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Baby Ikonta... Flare? Shutter Issue? Light leak?


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Hello All,

 

Some time ago, I acquired a nice and relatively rare Zeiss "Baby" Ikonta (520/18) with the Compur shutter and f/4.5 Tessar. Yes, I know the green covering probably isn't original. ;)

 

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The shutter seems to work nicely on all speeds and the lens has a few cleaning marks but that's about it from what I can tell. But on nearly every frame, I get this strange and inconsistent result:

 

43047737241_c877551b55_c.jpg

 

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As can be seen, the bright spot is in the same general area in each frame, however, the intensity, size, shape and orientation is almost always different and somewhat random. This is with an assortment of shutter speeds and apertures. The film was expired Verichrome Pan on two different rolls, so I know it wasn't caused by the film. I've been using the same film-developing equipment for all my other processing, so I know it's not anything related to that. The different positioning leads me to believe it's not a camera light leak from either the back or the bellows (all seem light tight) or a lens flare. Could it be a mis-aligned shutter blade? Some odd form of lens flare?

 

Opinions are welcome, thanks to all in advance! Cheers, Allan

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Dustin, thanks; well, I made the flange you mentioned, and took it and the camera into my darkroom with a very bright flashlight and sure enough, there was a tiny pinhole in the lower corner of the bellows which otherwise escaped detection.

 

John, what you say makes perfect sense now after seeing where the pinhole is then correlating the position and size of the light leaks in the images. The larger the “blobs,” the longer the camera sat between exposures. When they were very small or nonexistent, there was little time elapsing between the exposures.

 

Now at least I know it’s a fairly straightforward solution to the problem, thanks to you both!

 

Cheers, Allan

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A good cure for bellows pinholes is a mixture of flexible fabric glue mixed with powdered pencil lead. I experimented with several different methods and this idea was the most successful: Using 400 grit wet&dry emery paper, rub it on black pencil lead (carbon) to make a powder, mix some in the glue to form a dark grey mix, place a small dob of the mix over the pinhole and allow to cure
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Thanks KMac and Rick, I was in the process of researching solutions; of course complete bellows replacement is the only true cure, but until then I can try these suggestions. I also heard something about Elmer's glue with pencil graphite mix, but I'm inclined to try these first.
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