Leica R3 Mot problems?

Mitica100 · Aug 23, 2006

Does anyone shoot a Leica R3 camera? I have a friend that does and she ran into a problem. I can't seem to see what's causing it so I'm guessing that the seals are not properly seated around the back door. Also I thought of a light leak through the film window on the back door. Its sealing foam seems intact but I can't seem to see what else could cause it. Below I have two pictures showing what kind of banding on the film I'm talking about. They are actually pictures that I added the color bands as I saw them on her shots, since neither she or I have a scanner handy. These pictures are just to show you where they occur. Oh, BTW, one film came out perfect, while the second one had the banding in almost 40% of the frames.

Here there is an orange banding on the left of the picture, I assume it's from the bad sealing of the door. The blue banding puzzles me and it appears in different places in different frames, as you can see below:

Any ideas?

Jeff Canes · Aug 24, 2006

Does it have a vertical shutter? Could it be sticking?

Mitica100 · Aug 24, 2006

Jeff Canes said:
Does it have a vertical shutter? Could it be sticking?

Yes, the shutter is vertical (up-down) and not horizontal (left-right). I assumed the banding would be caused by sticky shutter until I opened the camera and saw that is a vertical shutter. That eliminated such assumption since the bands are vertical and not horizontal.