tin_ho

<p>C41 is a proprietary process by Kodak and Fujifilm. A standard C41 developer has 3 bottles of chemicals marked as part A, part B and part C. Then there is a bleach and a fix. At the end of processing then there is a stabilizer to be applied.</p>

<p>The only chemical in the C41 process that will go bad within a year or two after you get it from a store is the part C of the developer. Everything else will last many many more years with no worries. Part C is usually in a glass bottle tightly capped (but not sealed). Once its cap is unscrewed and opened it will go bad within 6 months or so. It will last about two years unopened. If the liquid has turned brown or black it has gone bad.<br>

<br />If the C41 kit you have has a developer that comes only in part A and B, and you have a blix. It tells that it is not a standard C41 kit. If your developer part A and B look clear, not brown, I think it is likely still good to use. My question would be if it will produce the right colors and if the colors will fade by using a 3rd party non standard C41 process. You did not mention a stabilizer. It is important to apply stabilizer or the colors will fade in a couple of weeks. The newest term Kodak uses is called Final Rinse. It does a similar thing as a stabilizer did before.</p>

<p>Tony, glad that you had found your way into fixing the camera. Did you take the chance to have a good look at the winding mechanism of your P67ii? It is a very impressive machine there. Whoever had doubt about the reliability of P67ii's winding mechanism should take a look. I think it will change his/her mind immediately.</p>

<p>It is not really surprising that the price of P67ii is holding up well. It is a great camera. I too should have grabbed a 2nd one when there were plenty of them back then. In stead, I acquired a total 10 lenses over the years. I really should have spent the money on a 2nd body. The lenses are much cheaper these days. </p>

<p>Sorry, I am 5 months late to respond. I have not visited this forum for a long time obviously.<br>

There is one more screw to unscrew. It is inside the battery compartment. Just remove the batteries from the right hand grip. Look into it at the bottom you will see the screw. Just unscrew it and the plastic cover will come off easily.</p>

<p>Once the plastic cover is removed just look for the shutter release magnet or solenoid right near the prism to the right of the rectangular finder window. There is nothing else to remove. You can unscrew two more screws that holds down the LCD panel if you want a better look at the solenoid.</p>

<p>I have helped someone else with an exact identical problem on his P67ii. He did the same Isopropyl Alcohol treatment and the problem was gone. It has been 2+ plus year after I did it on my P67ii and the problem never returned. So it is completely fixed.</p>

 

<p>I Have a Jobo ATL machine. For many years I under estimated how important it is to prewarm the film, the film reel and the tank before pouring the developer into the tank to start the development step. It wasn't too much of a problem if I only process one small roll of film. But whenever I process multiple rolls, especially 220 rolls, I had problems.</p>

<p>Until I tried double wet prewarm that was able to bring up the temperature inside the tank sufficiently so that the developer temperature wasn't cooled upon entering the tank. I realized that all my problems had been in a simple dry prewarm step that wasn't enough. I have since used wet prewarn and done it twice.<br>

<br />The wet prewarm does not seem to cause any problem in terms of slight dilution of the developer.</p>

<p>The interesting part of the image is the background blurring effect. It looks like an effect from a soft focus lens. Can it be shot by a P67 120mm soft focus lens?</p>

<p>My LiFe batteries are of 1100 mah. I have used non rechargeable CR123As for a few years. I had to keep a pair of it as spares all the time just in case. By the time the spares were used they never lasted as long as fresh ones did. I had one spare pair lasted only a few rolls of 220 and almost caught me unprepared. The most recent pair of Panasonic did not last too long either. So I looked for a solution with rechargeable CR123As. I found LiFe cells to be a great solution. <br>

Theoretically LiFe cells can be recharged over 2000 times and will last 10 years. I can always charge them the night before and never need to worry about dead batteries any more. They drain by itself very little, better than non rechargeable and rechargeable LI-Ion ones. </p>

<p>The rechargeable Lithium batteries I am using are not Li-Ion type batteries. They are LiFePO4 type of the size of CR-123A. Li-Ion's voltage is a little high (3.6 V). LiFePO4 is a little lower at 3.0 - 3.3 V, which is much similar to regular non rechargeable Lithium CR-123A. LiFePO4 is safer than Li-Ion batteries. They are unlikely to explode like Li-Ions.<br>

<br />I think P67-ii drains the batteries constantly even turned off. Unless you always remove the batteries when not in use they will be drained and you are likely to be caught by surprise when you suddenly run out of batteries. It has happened to me a couple of times, each time I happened to have spares with me. This was why I turned to rechargeable ones. LiFePO4 lituium batteries can be recharged 2000 times and will last about 10 years. </p>

<p>P67-ii uses 2 lithium CR-123 batteries. This battery if drops below 2.8 volt will be regarded by the camera as low battery and the camera stops working. I always keep a spare pair of it but this has turned out to be not an ideal solution as the battery drains over time although not rapidly but they could become low although not used but having been kept for too long.<br>

<br />My current solution is to get rechargeable Lithium Ion CR-123s and a recharger. Get 4 of the batteries. Use 2 and keep the other 2. But try to rotate and recharge every few months. The Lituium CR-123s do not suffer from memory problems and can be recharged any time without harm to them. Make sure you get those smart rechargers for the Lithium Ion CR-123 batteries. The smart rechanrger will stop charging when the batteries are full.<br>

<br />I just recharged a pair yesterday and they got to 4.2 volt when full. It drops to 3.8 an hour later. When put to use it will stabilize down to 3.4 volt I think. When it eventually drops below 2.8 the camera stops working.</p>

<p>Cut a piece of transparent acrylic plastic and grind one side of it circularly on fine sand paper. It makes a very good focus screen. It costs almost nothing but works well.</p>

<p>Current Kodak CEO was an executive at HP. He probably brought all the mismanagement skills from HP. The film business is Kodak's most important icon for Kodak. It can be one that doesn't make much money. But without it Kodak is no longer Kodak. He is selling Kodak's patents in digital technology too. It is just another unknown stardust in the sky soon to be gone. We will see Kodak turns itself into a commodity trader, selling imported junky made in Asia.</p>

<p>Gavin, you are exactly right. The problem is in the shutter magnet. I took apart the camera eventually. It wasn't difficult. When the winding mechanism was exposed I quickly concluded that the winding mechanism looked so sparkling new it could not be broken. I made a good observation and found that it was the winder lock that was supposed to be unlocked (reset to be more exactly) upon firing the shutter. I found that mine wasn't getting a correct reset sometimes and the winder would freeze.</p>

<p>I traced the mechanism to a tiny solenoid (shutter magnet) which looked like was supposed to pull a level that resets the winder lock when shutter was fired and the magnet was triggered. It failed to pull enough sometimes. I used a syringe with a blunt needle and dropped a tiny drop of isopropyl alcohol on the solenoid (the moving part of it not the coil) and it fixed it.</p>

<p>I guess all it needed was to have a drink. Not much but a tiny drop. I have not had a single problem with the winder since I did that 2 months or so ago. I had a good look at the winding mechanism by the way. It looked like new. I could not see any sign of a tired or worn winder. My P67-ii is about 10 years old. I believe the winder is a robust mechanism. If Pentax replaced your winder twice and your problem was confirmed to be the magnet issue you should ask Pentax USA refund for the false repair of the winder.</p>

<p>Many thanks to everyone who responded to this thread.</p>

<p>I own a Minolta MF scanner, the older version that scans at lower resolution. There is a trick to play with scanning. If your slide is slightly over exposed so that it is brighter and less saturated than supposed to be you can photoshop it by turning it darker for the middle tone. This will not only make the scan a little darker, as it should be, it will also increase the saturation of colors.</p>

<p>However, if the highlight is burnt out and the shadow is blocked there will be nothing can be done to change that. So I will have to experiment to shoot at ISO 50, 1/3, 1/2 stop or even one full stop slower to see which gets the best result. My Velvia 50 films is so old. Despite it has been stored in the freezer at all time it might have lost some speed. I have waited too long to dig it out from the freezer.</p>

<p>It's good to know that the film has a dynamic range of 4.5 stops. This gives me a good idea in using my in-camera center weighted metering to get a sense of the contrast range of the scene I am looking to take a shot. I should never attempt to capture a scene with both very bright highlight and dark shadow. It is probably not possible to exclude all scenes with a contrast range wider than 4.5 stops. I will keep in mind to allow small area of highlight and shadow if I want to take a shot still.</p>

<p>I will shoot at ISO 50 with +/- bracketing. The result from the first roll should point me to a direction whether I should rate it slower or not. I will need to dig out my ND graduate filters to put them to use. I have a few of them that I have had for decades and never put them to use.</p>

<p>Thanks for the fast replies. I will be back to report the result from my first test roll.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I am sure this is a very old question that has been asked many times before. Well, this forum has been fairly quiet recently. I hope this stirs up some activity here which hopefully will motivate film shooting among participants of this forum.</p>

<p>Half of my freezer is filled (really stuffed) with films. There was a lot of frozen ice (an old freezer) that really kept me from digging and finding films in there. I dug out some Velvia 50 (the old Velvia 50) that has been cold stored in the freezer for the past 6 years. They were expired 10 years ago. I believe they were cold stored before I bought them from Freestyle. The first roll I shot 6 years ago was all good. I cold stored the rest even since.</p>

<p>I think I better start using the rest of it before they become trash. I plan to load it in my Penatx 67-ii and shoot panoramic scenes. I will shoot with my Contax RTS-2 first and see how good (or bad) the film is. I know exposure will be critical for this film. All I need to do to bracket every shot and process it to see if the speed of the film has changed or not. But before I blindly start to shoot I hope to hear experiences of Velvia 50 shooters on this forum first. I pretty much shoot landscape only. My number one question is if sky takes up 1/3rd or so of the scene how should I meter? I do want the sky to be blue (not blown out to white) and if there are clouds I do want blue sky and white cloud while the ground is still colorful (not blocked). Is this too much to ask? I like to shoot on sunny days to get all the dynamics of density and colors. I will avoid super sunny days of course. But I can't control the weather. I will probably shoot in any weather condition as long as it is suitable for outdoor activity.</p>

<p>I really do not have much experience with Velvia 50 and I have quite some of it in my freezer still. I hope to hear your suggestions. Thanks a lot.</p>

<p>Thanks, Steve, for the great tip. I did have done a very thorough observation of the symptom. I have tried to wind slowly and I make sure the winding lever reaches the end and stays there for a brief moment before releasing it. I acquired a copy of the service manual a while back and I am able to take the plastic top beneath the winding lever off. It gives me a clear view of the winding mechanism. It looks like new (my 67-ii is only about 10 years old) and very clean. Unfortunately I have to put the top back on in order to fire the shutter. So I can't see it in action so I can't see what it is that causes the winder to jam. It is not really a jam. It just refuses to wind as if it were already wound. I have a feeling that it may be shutter related. Firing the shutter should reset the winder to allow it to wind again. Somehow something is stuck and the winder is not reset. If I repeatedly try to wind (without forcing it) it will suddenly resets it and it will work just fine again.</p>

<p>I hope it is just a CLA job. The camera is only moderately used and is not abused. It is very clean inside. I can't believe that it needs a CLA already. Other than this problem the 67-ii is a fantastic camera. I love its AE prism. It is the reason I chose p67-ii.</p>

<p>I got a Pentax 67-ii that has developed a symptom that the film winder lever would get stuck intermittently. It usually can recover by itself after repeated attempt to wind without forcing it. It happens about once or twice for every roll of film I shot. It is driving me nuts. Because it is intermittent I am reluctant to send it out for repair. I have hoped that it would cure by itself over time. But it hasn't for about 5 years now.</p>

<p>I posted a message last year regarding this problem but have not received much helpful info. Recently I bought a copy of the 67-ii service manual. It is a useless service manual other than showing some drawings and very hard to follow sequence of taking things apart and reassemble. If you are not a trained tech you will break the camera if you attempt to follow it to repair the camera.</p>

<p>I was able to take the film crank off and remove the plastic top beneath it. It looks to me that the winder looks good. I can't really observe how it works because I had to replace the cover in order to fire the shutter to recreate the problem. But I am convinced that the winder is not broken. It must have something to do with the shutter closing that releases the winder for winding the next frame. It appears to me that it will be a difficult repair even for trained tech.</p>

<p>Has anyone had this problem and has been able to have it fixed? I would like to hear from those who had the problem and had it fixed. Thanks.</p>

<p>After almost one year bearing with the problem I bought a copy of the service manual. I just wanted to take the film crank off and uncover the plastic top under the crank and see if I can get a clue of what the problem is. The service manual provides enough info on how to take the film crank off and remove the plastic top on the right side of the p67-II. It reveals the delicate and very complicated film advance mechanism. Up to this point it was easy.</p>

<p>After playing with the plastic cover off I realized that it is really just an adjustment that is needed. It is not a film advance mechanism problem at all. There is no dirt inside as I once suspected. Everything is very clean inside. It has nothing to do with how fast or slow I crank the level to wind the film. It has nothing to do with worn gears or adjustment of the gears, etc. It is not in the winding mechanism in fact. Nothing is stuck or jammed.</p>

<p>It is a problem in how the winding mechanism is reset after the shutter is fired. When the shutter is fired and at the end of the shutter open and close it is supposed to move a level that moves another spring loaded level which unlocks the winding mechanism so that you can wind the film again. Somehow the first level did not move far enough to push the 2nd level far enough to release the latch of the winding mechanism. A slight push with a small screw driver tip is all I did and the lock of the winding mechanism is freed up and ready to wind again. I recreated the problem again and again and the same slight push of the level made it work every time.</p>

<p>I believe all it needs is a small adjustment that ensures the level is moved far enough. I can't see what moves the level. It is probably linked to the shutter somewhere deep inside. It may be just a little bit of lubrication. I see no reason for me to trying to do it myself beyond this. I am going to have to send it out.</p>

<p>If you have this problem too you now know that it is not a problem with the winding mechanism. The P67-II winding mechanism looks great. It is just a level that reaches the latch in the winder that did not move far enough. The level is not stuck. It moves freely. I could not see it move when firing the shutter. I could only fire the shutter with the cover back on.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Every time it happened it was a 220 film in my 67II. Well, I shot 220 most of the time. It may be a lubrication problem. I bought mine used but it was a 2003 model and I bought it in 2004. It started to have this problem about 3 years ago. In the past 3 years if I paid attention to winding the film it rarely occurred. If I was in a fast pace and forgot to wind at a slower pace it caught on me. For the last roll of 220 I wound carefully for each frame and there was not a single incidence. The roll prior to that on the same day same place I did not pay attention to it and it caught on me several times.</p>

<p>I hope it is not a more serious problem developing.</p>

<p>My 7 year old Pentax 67II has developed the symptom of stuck film advance mechanism. I have seen a few reports of this problem on various forums. The crank would suddenly jam after releasing the shutter and you are ready to advance to the next frame. This could happen in loading a new roll of film. When you are advancing the paper leader to the first frame it would suddenly refuse to advance and got stuck. This happens when there is a roll of film in there. Without film it never jammed.</p>

<p>Each time this happened I could repeat the cranking action but not forcing it and within a dozen or so of repeated cranking action suddenly the jam would go away and I could advance the film. Everything would work perfectly for a few frames then it could happen again and I had to keep cranking until the jam went away.</p>

<p>Because it always went away so I never seriously look into it. But on last weekend when it happened again I decided to make an effort to observe what was really going on and why it would go away by itself. I think I fund something interesting. I do not know why the problem would go away after repeated cranking (without forcing it). But I found a way to prevent it from happening.</p>

<p>I found that when I cranked the advance level I must crank the level to the end by hitting the stop a little harder and keep the level there for a split second before letting it go. This seem has effectively eliminated the intermittent jam for one 220 roll. Before that on another 220 roll I cranked fast and the advance level would only touch the stop lightly and it was let go quickly. This caused the jam to occur 4 or 5 times throughout shooting the roll of 220 film.</p>

<p>A roll of 220 film in a 67II is a bit heavy for the advance level. I think there is something in the film advance mechanism that requires the evel to really travel all the way to the end and stop there for a split second. P67II gives 21 frames out of a 220 roll. The frame spacing can be as narrow as 3 - 5 mm wide only. I believe this demands the film advance level to be super sensitive to make sure the level is cranked all the way to the stop point. If you let go the level too fast it causes the mechanism to jam for the next frame.<br>

I am pretty sure this is what my 67II behaves.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Congrats. Never thought the lens is so easy to service. The focus alignment is tough. It does take many rounds to get it right. I have two Contax 50mm f1.4 lenses that need service but I have not been able to figure out how to take them apart. I bought one of them new and the other used. One developed oily aperture blades and eventually got stuck open. The other has problems with the aperture assembly too. It is about to fall apart. Contax glasses are indeed superior. But the Keyocera manufacturing really sucked. Both of them were made in Japan by Keyocera (Yashica).</p>

<p>I unscrewed all 8 screws and the entire assembly of front/rear groups of glass with the aperture mechanism in the middle was lifted out. The outer shelf is essentially a helicoid now. Juan, if you can get to this point I think you should be able to work on it and fix the problem you have.</p>

<p>I was able to proceed to remove both the front and rear groups of glass by unscrewing them out of the aperture assembly in the middle. I could see that all the fungus apparently grew on the glass surfaces immediately facing both sides of the aperture blades. This was easily cleaned by spraying some thin film cleaner that I have on hand and wiping with a microfiber cloth. After reassembling everything back together the lens looks like new again. This lens is indeed the easiest one to work on.</p>

<p>This thread made me take my SRT101 out and sure it has the same 50mm 1.4 MC Rokkor-PG lens on it. This lens, however, has some fungus growing inside. Other than that the camera and the lens look to be in like new condition. Now that it is said to be easy to take it apart I tried it.</p>

<p>I am able to unscrew the name ring counter clockwise out of the front of the lens. I can see 2 groups of small screws (4 each group) inside that seem to be holding the front group of glass in the barrel. Before I proceed am I correct to assume that the front group of glass can be removed by unscrewing 4 of the screws? Another 4 look like being there for holding something else.</p>

<p>I believe I only need to remove the front group of glass to get to the inner surface to clean up the fungus. The damage by the fungus may not be reversible now but at leat it can be cleaned up as much as possible. Any suggestions? I will proceed tomorrow.</p>

<p>The chemical supply tanks have two hoses attached to each of the tanks. One of the two is pressurized air (when the pump is pumping). The other is for the chemical to be pumped out of the tank to feed the processing tank. You can remove both hoses and connect them to your own tank. The pump never touches any chemicals. It only pumps air. The amount of chemical it pumps out depends on the time the pump is turned on. Keep in mind that the processor is microprocessor controlled. You have to hack it to cheat the microprocessor if you don't want the processor gets involved in handling your own chemical tanks.</p>

<p>It's the top dog in the game and they can demand whatever they want. For over 20 years it has been in my mind to get one. I just could not justify to have to pay a few hundreds for a filter after getting a body with a back and a lens. It might be the best quality filter in the game too but a $50 one would not be much less quality behind. I ended up trying out with a Yashica D, a Rolleiflex and a Mamiya C330. I was never really satisfied with the square format because each time I print I had to trim to fit the paper. I had long put that idea behind me. I am now very happily stick to a Pentax 67-II. It's nowhere near to be a top dog so it was much cheaper.</p>

<p>It's funny that in several occasions when I showed up in weddings with my P67-II it made the pro who was hired really nervous. I had to tell the guy not to worry that I would not shoot when he was shooting.</p>

<p>My P67II ran into this same winding problem about a year and a half ago. I believe it was caused by dust getting into the winding mechanism. Not sure if my problem was exactly the same as everyone's. What happened to mine was after firing the shutter the winding mechanism was supposed to be reset (or whatever it is called) to a state that you could wind again for another frame. But this reset appeared did not happen. So the camera would appear to be locked up and you could not advance the film.</p>

<p>Well, each time it happened I tapped the advance level by my index finger repeatedly for a while. Or I would wiggle the advance level back and forth (with little force though) repeatedly. This of course only allowed me to move only about half a centimemter because the level was basically still locked. But after half a minute or so of tapping and wiggling the advance level the winding level would eventually unlocked itself and I could wind the film for another shot again. Usually it happened only once and I could finish the roll. But it would keep coming back in the near future or even in the next roll and you really can not predict how soon it would be back.</p>

<p>For some reason it stopped doing it after the summer. I have almost forgotten about it because it simply did not occur again. I now believe that it is probably a problem caused by dusts getting into the camera. I hike with my P67II all the time. The camera was usually covered with quite some dusts on the body and lens when I got home. The problem had gone away with no hint whatsoever just like the way it started. I don't think I will send the camera to service until it is locked up solid. Right now it just works wonderfully.</p>