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B&W Film Issue - Mamiya 645


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Shot a roll of film on my Mamiya 645 of B&W Ilford Delta 100. I developed at home and got film where one half of the image is MUCH darker, and the issue is consistent throughout the roll.

 

Camera issue? Developing issue? Any help would be much appreciated!

 

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Edited by dantegallo
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My first thought was shutter sync speed with my strobe, but I was almost positive I was shooting at 1/25th of a second. Do you think the battery could have something to do with it?

The mirror tends to lock up when the battery is on the way out.

It looks like a sync speed issue.

Or...

How did you mount your flash? Anything blocking it?

Or was it facing away from the model?

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It's obviously not a camera-mounted flash. So not something blocking the flash.

 

The horizontal running shutter tells me this is a later Mamiya 645, like a Super or ProTL, and IME they aren't the most reliable of camera bodies.

 

Anyhow. You should be able to check the synchronisation by removing the back and lens, and looking through the camera with flash attached. When you fire the shutter you'll quickly see if the entire frame is being illuminated or not.

 

My guess is that this is a simple case of the shutter speed being set wrongly. If not, and the camera has become faulty - then I'd advise against throwing away money by repairing one of these unreliable plastic-bodied 645s.

 

Instead I'd buy an old metal-bodied 1000s or similar, and have the foam light seals replaced and given a CLA. The light seals are about the only thing ever to fail on my old metal M645s. Whereas I've had a litany of faults occur across two 645 Supers and a ProTL. None of which are now fully working, and have been in repair more than they've been used!

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The Pentax 67 and 645 also have focal-plane shutters, as do the old Pentacon 6, the Rittreck and quite a few other rollfilm SLRs.

 

"In the Pro (-TL) version you have three N/L lenses with leaf shutter."

 

Their use isn't limited to the unreliable plastic Pro-TL. The 70mm and 55mm LS lenses were actually designed for the older metal-bodied M645 series and work perfectly well with any manual focus Mamiya 645.

 

I'd recommend any M645 user to get their hands on a 70mm LS lens. It has a unique look that's only otherwise matched by the 110mm f/2.8 Sekor.

 

I understand the Pro or Pro-TL automatically set 1/8th second on the focal-plane shutter when a leaf-shuttered lens is fitted. However, this can be done manually on any other M645, and the leaf shutter lenses used perfectly well. Automatic setting on later models requires the use of an N model lens and cumbersome connecting cable. Whereas the older leaf lenses just require you to set the focal plane shutter manually. IME an FP shutter speed of 1/15th works perfectly well.

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