Soft patch on image

[Lyric-1]

I would be grateful for opinions on the area of unsharpness that appears in the centre right of my images. How bad do you think it is? Does it have an obvious cause? Can it be cured?

The camera is a (prepare to groan) Super Baldax, with Ennit f/2.9 lens. I've uploaded two pictures from it to https://500px.com/Lyric-1. You should be able to see the area I'm talking about from the Profile image that appears across the top of the screen: it seems to begin at the arched window on the right.

(I chose to try 500px because they were supposed to support images up to 2048px, but that only happens if you have a very high resolution display. Otherwise it's downsampled to 1170px or so. If someone could recommend a host that supports 2048px and allows low-res copies to be embedded on these forums, again, I'd be obliged.)

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Ronald M]

Sensor fingerprint/dirt. An old lens that reflects light back to the sensor.

A lens defect/damage of some type. Check rear element.

If it happens with more than one lens, it is a camera issue.

Solutions are clean/ repair or replace.

 

[sleepyhead]

Since your camera is a folder, I think what may be happening is that when you unfold the camera and extend the lens, a vacuum is sucking the film out a bit from the pressure plate.

If this is what is happening, then you can try to open the camera more slowly, and/or wind the film slightly to tension it again after unfolding the camera.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

 

[x-ray]

It's certainly possible that extending the bellows too quickly could pull the film away from the pressure plate.

Did you go from a cool air conditioned environment into a warm humid environment. I've seen flatness problems with sudden humidity and temperature changed In the southern US where I live.

Check the tension on the pressure pate. It's an old camera and the springs tensioning the pressure plate may have weakened over time.

I had a Graflex back for a 3x4 Auto Graflex that would not reliably hold film flat. About 50% of the images were soft in the center and sharp at the edges. I finally narrowed the problem down to not holding the film flat but never found a solution. I think it was common with the early roll backs that lacked one set of small rollers that were added in later backs.

Cameras like Hasselblads and Rollei SL66's will often have a stripe of softness in the second frame if the film has been in the back for an extended period of time. It's due to the film taking on the curvature of the rollers that it back curls around. Cameras like yours that have a straight film path shouldn't suffer from that though.