Weird mamiya 645AFD light leak mystery..

[bn22my]

Hello all,

I recently bought a Mamiya 645AFD, it's a decent camera but I've found a mysterious occurance- it seems that when I shoot a roll outdoors in bright conditions, something that looks like a light leak (white streaks) appears down one side of every 7th and/or 8th frame- the other frames look fine however, and it doesn't seem to happen when I've shot indoors, even in abundant light.. does anyone know what this might be, and how to fix it? I'm thinking that if light was leaking into the film magazine, surely every frame would be messed up? I'm also very careful when loading/unloading the film.. any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Cheers~ Ben

 

[henryp]

I bet you have a tiny magazine leak and the marks on film are only visible when a frame sits in the gate for a while. Should be simple enough to test. Which side of the film is marked? Have you checked the gate where the dark slide is inserted?

 

[Greg_E]

Checking could be as simple as wasting some film and using a bright studio light. Load some film, shine the bright light at one sind of the camera/film back and let it sit for a while. Advance to the next frame and move the light to a different surface. Repeat until you have gone all the way around the camera on all sides. Don't forget to remove the darkslide the same way you would normally use it with your camera.

 

[bn22my]

thanks for your thoughts.. the streaks are always on the left side of the image, which is the opposite side to where the dark slide slots in- doesn't explain why it only happens on a few frames, in a certain place.. the camera store beckons.

 

[jas665]

I'm having the same issue. Do you think it's possible for light to leak in when inserting or removing the dark slide while film is loaded?

I haven't found any leaks using the flashlight method so just trying to figure out how many other things I need to test..