A question for Tenax II users

Hia all,

<br>I have shot two rolls with my Zeiss Ikon Tenax II rangefinder and

encountered a problem with my images. The film gate of the camera

seems to be aligned that the exposed image is not correctly aligned in

the center of the film, but a little offset up or down. This means,

that with standard 35mm cassettes the image is partly on the film's edge.

<p>The camera is supposed to make square images, but with the picture

overlapping the perforation about one millimeter, I cannot get square

prints and lose some mage information.

<p>My question now is, is this a feature of the Tenax II, or do I make

a mistake while loading the film? Had 35mm cassettes a bit different

size in the 1930s? How can I shoot film that the negatives are

correctly positioned on the film to get the full square format?<div></div>

It's definitely not a "feature" of the Tenax II, but it's also probably not your mistake. I have 2 Tenax II's & each accepts modern 35mm cassettes without a problem. I don't have any negs/slides w/me, but I don't recall the images significantly crossing over into the sprocket area--if they do, it's just a little bit, like on a Contax II or TM Leica & always consistent (IIRC towards the bottom of the neg/slide). Sounds like you may be experiencing a mechanical issue w/the camera or the back, where the film cassette (&/or the spool) isn't seating properly. If you show some pictures maybe 1 of the more mechanically-minded forum members could spot the problem.

More pictures? Can't you see the one I uploaded? They all show about the same amount of perforation from the first frame to end of the roll.

Oh, and Christopher, how do I remove the lens? I don't have a manual and don't know how the lens mount works. I don't want to break anything by trying to force it (not that I have second lens, but still it could be useful for cleaning).

 

With the lens removed I could also check out whether the sprockets are in the film gate on the upper or lower edge. Maybe some padding could cure my problem then.

Sorry, by pictures I meant pictures of *the camera* w/its back removed.

To remove the lens, press down on the lens release (@ 12 o'clock when looking @ the front of the camera, to the right of the circular rotating RF prism on the lens & above & to the left of the shutter speed lever, see pix in Mike Elek's article here: http://elekm.net/zeiss/tenax_ii.html) & twist the lens clockwise (or is it counterclockwise? Again, I don't have my cameras w/me @ work).

Christopher, you might be on to something. If I recall correctly, the camera came without a take-up spool and I think I might have used one from my regular Tenax I camera (or maybe from a Kiev-3). So the take-up spool could be responsible for the misaligned framing.

 

I just labeled two of my take-up spools and inserted them into the Tenax II camera. The "Tenax II (?)" is the spool I used for my rolls (resulting in misaligned images), the "Kiev 4" is from a Kiev 4 camera. I guess it's hard to see, but the spools indeed differ a little bit in shape. So maybe the "Kiev 4" spool might fit better in this camera.<div></div>

I don't know much about Kiev spools. The spools from my Kiev 2 & 2a appear to be the same as my Contax II spools, which are, in turn, identical to the ones for all my pre-WWII Zeiss Ikon 35mm cameras (Tenax II, Nettax, Super Nettel, etc.).

 

Hope the spool change fixes your problem.