M6 scratching the negatives! :(

[totifoto]

Every once in a while I have been seeing these scratches on my negatives. They usually have been on the last 2-8 frames but sometimes somewhere in the middle of the film.
I thought it was my reels in developing and have been trying to figure out which one it was. Went the easy way and got a color film and got it developed and saw the same line 🙁 So it is my M6 that is doing this.

Any idea what it could be? Anyone of you had these problems?

 

[outforalaska]

Pressure plate? Is it smooth?

 

[mojobebop]

you should be able to see it if you hold it under a light
and keep moving the neg at angles.

 

[icebear]

Get yourself an aircan or a powerful blow ball and meticulously blow out the opend camera body. With a clean microfiber cloth (not the soaked ones for cleaning glasses !!) wipe down the pressure plate, carefully. The tiny grain that could cause the scratch of the negative is most likely so small you won't see it. Just clean the body and try a new film. If it's not gone you'll have to get it looked at by an expert.

 

[jaykuhlmann]

I have the exact same problem. It shows up on some rolls and not others, and seems to come and go randomly. They never appear on the emulsion side. My film and camera are both clean as far as I can tell. It makes me nuts. If anyone has any other ideas about this, I'd like to hear them as well.

 

[Gaspar]

That has got nothing to do with the camera. It is the developing machine at your lab: I use to get that all the time and that was the reason why I now develop at home. No more scratches since.

 

[normclarke]

Have you considered that the rewind may be tightenning as you progress towards the film end. This could cause extra tension that may be resulting in this fault. I believe that this is a known M6 fioble and needs the rewind to be adjusted.

Cheers,

normclarke.

 

[errore404]

I've got the same problem, but on first 6-10 frames. Same position of the scratches. I've heard some of last M6 bodies (years 96-98) doing so, due to a defective pressure plate. I sent my M6 to a repair service, hoping they'll fix it.

 

[totifoto]

Have you considered that the rewind may be tightenning as you progress towards the film end. This could cause extra tension that may be resulting in this fault. I believe that this is a known M6 fioble and needs the rewind to be adjusted.

Cheers,

normclarke.

YES it does!!!! It gets really tight in the end and sometimes I´m afraid I might break it cause it is so tight. 😕

 

[JamSee]

I suffer the same problem on my M6TTL... I'm pretty sure its the result of the pressure plate towards the rolls end...

I don't know of a solution though 🙁

 

[totifoto]

I took the camera to the only local dealer ( I live in Iceland) and they said there was nothing wrong with it. They put a film through it and nothing happened. They said I´m most likely loading it wrong. That cant be! the sprockets always goes into the filmholes and it advanged normaly and all.

What could I be doing wrong when I load the film?

 

[Tim Gray]

Do the scratches always appear at the same height on the neg? It could be a piece of grit in the felt trap of your film roll. Do you pop open the canisters for developing or do you back the film out again through the felt trap?

Alternately, if you develop and scan at home, after your negatives are dry, do you cut them up and put them in sleeves before scanning? I stopped using the print-file type pages because I would periodically scratch my negatives before scanning. After drying, I cut them up, put them in pages, and flattened them overnight before scanning. So each strip had been shoved in and taken out of what should have been clean pages.

I moved over to individual top loading sleeves and have a lot fewer of these type of scratches now.

 

[PATB]

Do the scratches always appear at the same height on the neg? It could be a piece of grit in the felt trap of your film roll. Do you pop open the canisters for developing or do you back the film out again through the felt trap?

Alternately, if you develop and scan at home, after your negatives are dry, do you cut them up and put them in sleeves before scanning? I stopped using the print-file type pages because I would periodically scratch my negatives before scanning. After drying, I cut them up, put them in pages, and flattened them overnight before scanning. So each strip had been shoved in and taken out of what should have been clean pages.

I moved over to individual top loading sleeves and have a lot fewer of these type of scratches now.

Ditto on the sleeves. I had a similar "problem." I changed my workflow so I flatten the negatives between two clear sheets of plastic (an 8x10 archival print holder that I split open), then scan BEFORE inserting in the printfile sleeves for storage or later wet print in the darkroom. No more scratches on scans.

In my case, the scratches only showed when scanning using the Nikon Coolscan. The scratches do not show up on darkroom prints.

 

[reuno]

Same issue here. Got the same scratch, at exactly the same position on some negs but i'm pretty sure not only with the M6. Also, scratches show up on scan, not on print.

 

[totifoto]

I see these scratches as soon as I take the film out of the tank after developing. It also shows up on color negs, that I get from the lab so it is defenetly coming from the camera.