rogerzilla
Well-known
Or, finally a use for a digital camera.
My IIf came back from CRR Luton yesterday with its sticky shutter fixed. The flash sync on these is quite hard to get right and Peter doesn't bother unless you tell him you actually want to use flash. Anyway, it needed checking before I ended up with a film full of black party photos so...
Take the IIf with no lens and set it up facing a digital camera. If it makes you feel better, it's a Panasonic Lumix FX150 with a Leica lens. Then attach a small flash to the IIf with a long PC cord and cock the shutter, ensuring that 1/50 sec and "20" are selected (mine's a red dial; the numbers are different for a black dial).
Now set the digital camera to a long exposure mode - I found one called "star scene" or some such rubbish - and turn out the lights so the room is as dark as possible.
Now trip the shutter on the digital camera and then, holding the flash (use a weak auto setting) facing the IIf from a respectable distance, fire the IIf's shutter. When the digicam's shutter has closed you should get something like this:
Ah. The problem is that the film pressure plate is black. And the shutter curtains are black. So I got some paper and a Sharpie and scribed a pattern that couldn't possibly be mistaken for a shutter curtain, removed the baseplate and stuck the paper in the film gate. Let's try again:
Bingo! And that's SCIENCE.
My IIf came back from CRR Luton yesterday with its sticky shutter fixed. The flash sync on these is quite hard to get right and Peter doesn't bother unless you tell him you actually want to use flash. Anyway, it needed checking before I ended up with a film full of black party photos so...
Take the IIf with no lens and set it up facing a digital camera. If it makes you feel better, it's a Panasonic Lumix FX150 with a Leica lens. Then attach a small flash to the IIf with a long PC cord and cock the shutter, ensuring that 1/50 sec and "20" are selected (mine's a red dial; the numbers are different for a black dial).
Now set the digital camera to a long exposure mode - I found one called "star scene" or some such rubbish - and turn out the lights so the room is as dark as possible.
Now trip the shutter on the digital camera and then, holding the flash (use a weak auto setting) facing the IIf from a respectable distance, fire the IIf's shutter. When the digicam's shutter has closed you should get something like this:
Ah. The problem is that the film pressure plate is black. And the shutter curtains are black. So I got some paper and a Sharpie and scribed a pattern that couldn't possibly be mistaken for a shutter curtain, removed the baseplate and stuck the paper in the film gate. Let's try again:
Bingo! And that's SCIENCE.