Leica LTM red curtains with c-41 b&w

[bukaj]

My iiic is currently with Youxin getting CLA'd. He informed me that red curtains may leak light with color film. But he wasn't sure if the issue exists with C-41 black and white film. What is your experience with this?

Reason I ask is I needed film and Walgreens being the only thing around had just c-41. I didn't use any, so I may still be able to return it.

thanks,
-jakub

 

[LeicaTom]

My iiic is currently with Youxin getting CLA'd. He informed me that red curtains may leak light with color film. But he wasn't sure if the issue exists with C-41 black and white film. What is your experience with this?

Reason I ask is I needed film and Walgreens being the only thing around had just c-41. I didn't use any, so I may still be able to return it.

thanks,
-jakub

Jakub,

Well, my experience with any Leica IIIC Red Curtain camera is that it is a pure "collectors" item, I know very few people who even use them anymore for shooting.........



The Red shutter curtain material was supposed to be an improvement for working with color film in the tropics (sun & heat) resistant etc. etc. and Eastmen Kodak was the company who came up with this idea and they introduced it into some pre-war Retina models......sold in Germany.

As for them leaking, when they were new they were, successfully deployed in many difficult weather situations during WW2 without incident, now weither or not they survived the 70 odd plus years in intact enough condition to hold out light NOW, only a post CLA will tell.

I will advise you despite what happens I would suggest NOT to replace the curtains, while they are really what make a RED CURTAIN so collectible.

I like the Kodak 400 CN Black N' White it should work well......I just thow it into one of my IIIC K's with a fast lens, WIDE OPEN at (f1.4 or 1.5) and place at 500 or 1000/sec and shoot away, perfect for portraits in midday sun

Tom

 

[bukaj]

I don't think my camera will ever be a collector's item. Youxin described it as being very used and warned me that i might miss occasional exposures at 1/500 and 1/1000. It was even missing some parts. He said the curtains are in ok shape, so I'll just continue using it as is.

I've got Kodak 400cn. I'll try it. Really want to try a few different types of film and just see which I personally like the most.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

I brought this up in a previous discussion on Red curtains; Could it be that light reflects off the edge of the curtains as they move across the film plane and that this gives a red sheen to colour film?

I like Kodak BW400CN, fine film to use in a IIIc, shame they no longer sell it in 120 format though.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Tom,

Which Retinas had FP shutters?

And to the OP: worrying about red shutters transmitting light to colour film but not B+W is, as Tom points out, sheer nonsense unless they are defective.

Cheers,

R.

 

[ZorkiKat]

I have Leica IIIc with red shutter blinds. However, these are not original, I put them there as replacements for the original normal black shutter curtains which had already long deteriorated. The material I used for this Leica was also used for restoring the shutters in a FED and a Zorki, as well as a Shanghai Leica copy. I've shot colour film in these cameras, I never had any red streaks or casts.

A proper shutter cloth material is should be opaque. There is no way that light can breach it, unless it was not opaque to begin with.

If ever, for some reason, that a red curtain can impose red hues on the film, it will not be obvious with BW, whether its traditional or C41 chromogenic. BW is all grey.

 

[LeicaTom]

Dear Tom,

Which Retinas had FP shutters?

And to the OP: worrying about red shutters transmitting light to colour film but not B+W is, as Tom points out, sheer nonsense unless they are defective.

Cheers,

R.

Hello Roger,

Don't just know what models? - while I never was into collecting Retina's - just know that it had to have been pre-war while that's when the fabric was introduced into Germany and Leitz bought up the stock from Kodak in Germany (ca. 1939) and then used that fabric up in about 16,000 or so Leica IIIC's in the 1940 to 1944 era.
(Leitz ran out of Black curtain material in mid 1940, and the Leica shutters went to being half red, half black) until they found a solution for part of the WW2 productuion and has some black material come into stock.

Tom

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Tom,

As far as I'm aware, all Retinas are leaf-shutter, so the red material must have been planned for use on other cameras, though I've never seen any other cameras than Leicas with red blinds.

In the 70s, when I first became aware of red blind Leicas, the general consensus among collectors (derived from I know not where) was that the red material was supposed to have been slightly superior but not superior enough to be worth the extra cost/trouble. Then, when for obvious reasons they couldn't buy more, they evolved another (black) fabric, as you say, and never felt the need to go back to red. Also, as I recall, it was bought from Graflex, not Kodak/Nagel, which seems likelier, but that is a very faint memory which may well be incorrect.

No-one was ever clear about what the superiority was: suggestions I heard included that it was less inclined to go sticky, better resistant to burning, or just generally longer lived.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sevo]

Don't just know what models? - while I never was into collecting Retina's - just know that it had to have been pre-war while that's when the fabric was introduced into Germany

That sounds unlikely. I can't find any reference to Nagel/Kodak Stuttgart ever having made a focal plane shutter camera. Maybe they stockpiled that stuff in preparation of a camera they never made. But it is more likely that Kodak simply made and marketed that red rubber coated fsbric in their capacity as a chemical coatings specialist.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Wasn't the red blind material black on one side? When the blinds are installed in a Leica, one side would have the coated side up (usually the closing curtain) and the other, coated side in (facing the film). Would this not explain the half-red/half black shutters of those wartime IIIc?

Also, were not shutter cloth among the many things which Kodak made which were sold to other camera makers? The red colour of the blind, which was less heat-absorbent than solid black, may have been a design to counter heat for 'tropical' cameras. Other makers made non-black shutter blinds too. Some FED were supposed to have used dark green or brown coloured shutter curtains.

 

[enasniearth]

red curtains

red curtains

all the retina series were leaf shutter type even the later slr type .
there are storys of the red material coming from kodak and also graflex .
it appears that the graplex story is correct ( or at least most current accepted knowledge at this point in time )
both companys are in rochester ny and leading us pioneers in the photo industry at that time .
i have heard of graflex cameras prewar press type with this shutter cloth for tropical application ( can not verify as i have not actually seen one )

as zorkikat indicates one side is black and the other red on this material .

i have come to realize that the shutter curtain is not the culprit that deteriates first , the rubber shutter drums are poorer quality in wartime production and become gooey and seep with age staining the curtains and coating them with black rubber residue .

with a camera where much of the value lies in the red color or a k stamp , keep the original shutter and buy a commonpostwar iiic for shooting .
with the red curtain type store with the shutter red showing as this face can be stained by the rubber drum when cocked and left .

 

[ZorkiKat]

i have come to realize that the shutter curtain is not the culprit that deteriates first , the rubber shutter drums are poorer quality in wartime production and become gooey and seep with age staining the curtains and coating them with black rubber residue .

.

enasniearth, the shutter drums in Leica are all metal (brass in the prewar or IIIc, aluminium in IIIf and IIIg). The curtain fabric is cemented on them, as well as the brass (or alloy) spring rollers. They don't ooze.

The glue used to bind them to the drums/rollers may be suspect, but the shellac type cements they used then tend to go really dry and inert.

The only rubber used in the shutter mechanism is on the fabric itself. The cloth, typically silk, is coated with a rubber material to make it opaque. Deterioration may start from the silk itself - if at one time they used synthetic or a combination of natural/synthetic fibres- how the cloth keeps in time is one factor. Another is the composition of the coating itself. The formula always changes in time- natural or synthetic rubber; the pigment used to make the coat light tight; or the solvent used to make the coating liquid first prior to coating.

Rubber coatings are very fragile. Their contents tend to be lost in the air- what used to make them supple and flexible can evaporate (heat and humidity can accelerate this) and leave behind a crumbling wrinkled mess.

Heat can make the rubber expand, and when the cloth is kept rolled in the drums or rollers, the tightly wound surfaces tend to stick when they start softening or drying in hot or humid situations.

For some reason, the cloth of many prewar shutters tend to remain supple and flexible after all these years. I found and seen a lot of prewar II and III cameras with still intact shutters. The same could be said of the postwar IIIc. However, a lot of the IIIf and IIIg are found with crumbling and cracked shutters. Leitz must have changed the materials they used for the shutters in these cameras. The 'light weight' blinds found in IIIf and IIIg- thinner than what is in the III or IIIc- must be made from less durable material. Or they may have changed adhesives too. In the repair manuals for the IIIf and IIIg, they specify "Tesoron Fluid" as the adhesive to use. How this keeps in time is also a factor.

 

[sevo]

In the repair manuals for the IIIf and IIIg, they specify "Tesoron Fluid" as the adhesive to use.

"Teroson", presumably - that is a major German brand of industrial glues made by the Henkel group.

 

[georg16nik]

I use daily a red curtains IIIc #365xxx (1940.. probably), looks like the curtains are the original ones, in excellent condition, no pin holes or cracks. The color is kind a pastel red, not bright red.
Its sports Elmar 50mm f/3.5 #535xxx.
I had to CLA it myself a few years ago and it works smoother than any M or anything cloth shutter I've seen.
A month ago I was on the mountain (@ ~ -25°C / -13°F) with that IIIc, another IIIc from 1950, Fed NKVD from 1939, Zorki 1c rigid I-22..
The lubricant was the same in all the cameras, shutter speeds and tensions all set.
The 1950 IIIc & Zorki 1c closing curtains couldn't transit the film gate properly... they ran in slow motion..lol
The red curtain IIIc & the NVKD were blasting through the freeze as it was summer time.
Also, Leica II from 1934 with original shutter and all, runs in such low temp conditions without hassle. The Leica II internal parts are all brass.

 

[georg16nik]

attached are some fresh shots I did with that red curtain IIIc

 

[Luddite Frank]

The Kodak connection for focal-plane curtain material may have to do with Graphic - Graflex, after Kodak bought-out Folmer & Schwing ?

As far as I am aware, the only Kodak-badged camera to use a focal-plane shutter was the Ektra 35mm.

However, all the Graflex SLR cameras ( including the "miniature" National Graflex ), and the pre "Super" Graphic press cameras did have cloth FP shutters.

I have never heard of any Retina with an FP shutter.

 

[sevo]

The Kodak connection for focal-plane curtain material may have to do with Graphic - Graflex, after Kodak bought-out Folmer & Schwing ?

Which would have been in 1905. They were split off again for anti-trust/patent violation reasons in the twenties - there had been no connection (beyond Kodak supplying Graflex with lenses) for more than a decade by the time Leitz purchased the shutter material. If people said Kodak, they cannot have meant F&S/Graflex.

 

[Melvin]

I use daily a red curtains IIIc #365xxx (1940.. probably), looks like the curtains are the original ones, in excellent condition, no pin holes or cracks. The color is kind a pastel red, not bright red.
Its sports Elmar 50mm f/3.5 #535xxx.
I had to CLA it myself a few years ago and it works smoother than any M or anything cloth shutter I've seen.
A month ago I was on the mountain (@ ~ -25°C / -13°F) with that IIIc, another IIIc from 1950, Fed NKVD from 1939, Zorki 1c rigid I-22..
The lubricant was the same in all the cameras, shutter speeds and tensions all set.
The 1950 IIIc & Zorki 1c closing curtains couldn't transit the film gate properly... they ran in slow motion..lol
The red curtain IIIc & the NVKD were blasting through the freeze as it was summer time.
Also, Leica II from 1934 with original shutter and all, runs in such low temp conditions without hassle. The Leica II internal parts are all brass.

Interesting post and nice photos. Red filter? Also, have you had any uneven exposure issues with your Leica II at 1/500?

 

[georg16nik]

Thanks, Melvin!
I used Adox CMS 20 + yellow/orange filter for those shots, its a orthopanchromatic kind of emulsion with extended sensitivity in deep violet, green and yellow-orange parts of the spectrum while having low sensitivity in the blue.. so the sky is very deep even with yellow filter.
The Leica II is totally fine @ 1/500. Every well made cloth shutter RF works perfectly, when the shutter bearings and the entire transport chain is lubricated properly.
Leica II and especially I.., are as elegant as you can get and its worth keeping them in a good shape!

 

[LeicaTom]

Really like the results here

Great to see someone is still beating around shooting pix with a "wartime" IIIC

Happy Shooting!

Tom