Pirate
Guitar playing Fotografer
Had a shutter problem and wanted to share it with you all. Youxin had it fixed and back in the mail in a day. It was out of my hands a total of 7.5 days. This is a 1955 M3 DS.
Here's a sample photo of what was happening- notice the blackened line at the right edge of the photo. This was on every shot in the roll:
I sent it to Youxin and upon his inspection, he had this to say about it:
"I checked the camera speeds, it has uneven shutter travel problem. At my initial check, when I put shutter tester at 1/1000, check exposure left, middle and right, there were several times difference in exposure readings. This cause your have uneven exposed photos.
Some older M cameras may have uneven shutter travel problems, but it shouldn't be over 50%, otherwise you will have uneven exposed negative problem.
I did shutter brake adjustments, and also roller adjustments. Since the 1 sec exposure time was too long, shutter curtain traveling was slack, I did adjustments to both rollers. Also in order to minimize the uneven travel problem, I slightly increased shutter roller tension, made the shutter slit wider, which will make the speeds slower. This helps to prevent uneven exposure problems too.
After adjustment, the shutter acts much better."
Here's a sample photo of what was happening- notice the blackened line at the right edge of the photo. This was on every shot in the roll:
I sent it to Youxin and upon his inspection, he had this to say about it:
"I checked the camera speeds, it has uneven shutter travel problem. At my initial check, when I put shutter tester at 1/1000, check exposure left, middle and right, there were several times difference in exposure readings. This cause your have uneven exposed photos.
Some older M cameras may have uneven shutter travel problems, but it shouldn't be over 50%, otherwise you will have uneven exposed negative problem.
I did shutter brake adjustments, and also roller adjustments. Since the 1 sec exposure time was too long, shutter curtain traveling was slack, I did adjustments to both rollers. Also in order to minimize the uneven travel problem, I slightly increased shutter roller tension, made the shutter slit wider, which will make the speeds slower. This helps to prevent uneven exposure problems too.
After adjustment, the shutter acts much better."
Lance
Established
I've got something like that on my M6, but it's not on every frame and maybe only in higher speeds. The black part is, on my camera, more than 1/3 of the frame. I think it might be due to a longer period when the camera was not used and it then might have gone a bit "stiff". How much was a repair like that?
This reminds me of getting my button-rewind M2 CLA'd... my local guy made similar comments about correcting uneven shutter travel. Mine did not show the black like yours. But he did say that at the end the 1/60 came out a tiny bit slow, the same as the 1/50 sync speed setting.
Now you can better enjoy your M3 with confidence it's operating as it should!
Now you can better enjoy your M3 with confidence it's operating as it should!
Pirate
Guitar playing Fotografer
Lance, this repair was $30 US, plus the shipping price. I live in the US as does Youxin, so my shipping was only $15 US.
Doug, I went out today and could not find one thing to shoot. Very disappointing. Sunday I have a family reunion, so I should have lots of photos to test with!
Doug, I went out today and could not find one thing to shoot. Very disappointing. Sunday I have a family reunion, so I should have lots of photos to test with!
I hope your Sunday has been filled with photo opportunities. Dry runs are disappointing, and I find they're divided between those with no shots and those with repetitious or useless shots. Then there are the "I gave up" dry runs where you just left the camera at home and see plenty of interesting scenes!