I've been having some problems with the photos i've been taking with my first large format camera, an older Shen Hao.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimbobu...7594253992034/
mainly leaks of various kinds across a lot of the pictures. I'm still not 100% sure its not a problem with the holders, handling of film, or my developing.. though a set is some i sent away to peak imaging and got developed (though again these were loaded film from the seller of the camera) which would hopefully eliminate home developing a little bit.
Anyways I've took a torch to the inside of the camera in a dark room and i can see quite a lot of light leaks in the bellows.. pin holes in a lot of the corners of the pleats.
I'm based in the UK, not sure what options are available to me in this country. Being the older Shen Hao i don't think its trivial to replace the bellows.. are there any places in the UK that will do this for you.. how much will they typically charge for this..
Is it perhaps worth trying to plug up these problems temporarily, and see if i can start getting some images out that have no noticable problems.
I've done a search and found some people describing various attempts at bellow repair.. i wondered if someone who had done this could take some snapshots of those repairs to give me more of an idea about what it should look like after completing the task.
Cheers guys, don't know how much of this is causing my problems.. it varies quite a lot so I dont think it can be the only cause, of course light varies but you'd think the leaks effect would be relatively consistent. Still I don't like the idea of them leaking at all and would love to cover (and fix) all bases to start with, and hopefully start getting some "correct" images
Bookmarks