Contrast seems to be quite fine anyway. Don't know about coating but, if present, it should be very "light". I'm used to more "modern" lenses from nikkor and the coloration given by the coating is very evident... so, I don't know about this lens, but I cannot recognize any color on the taking lens.

tkamiya · Feb 4, 2013

aferrarini said:
I have however access to microscopes and other stuff at work so I may try to get a look.

What I do is to look at both sides of the film using a stereo microscope. Using "through" and "incident" lighting, switching one from the other, one can distinguish the difference between stains IN the image and ON the image.

Wish you good luck and let us know what you find!

aferrarini · Feb 4, 2013

tkamiya said:
What I do is to look at both sides of the film using a stereo microscope. Using "through" and "incident" lighting, switching one from the other, one can distinguish the difference between stains IN the image and ON the image.

Wish you good luck and let us know what you find!

Ok, that's clear, I understand what you mean. I will bring the film with me at work tomorrow and get a look. Hope to have some time to do it...

I'll let you know

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 4, 2013

English, I met with a student at train station and promised him to translate Mesopotamian Music Theory articles for his thesis. I was thinking that I posted 2500 posts to APUG and I just learned the english. When I started to translation , I found I had not enough vocabulary in Turkish.
I had been started to forgot Turkish long ago.

rolleiman · Feb 4, 2013

aferrarini said:
Hi rolleiman. As suggested by another poster I did the test against a light bulb and while no fungi or haze are present, some dust is present on the internal elements. Contrast seems to be quite fine anyway. Don't know about coating but, if present, it should be very "light". I'm used to more "modern" lenses from nikkor and the coloration given by the coating is very evident... so, I don't know about this lens, but I cannot recognize any color on the taking lens.

I also use nikons. My Rollei is the "T" model with a Tessar lens, in terms of coating probably similar to your Xenar.
I find it quite a bit "cooler" (i.e. bluer) than my Nikon lenses when using transparancy film. An 81B is usually needed to add warmth to colour tranny film shot in the Rollei.

aferrarini · Feb 4, 2013

rolleiman said:
I also use nikons. My Rollei is the "T" model with a Tessar lens, in terms of coating probably similar to your Xenar.
I find it quite a bit "cooler" (i.e. bluer) than my Nikon lenses when using transparancy film. An 81B is usually needed to add warmth to colour tranny film shot in the Rollei.

I cannot comment on this. It's at least 4 year I shoot my last colour film. For color work I usually use a D200 digital. Anyway 95% of my shots are B&W on film. My comment was more on the color of the coating.

Rolleicord Vb lens ghosting

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