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RE: [OM] OM-PC with light leak

Subject: RE: [OM] OM-PC with light leak
From: Olaf Greve <Ogreve@xxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 19:34:45 +0200
Hi,

> I have an OM-PC I bought used recently and the last roll of
> film shows evidence of a light leak.  On 3 of 24 frames (all
> 24 taken in bright sunlight) the left side of the frame
> shows reddish fogging. A 4th frame shows slightly curved,
> vertical pink streaks covering about 20% the width of the
> frame and centered about 1/3 of the width from the left.

Unfortunately the same happened to me. Last November when traveling in
Venezuela, the glue that holds the "film-window" foam in place melted and
caused the foam to shift. Then lateron this foam got damaged and some slight
light leaking started to occur (i.e. a few shots had a faint red stripe on
the left side of them), then lateron this became worse and worse. The last
time I was in Venezuela (March this year) the thing deteriorated, as the
damaged foam somehow managed to get stuck to the film that was in the camera
and then when rewinding it, half of the foam disappeared in the film
cannister! :( Good, the film was almost completely nackered, as was the
foam. I took pics with 2 more rolls, and guess what? On some shots there was
no visible light leaking whereas other pics were totally messed up.
Interestingly enough, almost all these shots (i.e. the messed up ones)
occured when I switched big telephoto lenses. I was a bit puzzled by this
but then realised that I tend to take the lens between my legs (when sitting
on a chair or something similar) and twist the camera off the lens rather
than the lens off the camera, when a big telephoto lens is attached to it.
So, when doing this, the camera's back is turned up, pointing to the sky ->
enter sunlight!!!

I'm still not 1000ositive this caused it and the film I used was some 400
ASA film I had bought well over a year ago, and which had since seen quite a
few X-ray airport inspection units, so I still wasn't 100ure, but after
another roll of messed up pics (this time it was a new 200 ASA roll) I was
pretty certain that my theory was sound.

I then tried to find replacement foam, but couldn't find any(it's amazing
that after trying several hobby stores, camera stores, etc. one couldn't
even find the right kind of foam), so I bought something which was very
similar but not exactly the same stuff. I customised the foam so it would
fit the little window correctly, but after having taken one roll of film
with it, the light leak was worse than ever before (probably the stuff
doesn't seal the window of well enough). Tired of finding some otherwise
nice shots totally nackered by red stripes, I decided to take a rigorous
approach and put a black piece of tape over the little window -> gone was
the light leak...

So far it hasn't surfaced again, so I think it's safe to assume that in my
case the problem really was due to the little window. Maybe this is also the
case with your camera, so you can first try a roll of film by taking a dummy
shot, exposing the back of the film to direct sunlight, have the film
processed and check for light leaks on that frame. If so, you have just
found a highly suspect area, and can try to see what'll happen when sealing
off the window. If not, your problem might come from using old film...

Ah, BTW, if the light leak is indeed caused by the little window, the
(n)everready case will not help you, as the OM-40 only really fits in the
proper OM-40 case, and that one has a little rectangle cut out to make the
window visible...

Cheers!
Olaf

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