Strange Problem With My New CLE

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spiffae

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I'm glad I found this forum! I just was given a gift of a beautiful CLE/40mm Rokkor. Once I got some new batteries into it, it all seemed to be working beautifully. The camera has been sitting for years (probably 5-10, but everything was well-maintained, and it all seems good so far. I fiddled with the knobs and all seemed good to go.

The first roll of film I shot was Kodak e100 slide film, and the auto metering worked beautifully. Everything worked exactly like it was supposed to. Exposures were metered correctly (checked with my DSLR) and the camera worked like a charm.

Fast forward a day or so and I finish the e100, and put in a roll of Tri-X 400. I change the ISO to 400, and put try a couple test shots. Immediately, I know something is wrong. The metering LED is bouncing up and down, zooming from 1/2 a second to 1000 and back, spending most of it's time sitting around 1/4th, no matter what I'm pointing at. Even when the LED is on at 1/4th, if I take a picture, the exposure is more like 1 second.

I put the ISO back to 100, but that's not working any more either. The LED sits up above 1000, but again, taking a picture gives a 1 second exposure. After a little sitting and wishing for an answer, the meter appears to work again, so i move the dial back to 400 - bad idea. Everything is screwy again, and the LED sits up above 1000. I took out the Tri-X and put in some Provia 100, but it's all the same now - the meter and camera are determined to misbehave.

Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening, or why I could have shot one roll with no problems and then suddenly have mischevious meter problems? One roll of film is such a tease!

thanks for reading.
 
Spif,
Also new here but I had a similar situation with my new to me CLE. Others suggested turning the ISO dial back and forth a few times as well as the EV part. Maybe the on/off a few times, too. Didn't work with my camera but it could clean up electrical contacts that way. I had to take mine in and have a pro service it. Only cost $90 and now the camera works great.
Unrelated, I just bought a Domke F5X shoulder bag which is just about the perfect bag for this camera for me. It even has a little pouch I can slide my digital point and shoot into. Sweet!
Good luck,
Tom
 
Thanks for the quick response - I fiddled with it some more, and while I'm not 100% confident, it seems stable again. I just held my finger on the shutter for about a minute, and after shooting up and down for a while, the LED came to rest on an actual correct reading, and then since then it's been working - almost certainly a dirty contact or something. I need to talk to my friends who have been using rangefinders longer than I have and see who cleans and services their cameras, but i'm keeping my fingers crossed that this was just a momentary problem. It's just surprising that it happened when it did, seeing as I had changed the ISO, EV, and everything else numerous times before this. Maybe I jostled something changing the film.
 
I am assuming that you put in new batteries. Use a pencil eraser to make sure the battery contacts are clean. Also clean the batteries with a pencil eraser, sometimes there is a film on the batteries that causes poor contact.
 
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ooh, good call - the batteries are new, but the old ones sat in there for years and probably leaked a little bit onto the contacts. I'll clean those off and report back.
 
Once the batteries are renewed and the compartment's contacts are cleaned, the dancing diode problem is usually caused by dirty contacts under the shutter speed dial. While it's in the shop, ask the technician to look at the light seals on the back as well.
 
yes you definitely have a dirty contact problem, they dont like being set at one film speed for years on end, when you changes the film speed you probably moved all the contact build up around it. This is how the rapid rotation of the shutter dial and the film speed dial often cures the problem.

Cleaning the battery contacts you can reach is a fair suggestion however the contact that usually oxidises causing power reduction is the on on the inner face of the battery cover that cannot be reached! Due to the design of the cover the actual contacts never face outwards unless you break it off. It can be reached if the baseplate is taken off though so this is a point of service if you take it to a repairman. One other important thing to remember is to use to silver oxide batteries not alkaline ones. The alkaline ones can do strange things towards the end of their life whereby their voltage is not as consistent as the Silver oxide ones.
 
Hmm -- I recently got one of these too and it really is a lovely camera to use -- a very smooth shutter release. The camera I got had recently been overhauled but I did see a little of this behavior also. Sounds like a good idea is to turn the shutter speed dial on a regular basis to ensure those contacts stay clean.

My first roll was very satisfactory indeed. But a couple of shots were significantly underexposed, right after another shot taken in the same place that was perfectly exposed. So I'm wondering if there are certain exposure quirks that I need to pay attention to -- like is this very susceptible to underexposure with backlighting? (I realize this is a bit of a hijacking; I'll see if other threads mention this.)
 
mine did this as well, i was about to send it of too kinderman canada but decided to try a home made fix. i sprayed contact cleaner all round the shutter dial and then played with the dial, moving it back & forth.
and it worked!
camera is fine now.

p.s. we used to do this on old amplifiers that made scratchy noises when turning the gain/volume up and down.
 
back alley said:
mine did this as well, i was about to send it of too kinderman canada but decided to try a home made fix. i sprayed contact cleaner all round the shutter dial and then played with the dial, moving it back & forth.
and it worked!
camera is fine now.

p.s. we used to do this on old amplifiers that made scratchy noises when turning the gain/volume up and down.
Click to expand...

I did the same, it helped. Thanks very much for the suggestion!
 
I was turned on to that stuff years ago by a TV repair guy who was a friend of mine. (Remember when we used to get TV sets FIXED?) It was called something like Color TV Tuner Cleaner back then. It's great for cleaning the battery contacts in everything from flash lights to electronic flash units, the speaker plugs on your sound system and likely your computer as well. Now if I could just come up with a scam like showing up at somebody's house, wasting 15 minutes pretending I'm reading meters and fiddling around with screwdrivers, etc., give a spritz from a spray can of "Tuner Cleaner", followed by "Good as new! That'll be $65 ma'am."

There are probably digital camera repair folks doing the same thing.
 
Be careful with contact cleaner. It may worsen the problem in the long run. Cleaning contacts is best done with a fiber pencil. A lot of glass fiber hairs stacked into a pencil shape. Only works if you can reach them completely ofcourse!
 
Don't scrub the contacts with an ordinary pencil eraser, though. It will wear the gold plating off the contacts. I use Pro-Gold, which I get online from Caig Laboratories. It' good stuff. NASA uses it on the shuttle. Just google it.
 
I have used the DeoxIT pen made by Craig Industries for years on all my camera battery connection surfaces--never a problem. They claim it "improves the flow of electricity, cleans, deoxidizes, and protects electrical connections". I think one pen will last you many years.

Bill
 
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