Frame Spacing

[seany65]

Hello all, I've got an Ansco Super Regent which, apart from a slight dent in the left of the top plate and a couple of marks on the metal name plate, looks almost new and after a cla to re-align the rangefinder and change the grease in the lens (I'm assuming that was done by the tech as all seems fine) turns out to have a frame-spacing issue.

What happens is a little black band appears on the right/at the top of some photos. This band isn't always the same thickness and doesn't get thicker the further along the film, eg. on the 2nd film the band is thicker on frame 3 than on frame 8 (which is quite thin), which then gets thicker on frame 15 then reduces in frames 21 and 24 (which is thinner than 21) and gets thicker on 28.

The 1st film shows a similar random thinning and thickening of the band, but there are 10 frames instead of 5 frames.

Does anyone think this can be fixed and if so would it be an expensive fix?

Any help would me much appreciated.

 

[seany65]

Has no-one got any opinions on this? Does no-one know if I'll have to chuck it out 'cos it can't be fixed, or if it can be it'll cost a ton of money?

 

[davidnewtonguitars]

You'd better show a picture of a few of the frames, I don't get what you are describing.
Does the varying width of "the band" mess up your pictures?

 

[johnnyrod]

Post a pic of the negatives,that would be best. I think this is one of those where the sprockets being rolled by the advancing film then cock the shutter and/or work out the frame spacing, in which case this mechanism may be at fault, sticky perhaps.

 

[seany65]

Thanks for the replies. I'll try and post pics tomorrow.

 

[seany65]

Here's some scans.

Frame 7 on the right, frame 8 on the left:



Frame 27 on the left , frame 28 on the right:



Frame 24:



Notice how the black band on frame 8 is thicker than on frame 24 but on frame 28 goes thicker than it was on frame 8.

I know what your thinking about the frame numbers:

"black band on 'evens', no band on 'odds'."

I've just checked that, and unfortunately it appears on frames 3, 15 and 21 (as well as some other frames) on this film. It also appears on 'odds' and 'evens' on the other film.

I tried scanning the film but I couldn't get any usable results as it's an old print scanner and I've no idea how to properly scan film with it.

I quite like the 'wet look' of frame 27 even though it wasn't raining and hadn't done so for a day or two.

 

[retinax]

You have scans that include a bit of the unexposed area around the image area. The problem here is somewhat sloppy scanning. No signs of frame spacing problems with your camera. If the frames neither overlap nor have more than a few mm between them, frame spacing is ok.

 

[Peter Jennings]

It’s pretty common for older cameras to have uneven spacing. I always include the edges of the image outside of the exposed frame when I scan. I’ll then crop the image accordingly.

 

[Greyscale]

Check that the film pressure plate is springy and clean and free of defects. It may be either impeding your film, or not holding it flat. But it does not seem to be bad enough to be affecting your images. Old cameras have quirks, don’t worry so much about it.

 

[Doug]

Just as an experiment, you could try turning the rewind knob in reverse to take up any slack, then adding a bit of drag there as you wind to the next frame. Doing this consistently for, say, half a roll could add data to the puzzle.

 

[michaelwj]

Can you post a pic of the negative strip rather than individual scanned frames?

I'm not understanding if the problem is with the actual camera or the scanner... at the moment it looks like the spacing on your camera just doesn't match the frames on the scanner.

 

[seany65]

Thanks for the replies.

Perhaps I should've mentioned clicking on the prints so that you could see the full size pics, in those it's easy to see the white, non-print background.

The white bit around each print is from a sheet of white paper I put on top of the prints before scanning so that you could see the black bands as I'd previously painted the inside of the scanner lid black so that any printing on the back of anything I scanned wouldn't show through as it would with the normal white background.

All of the area of the last 3 prints is shown. The first two prints have a tiny bit of the bottom cut off as I'd put those edges right up against the edge of the scanner.

I did try scanning the negatives but as I've never scanned negatives with my fairly old flatbed scanner I've no real idea how to do it properly. All I got was a very dark strip which I couldn't adjust enough to show the images clearly.

As per the suggestion by Greyscale, the pressure plate is springy, clean and looks undamaged to me.

 

[retinax]

You could describe what the negative strips look like. When you say frame spacing, you mean the spacing of the frames on the film, right? So how are they spaced?

 

[Pentode]

Is there a clear or almost clear stripe on the negative that corresponds to the black stripe you’re seeing on the images you posted?

I can’t be sure without seeing the strip of negatives, but it doesn’t look to me like there’s anything wrong with your camera. It looks more like an error in printing. Seeing the negatives would tell for sure, but even if the problem is with the film transport of the camera it’s only affecting the very edges of the frame. There’s plenty of room there to crop and still have a usable frame.

If you just had the camera CLA’d you might want to bring up any film transport issues with your repairer. I would think that should fall under a CLA.

 

[David Hughes]

Hmmm, there's a slipping clutch on the take-up spool and it is probably slipping too much. It's a simple repair on a lot of cameras and a weird one on others and I've no experience of your one so can't say more. Any competent technician should be able to cure it.


Regards, David

 

[seany65]

Thanks for the further replies.

I've had another go at scanning the negs doing a couple of things differently than before, but still no good.

I've looked at the gaps between the negs and there are wider gaps between the frames that are affected and the unaffected frames than normal. Unfortunately, there are also other slightly wider than normal gaps between negs that don't show black bands on the prints.

Not a lot of help.

Even worse, a film I took using my Ricoh 500GX also show uneven gaps between frames, some slightly wider, some normal, some slightly narrower and one gap just about exists, but I've not seen any black bands on the prints from that film.

Even less help.

I have told the shop about this and they've asked to see some scans.

 

[seany65]

Just in case it's any help to anyone who may have opinions on what may be going on.

I measured the length of all the frames that had clear 'starts' and 'ends' on both Super Regent films and they are all 36mm. I did the same for some of the frames of the 1 (colour) film I've and in my Super Solinette (as the former is a re-badge copy of the latter) and they are 36mm long.