Thread on Frame

[gdmcclintock]

Pardon the pun in the title! I normally shoot several rolls of slide film with my M6, then have them processed at the same time. When I examined the last batch, I discovered that many of the slides showed a thin line crossing an upper corner of the frame. I removed the lens, opened the back, set the shutter to B, and found a small black thread, no thicker than a strand of hair, protruding from the bottom of the frame. Wondering if the thread was coming from the curtain shutter, with great hesitation I attempted to grab the thread with tweezers. This motion caused the thread to fall away, out of the camera. Problem solved? I am fairly new to Leica and have not seen this problem before. Is the invasion of small particles of dust, hair, thread, etc. into the shutter mechanism a common occurrence with Leica cameras? Thanks! -gdmcclintock

 

[payasam]

Strange. All of the slides, not many, should have had the thin line.

Small things get into all cameras, not just Leicas. It's usually enough to puff away with a rubber bulb blower at each loading.

 

[Roger Hicks]

As Mukul Dube says, this sort of thing can happen just about any camera. It happened to me with a Mamiya back on my Alpa, though that time it was part of the light-seal, not the shutter.

The fact that it wasn't there on all of the slides makes me suspect that sometimes it stuck down, and other times it popped up, so you were lucky to find it.

Tashi delek,

R.

 

[Chris101]

I had an eyelash get stuck in the gate of an OM-1n once, and it showed in most of the frames. It moved a bit each time, and was more apparent in some images more so than others, depending on the lighting and f-stop.

Eventually it worked it's way out, and I removed it from the back of the camera.

 

[gdmcclintock]

Thanks very much Mukul, Roger, and Chris! I am used to dust and other pesky particles in my medium format cameras, not to mention the DSLRs! For a brief moment I worried that my M6's curtain shutter was unraveling! Once again, thanks for your anecdotes! Best wishes. -gdmcclintock