New Fed2, light leaks included

[Proteus617]

First, the good news. New Fed2b, w/ Industar 26. It's green! The rangefinder is nice and bright, seems to be right on. From the test roll: shooting a Ukrainian bike w/ a Ukrainian camera.

That was one of the few shots not marred by light leaks. Most look like this:

Gave it the flashlight test, and the curtain is swiss cheese. Good think I like to tinker with cameras as much as I like to shoot them.

 

[wolves3012]

Congratulations on the FED, commiserations on the curtains and congratulations on the nice bike photo - what is it? Is it a sidecar outfit (I notice it has Earles forks)?

If you like to tinker, it's not too bad a job to replace the curtains. Just make sure you mark the position of the old one on the curtain drum and the tapes on the same side. Measure the curtains carefully, and the length of the tapes. The positions on the tension-roller side is irrelevant and doesn't need marking. After that the fun part is getting it all back in the crate with new curtains and tapes that don't (yet) want to coil up!

 

[Proteus617]

Thanks for the advice wolves. Not sure about the forks, but the bike is an old Ural currently in my friend's shop. The sidecar is going on his BMW for the winter. I'm gonna try fabric paint on the curtain first, but I have shutter cloth on order.

 

[wolves3012]

Thanks for the advice wolves. Not sure about the forks, but the bike is an old Ural currently in my friend's shop. The sidecar is going on his BMW for the winter. I'm gonna try fabric paint on the curtain first, but I have shutter cloth on order.

I rode a Cossack combination once, years ago - it terrified me for the lack of brakes! There wasn't much "go" but there was even less "stop". I really wouldn't want to ride one regularly without some better brakes.

Fabric paint on your curtains will probably work for a while but you're only postponing the inevitable - good luck anyway. Luckily the FED 2 is one of the simpler FSUs to work on, probably why they're generally reliable.

 

[climbing_vine]

My first FED-2 had light leaks nearly identical to that. I ended up replacing it with a non-leaky one when someone stole it at a campground. 😛