yellowpascal

Thanks for all the advice!

Seems like from the comments the light leak from the sides of mirror is normal. I think I will take this to a camera repair store and see how much it will cost to replace the shutter curtain. If it's too expensive, I'll do more experiments with a roll of film to diagnose where the light leak is originating. I might have to just cap the lens every time I advance the film hahah.

I bought my FE in the year Nikon introduced it, namely 1978, and I still own it today. Nikon replaced it with the FE2 in 1983. Unless it is valuable to you due to sentimental reasons, a film camera that old is probably not worth fixing. You are better off buying another film camera.

 

I sold my FE2 years ago but I am keeping the FE since it was my very first Nikon body, after a Nikkormat.

Unfortunately, I think I've gotten attached to this camera... hahaha. I would like to fix it if possible! :)

The light leak can be dealt with, as mentioned, but the shutter issue sounds serious to me too.

 

Unfortunately also, a lot of the big independent shops seem to be gone. I might be tempted to try KEH's repair department.

 

If it would help a repair tech, I have an FE that is tight and the shutter works fine(at least on M90) but has a dead short in the electronics. I haven't pursued repairing it, but the shutter assembly might help your camera. Of course, the FE was common enough(and from what I understand the electronics did sometimes fail like mine) that a repair shop might have their own boneyard from which to salvage. None the less, if it will help you, PM me and it's yours for the cost of shipping.

Thanks for the offer! I may PM you if that is a path I have to go down!

The light leak emit out (upward direction) of shutter curtain aligned to white dotted line. This shutter curtain appears as I am advancing the film lever and the curtain is moving down.

Is the gap on the curtain too large? Is there any manual fix besides replacing the shutter?

Thanks for all the replies!

The rim that the mirror sets on when open has foam just like the door. It needs to be replaced. The issue with the shutter is more disturbing in my view. That seems to indicate that parts of the shutter are simply worn allowing enough play for them to open up. You might need to have the shutter replaced.

The foam in the front of the mirror is new but do I need to add foam to the sides too? Not sure exactly where to put it...

The light leak looks like this:

FRONT VIEW

BACK VIEW

Maybe the foam on the mirror is too thick? It seems to me the only place where I can put foam on the sides would be when the focus screen is down but it doesn't seem like foam is supposed to go there and I haven't seen other light sealing guides mention any other areas.

My Father-in-law has a Nikon FE that I've been using recently. I noticed that it had some light leaks so I had the foam seals around the door replaced but that didn't solved the light leak issue. Today, I took a bright flash light and pointed it directly through the lens and viewfinder and I found two issues.

1. Shutter curtain allows a little bit of light when the curtain moves down while advancing to the next film.

2. Light from the viewfinder enter from around the sides of the mirror when it is flipped up, i.e during exposing.

Do any of you have advice or know any resources on how to fix the shutter curtain and mirror? I'm ok with spending more than the camera's worth on repairs since this is my in-law's and they had this camera for over 30 years.

I performed these tests in a dark room in a film changing bag with black electrical tape sealing the connection between the flash light and the lens and viewfinder.

Here are some examples of the light leak.

White haze in the middle

Haze on the right side