cloth to titanium curtains

[aizan]

if they can do it with the nikon f/s3/sp, they must be able to with a leica. is there a technical reason it can't be done?

 

[Avotius]

they did it with contax's too as I remember. I imagine it could be done, at great expense and a louder sound

 

[alan davus]

Cloth to titanium curtains. Why??? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[wlewisiii]

Technical? No. Just look to Nikon & Canon. Real world? There's this fantasy about how quiet a Leica is. Never mind that every leaf shutter camera is even quieter... 😉

I've used a whole lot of cameras in, for example, churches during rituals. My shutter has never disturbed anyone. Plenty of other things have, but I've never seen/heard the shutter disturb anyone.

William

 

[aizan]

it would be nice not to have a flammable shutter.

i bet nikon kiu knows whether there's a big difference between a nikon with a cloth shutter and one with a titanium shutter.

 

[Olsen]

Technical? No. Just look to Nikon & Canon. Real world? There's this fantasy about how quiet a Leica is. Never mind that every leaf shutter camera is even quieter... 😉

I've used a whole lot of cameras in, for example, churches during rituals. My shutter has never disturbed anyone. Plenty of other things have, but I've never seen/heard the shutter disturb anyone.

William

I regularly use my Hasselblads with mirror-up and only the compur leaf shutter, or the SWC905. That's the most quiet you can get. (Except for some of the small digital cameras, cameras in mobile telephones etc.). There is not only advantages with titan. A tital curtain shutter is noicier and damned expensive. Titan reacts with other metals and have to be insulatated from them. Otherwise the titan corrode.

 

[varjag]

Titanium is normally used in alloys so not really prone to combustion or corrosion. And metal focal plane shutter can be as quiet or quieter than cloth.

 

[VinceC]

My warhorse Nikon SP had cloth shutters. It needed an overhaul, so I switched to Titanium. Quietness is important to me, so I researched by listening to my two Titaniumn-shutter Fs with the mirror locked up. They sounded very similar to the cloth shutter SP. Once the Titanium curtains were installed on the SP, I didn't notice anything different about its sound. I use it regularly alongside an original cloth S3 and a cloth S3-2000. All three cameras are reasonably quiet (but not as quiet as my Kiev 2 -- with metal shutters). my Nikon S2 uses cloth curtains and a differnt braking mechanism. It's very loud, like an SLR, with a distinctive kerr-thunk.

 

[Magus]

Post deleted by posters request

 

[Ken Ford]

Maybe shutter curtains made out of Nomex? I'm serious...

 

[Vickko]

On the topic of Leica conversion to titanium. The mechanical basics are, firstly, is the titanium thinner than the cloth (I think it is, it is 0.03mm and the cloth is 0.05mm), is the titanium of the same flexibility as the cloth to wind around the small curtain roller (not sure here, no issues with the big roller) and finally, is the mass of the titanium manageable by the Leica shutter brake. Given that the answers to all questions are "yes", then a transplant should be do-able.

I might try it one day.

The donor would be a Nikon F.

DAG, Sherry or any other competent tech should also be able to do the transplant and retime the speeds.

...Vick

 

[Mazurka]

they did it with contax's too as I remember. I imagine it could be done, at great expense and a louder sound

Contax rangefinders never had anything other than metal shutters.

A few Contax SLRs (from Yashica) had cloth shutters, e.g. RTS, 137MD and MA, but those particular models never switched to metal shutters.

 

[Kim Coxon]

I am not sure that Nomex would provide a solution. AKIK, Nomex is "flameproof" rather than "burnproof" It is designed to protect the wearer until he can "rescued" from the hazard. A bit like a fire door. It's meant to hold the fire back rather than withstand it, if that makes sense.

Kim

Maybe shutter curtains made out of Nomex? I'm serious...

 

[ZorkiKat]

The contax shutters were composed of slats of metal bound together. As Vick Ko mentioned, changing the original fabric blinds with titanium metal foils is not a simple matter of removing one and replacing it with the other. The mechanism has to be considered- the Leica shutter is designed with a cloth material in mind. Nikon (and Canon with their later RF) most likely modified their shutter mechanisms to accomodate titanium foils.

The reverse (metal foil to cloth) may be possible. Kiev-88 are normally given stainless steel foil shutters - very foil like, light, and easy to tear. Not too different from kitchen foil. With the help of a friend adept with Kiev cameras, we were able to replace the torn shutters with cloth.

Jay

 

[jaapv]

it would be nice not to have a flammable shutter.

Titanium in that thickness burns as easily as cloth. It needs a higher temperature, but it heats up faster....

 

[Magus]

Post deleted by posters request

 

[VinceC]

When carrying around a cloth-shutter camera in bright sun, I tend to keep it pointed away from the sun, with the f/stops closed down and, preferably, focused to close focus so that any image of the sun is diffuse.

Never had a pinhole problem, but my old S3 could use some shutter work an dhas a bit of fogging with prolonged exposure to the sun.

 

[migtex]

I got 2 S's, one with Cloth and the other with Titanium Foil... no differences on the sound.
I use most the T one (Crocodile Dundee, the leather is real brown croco skin ) since her (they are Ladies to me!!) MOD's make sense to me, to setup the speed you do it BEFORE coke the shuter and film, the other S is normal, you do it after...