a burning question

[sepiareverb]

So, I hear about the lens acting like 'a burning glass' and destroying (setting afire??) the shutter curtains of a Leica M. Has anyone ever had this happen? I rarely carry the camera with a lenscap, I have it on when it goes in the bag, take it off when I start shooting, and leave it off till it goes back in the bag. I can maybe believe this happening if I left the camera on a picnic table for a few hours while passed out on the grass, supposing someone didn;t come along and steal it. What's the story here?

 

[erikhaugsby]

Only worry if you leave your lens at max aperature and focused on infinity, while pointed directly at the sun. Otherwise, light from the sun will be to diffused to render any damage to the curtains.

 

[dnemoc]

My apologies if this appears out of place, since your question is clearly about the Leica M. A friend of mine recently burned a few films on a Rolleiflex 3.5 while shooting in a deserted forest. The metal shutter didn't get harmed, but a cloth one would surely have burnt off. The aperture wasn't wide open either, pretty much around f8.

Best regards.

 

[Tom A]

So, I hear about the lens acting like 'a burning glass' and destroying (setting afire??) the shutter curtains of a Leica M. Has anyone ever had this happen? I rarely carry the camera with a lenscap, I have it on when it goes in the bag, take it off when I start shooting, and leave it off till it goes back in the bag. I can maybe believe this happening if I left the camera on a picnic table for a few hours while passed out on the grass, supposing someone didn;t come along and steal it. What's the story here?

Yes, it can happen and it has happened to me several of times. Once in Australia wwhen my Super-Angulaon 21 dutifully focused on the curtain and burnt a small pinhole. I fixed it temporarily with black caulking silicone- diluted in stop-bath! Another time in Tokyo. My M2 had a 21/3,5 Ricoh on it and I was waiting for a bus. The sunlight was reflected from a metallized cladding on a building and it did not take that many minutes to burn a match-head sized hole! Wide angles seems to more prone to this (21's and I have also had a couple of shutters burned out by 28's and by a couple of 35's). It usually happens when you stand around waiting for something to happen and you are paying more attention to
that than to where the lens is pointing!
Worst case of this that I have ever seen was in Sweden. A camera store had taken a M6 in as a trade and put it in the shopwindow facing west! A 50 Summicron on the camera and no lens cap.It sat there for most of the summer and that far north, the sun is out for 16-18 hours a day. As the summer progressed and the elevation of the sun decreased - it burned a series of long lines and turned the shutter into ribbons! The heat got so intense that the back door warped! Well, it became a "fixer-upper" M6 and the store owner was somewhat miffed when he found out what it would cost to replace the curtains and also the back-door (with the electronics and gold plated contacts). They also had to re-lube and check everything as the heat had literally turned all the lubricants into a liquid and they had pooled at the bottom of the camera as well as vaporized inside the top-plate and coated the finder-prisms with a grey oily mess.

 

[visiondr]

Great story Tom!

I guess the moral is: don't leave your M camera in a shop window in summer. Get out and shoot with it!

Ron

 

[erikhaugsby]

the heat had literally turned all the lubricants into a liquid and they had pooled at the bottom of the camera as well as vaporized inside the top-plate and coated the finder-prisms with a grey oily mess.

eeeww 😱

 

[jlw]

Somebody here on RFF tested this a while back using a Fed (IIRC) that already had a shutter pinhole and was going to need a curtain replacement anyway.

He found that the worst risk is not when the lens is set at infinity, but when it's set at a moderately close distance. This makes sense because the shutter curtains are several mm in front of the film plane -- so if you want to focus the sun on the curtains, you need to move the focus point forward of the film.

 

[Doug]

Less severe than Tom's Sweden story, but I had a similar experience while working in a camera shop in Rapid City SD... We had a Nikon S2 in the show window, propped up and facing West toward the street. I took the camera out for some familiarization and found it had half a dozen pinholes in the cloth shutter.

 

[planetjoe]

A Cautionary Tale (of Woe).

A Cautionary Tale (of Woe).

I wanted to resurrect this thread to mention my own "burning" story, involving my M4 and several layers of personal disappointment.

While looking over some prints back from the lab today ("new" Portra 400VC, by the way - very nice stuff), I noticed what looks like pinhole-bleed on several of the frames, starting soon after a shoot on a particularly sunny day. I don't have any scans, yet, otherwise I'd post 'em.

Thing is, I was using a newly-acquired 90mm lens almost exclusively for the roll, so at first I thought it was some weird flare effect. Then it started showing up in the same place on each frame. With the same shape. Man, was I unhappy. I'm kinda surprised that a 90mm would do this so quickly - I mean, I'm pretty careful with my cloth-curtain RFs. And I usually spend most of my time in close-focus.

I can't really be sure, that is, until I get home tonight and check out the camera, but I was wondering how difficult a fix this would be. Has anyone successfully repaired such a hole with a more permanent method than caulk and fixer? (Apologies to Tom A. - actually, it sounds quite ingenious). I'm probably sending it off to DAG for a CLA eventually...how much might this repair cost professionally?

 

[planetjoe]

Hmm. I found this thread via the great Google, which sort of makes me feel better about repair. Just FYI, in case anyone's curious.


Cheers,
--joe.

 

[Ergo]

M

M

Has anyone ever had this happen?

 

[planetjoe]

You mean the weird "ghost"-y thing next to the tower, right of center? That looks like the effect of a very teeny tiny pinhole. Exactly like the kind of thing I just found in my M shutter. Dang.

Hold the camera over a lightbulb, back open, backside down. With the lens off, look down into the body cavity at both curtains; first one, then the other. I find looking into the cavity blocks some of the glare from the light source, making the holes easier to see. Of course, you could always use a flashlight.

In my case, at least it's the first curtain, so it's only full of holes when cocked. Luckily, I usually go off half-cocked. Pun intended.


Cheers,
--joe.

 

[palec]

Hi, I just found this strange effect again on my film. It happened twice after shooting 12 rolls of film. Can anybody tell me, if it's burned cloth problem? If so why it is not happening on all photos. The second time it happened after changing lens, I'm not sure about the first time. Camera is M3. Please look at the attachment.

Pal

 

[Doug]

Pal, that doesn't look like hole(s) burned in the shutter, so that should be a relief. 🙂 Given the location and shape I'd say it's very likely a light leak where the bottom plate and hinged back come together. Or it could be some kind of flare or internal reflection in the lens or body. But (making that less likely) in the above shot there don't seem to be any bright light sources lurking nearby...

 

[Chaser]

Hi, I just found this strange effect again on my film. It happened twice after shooting 12 rolls of film. Can anybody tell me, if it's burned cloth problem? If so why it is not happening on all photos. The second time it happened after changing lens, I'm not sure about the first time. Camera is M3. Please look at the attachment.

Pal

It might be a pinhole..It can often only show on a few photos because you may have a hole in just on of the curtains and it is only leaking light when the shutter is cocked...or conversely uncocked. I had this happen to my M6 and it made pictures that look like this... All you need to do it look through the back of the camera at a light bulb to find out. cock and fire the shutter a few times so that you see both curtains.

 

[laptoprob]

shutter burning test

shutter burning test

Somebody here on RFF tested this a while back using a Fed (IIRC) that already had a shutter pinhole and was going to need a curtain replacement anyway.

He found that the worst risk is not when the lens is set at infinity, but when it's set at a moderately close distance. This makes sense because the shutter curtains are several mm in front of the film plane -- so if you want to focus the sun on the curtains, you need to move the focus point forward of the film.

It was I... using a destroyed FED2 with original curtains. Danger is always present, at any focus setting. Worst burning occurs at closest distance setting, not at infinity. With a standard lens at f4 or bigger, be very careful. At f2 or bigger burning is almost directly.
I never got to trying wider angles but it must burn too. The projected sun is smaller, so the heat intensity may be less. But still enough. And the risk of 'catching the sun' is bigger ofcourse!

 

[palec]

Doug, Chaser,
thanks for reply.

I think it's not lens flare, because it actually happened with 3 different lens.
I've found two more shots with exactly the same problem in the same location.

While trying to revive my memories, I have found a possible explanation. There is a tiny pinhole and I left the camera with lens uncovered for a relatively long time - several minutes or hours indoor. I'll finish the film and will check the curtain.

 

[Pherdinand]

wide angles are more "prone to this" burning problem because the shorter the focal length, the smaller the focused spot is (the image of the Sun, and, a shorter lens projects a smaller image of everything...)

however i am a bit amazed about these stories since normally you do need to keep that spot on one certain position for at least a few seconds. If you move around with a camera in your hand, or just hang the camera in your neck/hand, the spot should move around too.

 

[Pherdinand]

sorry i was not precise enough.
The projected sun disc is smaller for wide angles, however (for the same aperture lens) the power collected by the lens is the same as for longer brothers, so the same energy is concentrated in a smaller spot. And it's not even linear but quadratic, the power density versus the size(i e the focal length) because it's about surfaces...

 

[sepiareverb]

Well, lenscaps at the ready? Everyone, 1, 2, 3, COVER!

I will be more careful, especially when I get that next lens- the ZM25.

Thanks much for the warnings.