My Mir leans to the right

[ABrosig]

I recently acquired a 1960 vintage Mir camera. I've run the first roll through it and, as you hopefully can see from the image, it seems to cant to the right a bit.

Curiously, this seems to be consistent from frame to frame. I seem to remember reading somewhere, can't remember if it was here or elsewhere, about adding spacers between the film cassette and the camera to address something like this on vintage Leica cameras. I'm using standard reloadable cassettes as, while the camera came with the take-up spool (which loves to jump out of the camera at the slightest provocation) it did not include the old film cassettes. I'm guessing these were bigger than modern 35mm cassettes, but I don't know. All I do know is the film seems to sit a bit cock-eyed in the camera.

Anyone with experience who has any useful recommendations (heck, I'd almost take snarky comments at this point) would be greatly appreciated. As I said, I've only run one roll through the camera, which was advertised as a factory refurb. Other than this, I love the thing. I could probably get used to the off-kilter images as a peccadillo of the camera, or I could just start cropping, but I love the full-frame look.

Thanks in advance.

 

[pete hogan]

Andrew, your film is riding low, but is the film window not quite level with the guides? I have a Zorki 1 with the window slightly off-level. The frames repeat that way through the entire length of film but no sprocket holes. Not enough to reject, I like the camera anyway.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

A long, long time ago I got my hands on as many old cassettes as I could and measured them all and then published the finding on RFF. The trouble is I didn't make a note of the thread number etc.

Anyway, put a modern cassette in the camera and see if it rattles because it's smaller than the recess in the camera body. The FED cassette I measured was about 3 and a bit mm longer than the modern Kodak and Fuji cassettes. It was measured across the top and bottom of the film compartment of the cassette. So perhaps a spacer is needed top and bottom to centre it?

Hope this helps.

Regards, David

 

[johannielscom]

Hi,

A long, long time ago I got my hands on as many old cassettes as I could and measured them all and then published the finding on RFF. The trouble is I didn't make a note of the thread number etc.

Anyway, put a modern cassette in the camera and see if it rattles because it's smaller than the recess in the camera body. The FED cassette I measured was about 3 and a bit mm longer than the modern Kodak and Fuji cassettes. It was measured across the top and bottom of the film compartment of the cassette. So perhaps a spacer is needed top and bottom to centre it?

Hope this helps.

Regards, David

This. it's a known issue with Barnack cameras and their offspring. There's a thread in the Leica LTM forum from a German fellow who corrected it for his Leica with a simple trick. Might work for you too.

 

[johannielscom]

Hi,

A long, long time ago I got my hands on as many old cassettes as I could and measured them all and then published the finding on RFF. The trouble is I didn't make a note of the thread number etc.

Anyway, put a modern cassette in the camera and see if it rattles because it's smaller than the recess in the camera body. The FED cassette I measured was about 3 and a bit mm longer than the modern Kodak and Fuji cassettes. It was measured across the top and bottom of the film compartment of the cassette. So perhaps a spacer is needed top and bottom to centre it?

Hope this helps.

Regards, David

This. it's a known issue with Barnack cameras and their offspring. There's a thread in the Leica LTM forum from a German fellow who corrected it for his Leica with a simple trick. Might work for you too.

 

[ABrosig]

Thanks for the responses. I'm not sure now what happened. I just put a second roll through the camera, paying particular attention to how I positioned it before closing the back, and all the frames came out perfect. Only difference is the first roll was hand-rolled in a reloadble while the second was a roll of Eastman Double-X in a one-use cassette I got from the Film Photography Project. By eye, the two cassettes are the same size. Perhaps I was just more careful or diligent loading the camera this time after what happened the first time. Neither cassette seemed loose in the camera, but I wasn't really paying attention. I'm going to pay more attention from now on. But thanks for the assistance. I can't get over how valuable a resource this board has been to me.

 

[ABrosig]

One from the latest roll, shot this morning at local Farmer's Market; Eastman Double-X film, commercially rolled by FPP.



FarmersMarketMIR03 by Andrew Brosig Photography, on Flickr

 

[pete hogan]

Looks good now. Enjoy it.

For many years film for me has been Zorki 1 and Barnack cameras with backs that don't come off. So I've had to be deliberate when trimming leaders and loading film. Get the spool in, watch the sprockets engage, rewind the slack, watch a little of the film move. I use regular Tri-X cassettes and have not had any trouble with them. When I rewind a completed roll, I don't rewind the film completely off the takeup spool. I remove the cassette and takeup spool together to save getting torn chunks of film in the interior.

 

[ABrosig]

This is probably a later model as the back comes all the way off with the camera baseplate. I found the spacer trick mentioned above, but the two nipples that line up spools with the baseplate don't come off. I think I got too excited with the first roll and loaded it wrong. going to have to curb my enthusiasm in the future. Thanks again all for the help.