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Super Ikonta film path scratchy???

Agulliver

Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2015
Messages
3,765
Location
Luton, United Kingdom
Format
Multi Format
I've just taken delivery of a pre-war Super Ikonta which is in decent condition though certainly not "mint". A quick test without film suggests everything works, including the shutter being surprisingly accurate at all speeds. Rangefinder seems fine etc,

What I am concerned about is that the pieces of metal next to the rollers feel very abrasive as if some sort of coating or paint has deteriorated over the years. I've attached a photo which hopefully illustrates what I mean.

Do the good citizens of Photrio agree this is likely to scratch film? And what might the best/simplest remedy be?
 

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Agulliver said:
some sort of coating or paint has deteriorated over the years
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That looks exactly like what has happened.
I would indeed expect this to be a potential problem w.r.t. scratching, although some films will be more prone to it than others.
Personally I'd start by giving it a try as it is now, e.g. using Fomapan film (fairly soft supercoat) and if that gives any problems, remove remnants of this paint/coating and polish and/or re-paint.
 
The only surfaces you need to be concerned about are the narrow surfaces top and bottom. The film doesn't touch the wide flat surfaces you mentioned because the rollers hold the film clear of those surfaces. For appearance sake you could clean them, paint them, allowing the paint to dry thoroughly before exposing a film.
 
The rollers themselves don't look completely smooth anymore, and anything that chips off the rest of the surfaces can get stuck between rollers and film and scratch. They can also get sucked into the bellows and onto the film surface by vacuum when the camera is opened, causing black spots on the picture. I wouldn't be surprised if the bellows already contains more particles than the rest of the camera, they usually do. A thorough clean and blow out at minimum is a good idea with any old folder.

I like Rustoleum black oil-based metal paint for those types of things, takes a while to dry but makes a hard surface. You may have its equivalent in the UK. You'd want very thin coats of paint no matter what you use.
 
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Shoot a test film. I've used half a dozen Ikontas, even prewar, and never had scratches.
 
I've tried to clean it up and paint those two plates. I've got 4 other pre-war Ikontas but this is my first Super...the others don't have those plates be they 6x6 or 6x9. Was the body adapted from a 6x9? The ruby window is in the position for 6x9 and it even says 6x9 on the inside of the door.

It's the 530/16 model which seems to be particularly early and shoots 11 6x6 frames on 120 film. I'll try a test film though I don't really have anything in mind to shoot and the weather is pretty grim here at the moment....just wet and dull.
 
The film shouldn't touch that area, but make very certain the rollers spin freely. The film does touch those and if they don't spin there will be scratches.
 
So, I've run a film through it (Delta 3200 at a gig) and other than missing the first exposure due to not fully understanding where to begin the first exposure everything worked fine. No scratches that I could detect. Focus seems accurate - I was shooting at f2.8 so very small DOF.

So I can add a medium format rangefinder to my arsenal
 
Splendid!
I don't use much Ilford film in my red windowed folders, numbering is harder to see than on other films.
 
Jojje said:
Splendid!
I don't use much Ilford film in my red windowed folders, numbering is harder to see than on other films.
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Ilford and Kodak are not very good for use "ruby window" or red window folder users. I give Foma a A+ for their numbering. So much easier to see.
 
This model is a bit odd. It's a 6x6 but there is a ruby window in the usual place for 6x9....almost as if they changed their minds when finalising the design.

Additionally, there's a frame counter on the top and the winder stops for each frame. So I only used the ruby window to estimate where to begin, and I got it wrong losing one exposure. No big deal, I'll know next time.

I fully agree that Foma (and other brands that they do the confectioning for such as Lomography) have much better backing paper in terms of visibility through ruby windows. As most of my medium format cameras are ruby window models I tend to use Fomapan and Lomography colour negative though I also do some Kodak Gold because I like it in 120....and Ilford Delta 3200 for low light.
 

The red window on my Super Ikonta 6x6 is opposite 4.5x6 on the backing paper. I never noticed that before, I haven't used the camera yet. I've only done a dummy run to see if the film winding automatic indexing works.
 
It's a bit of a strange design with 11 6x6 exposures instead of the usual 12, due to the fear of overlapping. The inside of the back of mine (and others I've seen online) even says 6x9 so it looks like the used off the shelf parts for the first Super Ikonta 6x6.
 
The post war (WWII) era was really hard on manufacturing companies in both East and West Germany. When manufacturing started picking up again they used old parts with new parts and what not. There is even rumors that former Zeiss employees took parts home when Germany collapsed and buildup cameras from spare parts in home basements. You can alter the notch wheel under the wind knob to allow for 12 exposures on the Super Ikonta B, but I haven't done that to mine yet.
 
John Wiegerink said:
Ilford and Kodak are not very good for use "ruby window" or red window folder users. I give Foma a A+ for their numbering. So much easier to see.
Click to expand...

This reminds me. I am positive I asked the question before but cannot remember the answer. The question being:

How is Foma able to make their numbers easier to see than Ilford or Kodak do and why can't the latter 2 get a contract with whomsoever makes the backing paper for Foma?

If an answer was given then can anybody remind me of what it was

Thanks and much appreciated.

pentaxuser
 
Yes, it is kind of strange that a company like Kodak, and Ilford also, can't come up with a darker, more contrasty numbering system like Foma. I have three cameras I cannot use with Ilford or Kodak films due to the numbers not showing up in the window. I also have a few cameras I have to use a small penlight to see the numbers on the Kodak and Ilford backing paper. Oh, and I'm talking about penlight (pen torch for you) in broad daylight. I'm sure that the sale of Foma B&W films have benefitted from Kodak and Ilford dim numbering. I know I've bought Foma 100 just because it does work much better in my older ruby window cameras for these old dim eyes.
 
Keep in mind that the backing paper on 120 is a complex product since it remains in direct contact with the emulsion for potentially years on end. This severely limits the flexibility in trying different options, since it requires such extensive analysis and testing to find a suitable alternative. I imagine it must be difficult to allocate budget to this esp. in the face of other investments that also need to be done.
 
You won't be able to use the Foma backing paper on modern Kodak black and white and C41 negative and Ektachrome films - one or more or all of those films will react with the inks and/or the paper Foma uses, damaging your photos.
And the economics (particularly minimum order quantities) associated with the specialized producers of those printed backing papers prohibit Kodak from having multiple custom versions of those papers - all films need to be able to use the same backing paper.
120 film use numbers are tiny in comparison to 135.
 
I think the answer is that Foma films are less advanced in design than Kodak and Ilford.

BUT....what about the backing paper on the Lomography CN 100 and 400 films? They are presumably closely related to 1990s Kodacolor and have very good, dark number markings on the backing paper. I've read it's confectioned by Foma....who also do confectioning for some other brands.

BTW the Super Ikonta I have is definitely pre-war, 1936 or 1937 I believe.
 
Matt,
Did some brave soul here try the Foma backing paper on Kodak B&W films? I must have missed it if they did. I was just curious........not a big deal.
 
Not here.
But I have it on good authority that when Kodak started seeing the big upsurge in wrapper offset issues - a short time after they had to switch to alternative manufacturers after their huge, multi-year overstock of in-house produced paper finally ran out - they tried everything they possibly could to find a solution. I doubt they would have ignored something as simple as buying from whoever made the Foma stock.
It is important to remember that Harman/Ilford had gone through the same or similar issues earlier, and were able to get the problem under control by greatly reducing the ink load.
Of course, Harman/Ilford didn't have to worry about C41 colour or E6 film.
 
Matt,
All of what you say could be true, but it could also be that both Ilford and Kodak never really tried Foma's backing paper on their products and instead went their own way. I doubt that that is the case, but who really knows for sure. All I know is that both Ilford and Kodak did a disservice to all us red window peepers.
 
John Wiegerink said:
both Ilford and Kodak never really tried Foma's backing paper on their products and instead went their own way
Click to expand...

Kodak & Harman likely went with materials that are available in their supply networks at reasonable cost, quality, quantities and with acceptable lead times and MOQ's. It's very possible (likely) that whatever works for Foma just doesn't work very well for them.

John Wiegerink said:
both Ilford and Kodak did a disservice to all us red window peepers.
Click to expand...
They might not have done it on purpose.
 
The new Kodak backing paper that I first noticed with Gold in 120 has a pretty shiny plastic coating that I hadn't seen previously.
 

As I understand it, there were two drastic options that Kodak was considering at the time:
1) do away entirely with the numbering and writing on the backing paper; or
2) ceasing all production of films with backing paper.
The wrapper offset issue nearly had disastrous consequences for Kodak.
 
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