Tuesday 30 September 2014

Vintage Bonanza


I've mentioned a time or two that the one gaping hole in my partially functional darkroom has been an enlarger I lacked. Online auctions may be great for cameras and lenses and such, but shipping charges alone would exceed the budget I could allow for an enlarger no matter what sort of bargain I might be able to find. A search through the local online classifieds turned up slim pickings, usually a lot here and there of unspecified darkroom "stuff" that might include a rickety entry-level 35mm enlarger, but I figured if I waited long enough something would eventually turn up. A few days ago it did. 

The ad seemed much like all the others, just a complete darkroom setup, no photos, no list, contact for details. I don't even know what prompted me to inquire, but the next day the news from the seller arrived in my inbox that the lot included a Durst M601 enlarger, a model that would afford the near perfect balance between capability (it won't quite handle the full 6x7 frame of my RB, but heck, I usually crop square anyway) and size in the teeny darkroom space I have. That was all I needed to know. Apparently some other stuff was included too.


My primary target, The Durst M601, in its new still very unfinished home.  

The lot had been kept in a blue storage trunk (included) of sufficient size to contain a medium sized adult provided they were willing to endure physical discomforts exceeding those experienced by coach passengers. Inside was the enlarger which was in fine condition excepting for a portion of the gear teeth on column rail which create a dead spot at a certain height when cranking the head up and down. It included a 50mm and a 75mm Schneider lens which I'd say is at the high end of reasonable expectations. Then there was the expected - the obligatory trio of 8x10 developing trays, safe-light (though there were two of these), film tanks (though there were three of these), printing easel and a packet of D-76 powder. 

Then a few unexpected items began to emerge. First was the print dryer, not the most common darkroom item to be found but a sweet bonus for any printer who, like me, loves the look of a print on premium fiber based paper but the tendency to curl up into a cylinder not so much. 

Even before the digital age I wonder how many photographers would have known what this thing even is.

Then the film started to appear. At first it was the four bright yellow boxes, rolls of Kodak Plus X, a film that perhaps I didn't show enough appreciation for before it was discontinued a few years ago and had been hoping for one last chance to use. These rolls were hardly end of the line though; the freshest of the four had expired int 1982. This was followed by a larger yellow box, a 100ft bulk roll of the same stuff (develop by 09/79), a round metal tin bearing the old Ilford sunburst logo containing 100ft of FP4. (FP4 Plus is one of the films I use today, but this stuff is the nonplussed version.) Finally there was an even larger round metal tin of the sort that looks like it contains a movie reel. (And I suspect it well might, we'll find out when we get it open in the dark.) This contains 1000' of Ilford Mark V, a cinematic film I've never heard of. It's 35mm like all the rest of it though, we'll just have to experiment a bit to figure out how to use it to best advantage. All told then that's 1200 feet of film not including the bit that's in one of the bulk film loaders. (Did I mention there were also two bulk film loaders? Sorry. There were also two bulk film loaders.) That's over 1/3 of a kilometre of 35mm film. If it's any good after all those decades my Nikons just might feel loved again. 

Large format isn't totally neglected though. There was also a box, apparently of similar vintage, of FP4 in 4-3/4" x 6-1/2" sheets, so now I just need to pick up a few 4-3/4" x 6-1/2" film holders and I'm off to the races. They carry those at Walmart I think.

Just the perfect size to fall right out of a 5x7 film holder.
Along the way there had been paper. Ilfobrom paper, Panalure F paper, Kentmere paper, pretty much all of it 8x10. Down at the bottom though, the very bottom there was a garbage bag of something resting in what turned out to be three 16.x20 trays nested togther. In the garbage bag was of course 16x20 paper. 


This isn't even all of it. The question is what am I going to do with it? How am I supposed to print on this stuff? My darkroom is a glorified closet.

Wednesday 24 September 2014


At long last we've started to hit pay dirt. This is a test exposure from the 8x10 pinhole camera which, although it reveals a few issues mostly related to handling sheets of the x-ray film I used, shows that we're really in business now.

What we're looking at is from a scan of a contact print made on Ilford Multigrade RC paper using a make-shift contact printing frame that consisted of a piece of 11x14 picture frame glass, taped along the edges and laid over a left-over sheet of the black felt used in the build. The long white scratch towards the top middle is actually a scratch in the glass I didn't notice at first or I would have chosen a different piece. The black mark in the lower right corner is a fingerprint. Though I handle the unprocessed film with surgical gloves I was having a time of it getting the exposed sheet out of the film holder that way and taking off the glove seemed less risky than continuing to struggle glove on and risking even more damage.

I knew going in that developing the film would be a challenge. Unlike more conventional film if the surface of the unprocessed emulsion is touched it will be permanently visible in the developed negative. To make matters worse the emulsion is coated on both sides front and back so there's no part that's safe to touch. Further, the emulsion is soft, especially when wet, and scratches (both sides) very easily in the development process. At nearly 1/10th the price of conventional 8x10 film though I'm willing to put up with a few challenges. It even has the advantage of being okay to handle under safelights. Handling film in total darkness has become so instinctive that I found I had to keep reminding myself that it was okay.

The preferred method of processing sheets of x-ray film is to put them in stainless steal hangers and processing in vertical tanks. These are hard to find these days and can be a fairly expensive proposition. The most popular way to process large format film generally is to use trays and develop them in much the same way print on photo paper are processed. With delicate x-ray emulsions however it's a virtual guarantee this will result in scratches, mainly from the ridges found in conventional processing trays. Some x-ray film users get around this by using flat-bottomed trays. The ridges are there for a reason though; it's easy for sheets of paper or film to get stuck to the bottom and with no way to work your fingers underneath you may have a time of it getting them out.

In the various forums where thing like photography using x-ray film is discussed I had heard of another method, processing in zippered freezer bags. A sheet of 8x10 film fits just right in a standard large size freezer bag. You can pour chemicals in, zip the top up and do almost anything you want with the sealed bag. I decided to try this. Unfortunately none of the people who mentioned this method went into much detail about how to implement it.

So began the learning curve. For my test shots I drove down the road to the International Railway Bridge between Fort Erie and Buffalo NY and made two exposures. I actually got three negatives as I had accidentally loaded one side with two sheet stuck together and the film is actually transparent enough that there was an image on the sheet underneath. This method requires processing one sheet at a time and I had three to practice with. I spent the first two (the two that were stacked) to learn that having a separate bag for developer stop and fix was not the way to go. The third image, this one, was processed by putting the film into a dry bag, filling it with developer which I poured out into the developer tray when finished, pouring the stop bath into the same bag and dumping it into the stop tray when finished and so on. After fixing I simply filled the bag with wash water, let it sit a few minutes with a bit of agitation and going through several changes of water like this before hanging to dry. This has the added benefit of washing the interior of the bag. I figure each one should be good for a few sheets of film.

I believe the major weakness with this method is visible in the odd density variation seen towards the lower left. Getting the bag closed after pouring a new liquid in can be a challenge. I got the kind that you can feel teeth meshing to confirm you have a good seal, but it can sometimes take a few tries under dim red lights to get both sides lined up properly and all the while the film is sitting only partially submerged in the chemistry. It also tends to float up and get in the way of closure so the operation is further complicated by the need to hold it down. I think what happened here is that the film was too close to the seal and even though it wasn't in the way of the seal it got pinched up there limiting the flow of developer around it. I found it useful to use only enough chemistry to keep the film easily submerged once the bag was laid on its side - about 500-600 mL. More than this made it harder to close the bag and increased the tendency of the film to float up. With a bit of experience I might be able to get reliable results with this method. If not I'll try something else. With a bit of luck maybe the chance to get my hands on some 8x10 film holders may come along.

A final note, getting back to the camera itself, I have given it one of the updates I talked about before. While making the test shot went fairly smoothly it was evident the camera would benefit from a better plan for the shutter than to literally use my hat so this was priority number one.



The idea of keeping the pinhole covered with a simple magnetic sheet, the kind typically used for refrigerator magnets, is so simple I can't believe I hadn't run across it before. All that's needed is a steel washer surrounding the pinhole opening. I thought I would need to replace the aluminium one I had used before this plan occurred to me, but a serendipitous find in one of my boxes of odds and ends turned up a large convexly curved steel washer that fit right over the existing setup. I epoxied everything in place since I didn't want screw heads jutting above the surface and even the large washer seems too thin to counter-sink. I have a large sheet of this magnetic material with peel away adhesive backing, left over surplus from the old family business, that I used to make the  custom magnet in the above photo, but just about any old fridge magnet would do for this. They have enough hold to keep the pinhole securely covered until everything is ready to make the exposure but not so much to worry about jarring the camera when it is pulled away to start the exposure. To end the exposure simply slap it back in place. What could be simpler?




Monday 22 September 2014

Nearly There

This blog has only been going a few months so I'd be kidding myself to think anyone out there is waiting with bated breath for my next post, but if anyone's noticed it's been a while since the last one hopefully you've guessed the 8x10 pinhole project I've been writing about has been eating most of my free time. I'm happy to report though that things are nearly finished. There's just a few finishing details to worry about but as things stand now it's ready to begin testing. Here's how things have panned out since last time...


Here is how I solved the problem of attaching the cone portion to the rest of the camera. Those are elastic bands, the short thick ones grocery stores use to bunch vegetables. Standard office supply elastics, and other things I tried such as hair bands, just didn't have enough pull. Inside the cone they are wrapped around mirror hangers which are hard to see here since I painted them black. Inside the camera portion they attach to upholstery tacks I didn't drive in all the way. 

After considering a number of fancier options including leaf springs and rare-earth magnets I settled on these simple latches to keep the film holder in place. I wasn't able to find anything by way of ready-made hardware that was suitable for this, but by luck I had a just-right-sized strip of maple in the off-cuts from making the body which in the end is probably better.

I used the plug from a hole cutter as the disk for the tripod socket and after enlarging the central hole pressed in a threaded insert with a bench vice. It was painted black with the spray on Plasti-Dip I used to make the fiberglass cone on my 4x5 project light proof. It's sort of rubbery and you can see a layer sort of peeling off here from the friction of tightening then removing the the tripod quick release plate.  

Here's what it looks like from the business end. There is no shutter at all at this point and I should actually be able to get away without one. Since the film stays in a light tight (I hope) film holder there's no need to keep light from getting in until the dark slide is ready to be pulled. A hat or a dark card over the pinhole should make a serviceable shutter in the short span between pulling and replacing the dark slide. My concern is that the 8x10 dark slides sometime need a bit of coaxing to slide through their groove in the film holders and I may want two hands available for this. It occurred to me too late that a refrigerator magnet would cover the pinhole opening hands free if only I hadn't made that black retaining ring you see from non-magnetic aluminium. Oh well, should be an easy fix. 
I received a box of 8x10 x-ray film about a week ago, so whenever I get the time I should be able to take it for a few test shots. That's not to say I'm done, but barring light leaks or other unexpected issues it' now a functional camera. Finishing touches I'm planning include:

  • Some aesthetic finishing touches, especially around the front "standard"
  • Swapping out the retaining ring in the front for one made from a ferric metal to allow for my fridge magnet shutter idea
    (Am I the only one who wonders why there's a 'd' in fridge, but not in refrigerator?)
  • Adding a second tripod socket to the short side to allow for verticals
  • A detachable viewfinder
  • Built in spirit levels

Hopefully I'll have results to show soon. As always I'll keep you posted.


Saturday 13 September 2014

The Straight Goods

The image below is from a 35mm slide I ran across today while looking for something else. It's a shot of my two kids (they're 15 and 13 now) that was always a favorite of mine so I thought I would give it a fresh scan now that I have better equipment.

Nikon F80 shot on Ektachrome Elite 200
It's long way from the kind of creative black and white work you'll usually find me writing about here, but the process of getting it to the hard drive gave me a bit of a pause for thought, so if you were expecting more moody monochrome bear with me a bit here. Based on their age here this shot was probably taken just before I got my first DSLR. In the years that followed there were of course many more photos of these two taken digitally. Whenever I identified one of those shots the process was invariably the same - bring it up in Photoshop and subject it to every improvement I could think of until I was satisfied there was no more. As I prefer to scan a bit soft and adjust the contrast later I likewise brought this up in Photoshop for a few rather minor contrast tweaks once the scanner was done with its work. So here I was in a familiar situation from years past. I started looking it over the way I used to, asking those same questions - What do I need to do with the saturation, a bluer bucket, a pinker bathing suit? Noise filtering to reduce grain? Some selective sharpening maybe? Unlike before though the answer to all of these questions was different. Now it was no, no, no and no. None of those things would contribute to what makes this shot work for me or why I like it. they just seem like distractions. Some tiny movements with the levels sliders and a slight crop where the scan picked up a bit of the film margin and I was done. 

It was time to save the result into a folder full of images of the kids around this age, most of which were done with DSLRs. Among them were a few like this one:

A shot with the Nikon D70s
It's a product of that old process of employing every trick I knew that seemed to apply, making every improvement I could think of (I'm really tempted to put that word improvement in quotes) so that the image should in theory be as good as I could possibly make it. And yeah, it's gawd awful. Did I really think this looked good at one point? Did it not occur to me that what I wound up with after putting in the work was worse than what I started with? They're not all this bad of course, but going through this folder a disturbing number of them bear similar hallmarks of my efforts to improve them. 

Don't mistake this for a comparison between film and digital images. I'm sure if I started over from the RAW files I could get equally natural results by taking a similar approach to the Ektachome scan. It's not even about tweaks and manipulations per-se as sometimes heavy-handed dodging and burning operations (either in the darkroom or the Photoshop equivalent) have always been standard practice with my monochrome work and I've never objected to it in the work of others if well done. I'm sure it' me that has changed. I just have to wonder what's behind the change. It could be just a maturity thing I suppose, but I have to wonder at the fact that this kind of thing only started to bother me after I had distanced myself from digital photography for a while. 

Thursday 11 September 2014

Seconds and Sleepers


With the 8x10 project eating up much of my free time I haven't been doing a lot of shooting this week. Actually aside from documenting the project I really haven't done any. Tonight as I wait for the next coat of urethane to dry it occurs to me that there are a lot of photos taken over this summer passed (or almost passed at any rate) that haven't received the attention they deserve. Usually I'm all over it the moment the negatives are dry enough to get on the scanner, but for one reason or another a few deserving shots get no more than a preliminary low-res scan (soon to be replaced by an actual contact sheet, but more about that another day) then languish in a negative sleeve tucked away in a binder on my shelf.

Most often this happens when I get infatuated with another shot on the same roll. Such was the case with the photo above of my son Brennan looking... well I'm not sure how he looks to you but he was really just bored. (Teenagers, what  do you expect?) It's a nice composition and I just love the sky here. It happened to be taken on the same roll of film on which one of my favourite exposures from this past summer was on. And so it was that it sat virtually unnoticed for nearly two months, and might have sat even longer if I'd been careful to buy a faster drying wood finish.


This one sat even longer before I really took much notice of it. It was taken one wonderfully foggy morning last spring. I went through several rolls that morning alone and spent the rest of the day developing film. Unsurprisingly there were many keepers from that lot. If I was granted the power to control the weather for one hour while I was out with a camera you can bet I'd make it foggy.

I liked this shot back then, enough to have made a good scan of it, but it didn't find a spot among the half dozen or so from that day I became keen to share. It was a bit of a sleeper. Maybe I needed to live with it a while. Or maybe I just needed enough time to pass that I could regard it as a singular image rather than in the context of one of the shots I took that morning. Whatever it was, it was just last week that I stopped on this image while looking for something else and asked myself why this one has never made its way into the wider world. Granted, at this point this means no more for me than an inclusion in my Flickr gallery, a post on Tumblr, and now a mention here. Due in part to a few spots of bad luck I'm still not in a position to make any kind of print, at least any kind that would be worth showing. Things are again moving on that front however. I hope to again have the capacity for making prints, real silver gelatin darkroom prints, over the next few months. I wonder how that will change things. Making a good print is a bigger commitment than posting a scanned negative somewhere. It will probably be even harder for these seconds and sleepers to make it on to the printing easel. On the other hand the internet is still there and it will remain just as easy to get them out into the world in their electronic incarnation. There are worse fates a good image can suffer I suppose.

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Plugging Along - The 8x10 Pinhole Project.

In the September 4th post I had just gotten underway with a new project to build an 8x10 pinhole camera, having just received the film holders. Since then things have been progressing quite well, at least so far. As you were probably able to surmise if you read the first post I'm not one for starting out with an exact set of blueprints and trying to proceed in accordance with a set plan. I've done things like this enough times to know that along the way the need will probably arise to make allowances for things that didn't quite come out as expected and for new better ideas that only suggest themselves as the thing begins to take shape.Even if I had started with a clear plan it'd have been tossed by now.

The design I had in mind at the outset is based on the design of the 4x5 pinhole camera I made as a warm up project which itself was based on a completely original combination of design ideas I'd stolen from others. Rather than making a straight box my camera designs incorporate a cone out front like the Ilford-Harman Titan models, allowing front ends to be swapped out like lenses while keeping the weight down considerably. This last is particularly important with the 8x10 project as I'd say something the weight of a traditional solid box design would require a heavier tripod than I currently own.

The following sequence of photos should give you an idea of how thing have gone so far.

Here are the trapezoid pieces that form the sides of the cone cut from 1/4" plywood. As I suggested last time I did forego fibreglass construction used with the 4x5 cone. Working with the stuff was just too much hassle. Connecting the pieces to form the sides of the cone was as easy as Gorilla gluing the seams with masking tape to hold the pieces in place until everything was set. You can see the box that forms the main body of the camera in behind by the way. Since the Sept. 4 post they were glued up in a framing clamp and secured with L-brackets just as I'd planned. I may try fancier joinery someday. Maybe.
  

Once it was all a single piece I cut out a cover for it from a sheet of vinyl cloth from the local fabric store. I believe this stuff is intended for upholstery projects, The photo above shows the cloth covering on the back. The front is a burgundy colour. The pattern may seem familiar if you've ever looked into how bellows are made. 


The inside is lined with black felt. Normally of course a coat or two of black paint would do, but my current plans involve using the ends of the cloth to hold the cone to the rest of the camera from the inside, probably with Velcro. It remains to be seen how well this idea will work out, but even if it doesn't fly I have to say the inside seems much blacker than any paint would have rendered it. 


I capped it off with another piece of 1/4" ply covered with a maple veneer to match the maple body. Actually it doesn't seem to match as well as I'd hoped but maybe once everything is finished the difference won't be noticeable. Here at last you can see the burgundy exterior of the vinyl though it's in need of a good clean here. 

Inside the box is a bit of a ledge where it mates to the cone. The pieces are actually the leftover strips from cutting the slot on the back that the film holder slides into. Owing to the fact that I botched one of the sides early in the game, forcing me to cut another, I was left with enough to go all the way around the inside. 


And finally here it how the whole thing looks as of this writing.

To finish it obviously I'll need to add the pinhole. The box will need to be urethaned and painted black inside. Felt strips on the back surfaces that contact the film holder will serve a light seals. I'll need to create some means to secure the cone to the body which, as I said, will probably involve Velcro unless there are unanticipated problems with that. I'll have to add a tripod socket, which can be as easy as putting a t-nut in place but maybe I'll come up with something more elegant. Finally something has to hold the film holder in place on the back and allow it to be released. In the 4x5 version this involved Velcro straps but I'm thinking of changing this up too. Velcro strips seem like an affront the natural wood finish. I'm thinking of adding a vertical bar that can be tightened or loosened with something like thumbscrews or wing nuts. As always I'll keep you posted. 

Sunday 7 September 2014

Subtle

Have a look at this photograph...



This is the last exposure made on a roll I shot a week and a half ago or so. It's a crumbling wall that served some unknown purpose as part of the old Erie Beach Amusement Park which ceased operations in 1930, a five minute drive from my home in Fort Erie, Canada. I've photographed it many times, so many that I really hesitate to do any more images of it unless I can really find some new approach to it. I feel almost guilty for when I shoot this, the subject is just too easy, too obvious.

On this particular morning I found myself wandering this well-trodden shore doing my best to record on film that sense of understated calm that hung in the air. Having fired off nine of the ten exposures my camera yields on a roll of 120 film I thought it might be worth a go to do one more of the old wall. If nothing else it I would finish the roll. It was as good a subject as any that morning and it would be the first time I'd be taking this approach to the subject using my recently acquired 50mm Sekor C lens (equivalent to about a 25mm lens on a 35mm camera). I was mildly impressed with my decision when I looked through the viewfinder. It doesn't quite capture the feel I was going for, but it's not bad. I like the shot. I don't love it.

As I was removing the spent roll and loading a new one in I thought of a few tweaks I could make in my approach to the shot. The camera was still on the tripod, unmoved. I wondered if using a red contrast filter (see the previous post) might alter the appearance of the sky. I may have closed the aperture down another stop for more depth of field but I can't remember for sure. After adjusting the shutter speed two or three stops to compensate (to maybe 1/8th or 1/4 second I think) I took another exposure to start off the new roll which languished in the camera for about another week or so after the photo above was developed.

Have a look at that photograph...


Does it strike you as being all that different?

I remember being drawn in close to the screen as the image came up from the scanner. Without the first photograph right there to compare it to it seemed to be for all intents and purposes the exact same shot, yet even then, before the careful contrast tweaks and local adjustments it was clear that, to me at least, that this photograph had a quality the first one lacked. It was immediate, a felt thing. Not only does it seem to have captured the sense of atmosphere present that morning, I'd almost say it accentuates it. This shot is a hit.

Only when I drew them up side by side did I realize the most obvious difference between the two shots is in the texture of the water. It was more of a difference than I would have expected. In the past I have been surprised at how little shutter speeds as low as 1/4 second have had on the apparent texture of water like this. Certainly there would be some difference, but I have to wonder if some other change was partly responsible for this like an un-noticed change in the breeze.

Whatever the cause of the difference the more interesting question to me is why this change should so drastically change the impact these two photographs have on me. The texture of the water in the first shot after all seems like an interesting detail. Looking at that image alone I don't think I would ever think to pin that as something that diminishes the effectiveness of the photograph. The water in both images could be described as calm.

The first thing that strikes me is that the sense of distance in the second exposure is a little more ambiguous. It's possible to imagine the wall extends further into the distance which is why this image seems more mysterious and more lonely. I believe this may be because the ripples on the surface of the water in the other shot provide more of a sense of scale, in this case revealing too much.

The second thing I notice is that while there is a contrast in texture between water and the hard grittiness of the concrete wall, it is not as great in the first image. In the second photograph the almost misty surface of the lake (you might see it as an ocean if you didn't know) provides the perfect foil for the crumbling wall, isolating it further, heightening those said same senses - mystery and loneliness.

Then again I could just be going on about things others just don't see. For all I know my sense that the second photograph is the richer of the two in terms of its sense of mood could be a minority opinion. What do you think? I'd love to hear it.

Thursday 4 September 2014

Moving Forward

Previously I described a recently completed project to build a 4x5 pinhole camera that seems to have worked out quite nicely. I stated then that the point had been to try out the concept with a smaller camera before moving on to my real goal which is to build an 8x10 pinhole camera. Now with this morning's arrival of a pair of 8x10 film holders that project is now able to move forward.


One of the reasons it was so easy to get the 4x5 project started is that I already had the film holders.As is typical of large format pinhole cameras my project is based around a simple box whos dimensions are determined by the film holder. While film holder sizes are standard and I could have started the build based on these dimensions I'd figured my chances of failure were pretty high without an actual film holder on to check my measurements against and so things were on hold until these arrived.


Through good fortune they were delivered on a day off from work so it didn't take long for the saw dust to start flying. As with the 4x5 project the box is being built with mitred corners. The photo above shows one of the film holders sitting on top of the box sides which have been laid down in place but here they were unjoined. The pieces were cut from a strip of 1"x3" maple. As I write they are clamped with carpenter's glue along the edges. With the 4x5 project this was backed up with wood screws, but as I may leave the wood finish rather than covering it with vinyl as was done with the smaller camera I'll probably put L-brackets inside.I may also change the way I make the "cone". The fibre-glass I used with the 4x5 came out fine but what nasty stuff to work with.

Well, that's it so far. Keep an eye out though as there will be much more to see as the project progresses and as always I'll keep you posted.

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Trouble in Paradise


In my last entry I shared my experience with a day shooting transmission towers. What I didn't mention was a bit of a problem that reared its ugly head when the negatives were developed. Out of the 10 shots on the first roll I shot that day four were marred by streaks from an unexpected light leak, one of which is pictured above. Additionally when the second roll I shot that day was developed later on a fainter but still frame ruining streak was visible in one of those photos. This is certainly not a situation I'm prepared to live with.

While this came out of the blue and I'm still at a loss to understand the cause of this sudden onset light leak it's quite possibly something that was bound to happen sooner or later due to my lack of upkeep on what I suppose these days would be considered vintage cameras. I own two Mamiya RB67 Pro S's. Both work very well though the one that serves mainly as a backup isn't really much to look at. There is one issue they share that I've been ignoring up until now because it hasn't caused a problem up until now - the light seals, those little bits of foam and felt that keep light from leaking in through the cracks around the doors and whatnot, have been wearing away.

And in the RB67 it must be said there are plenty of places for things to go wrong. In a standard 35mm SLR as well as many medium format cameras such as the typical twin-lens reflex, the big potential for light leaks is around the back door that opens and closes to allow you to change the film. In addition to this any medium format cameras such as the RB67 also have interchangeable film backs that allow you to switch from one type of film to another mid-roll, and the interface between the back and the body is another source of potential light leaks. The RB67 though has still one more spot where things can go wrong. The "RB" stands for "Rotating Back" as this model allows you to switch from horizontal to vertical simply by twisting the back a quarter turn. The feature is more that worthwhile because, if you've never handled a camera this size believe me, it's not something you want dangling sideways from even the most solid of tripods, but it does create one more spot where unwanted light can sneak in.

There are a few tricks to diagnosing a light leak like this. To begin with I should note not all light leaks happen in camera, they can occur afterwards during processing or even before hand. In this case however I noted that the leak appeared in the same spot in each of the frames where it appeared. Since nothing that happens outside the camera would bear any relation to frame spacing this tells me my leak is inside the camera. Second, note that the light streak does not end at the edge of the frame. Since light leaking in from ahead of the back would be blocked from reaching the edge of the film like this by the frame mask that is part of the back this tells us the leak is coming from within the film back itself. Third, since it appears as a hard edged vertical line it would have come through a vertical edge such a the side of the door or the hinge. Last of all since it is at the top of the frame and does not extend to the bottom this tells us the leak is located more towards the bottom of the back since in the camera the image is projected on to the film upside-down.

I'm usually an ambitious DIYer and replacement light seals are not too difficult to fashion from craft store felt and weather stripping foam, but when it comes to my primary camera I'm through mucking about. A complete set of laser-cut seals for the RB67 from Aki Asahi for $12 US plus $4 shipping. I really should have ordered a set for both cameras. On the other hand I've been thinking of trying my hand at restoring my older RB and Aki also does laser cut replacement leather so maybe I'll give that a go. As always I'll keep you posted.