NRO

[Frank Gentges]

Doug, tacoistas,

I had a chance to get the Canon FT cameras out on the bench here at the 
lab.  Maybe others will want to check their focal plane shutters.

First, take off the lens and open the back.   Then fire the shutter and 
watch a good light through the shutter.  I used a fluorescent tube.  The 
good camera shows the light all the way across even at 1/1000 sec.

The bad camera shows just a short gap of light at 1/1000 sec.  As I slow 
the speed the gap gets larger until at 1/60 the light is seen all the 
way across.  I will put this camera aside and use the good one.  One of 
the curtains is hanging slightly and will probably need some lubrication 
to the mechanism.  It has been on the shelf for some years and I suspect 
many other fine SLRs have a similar problem and should be checked.

The mercury cell in that camera is still at 1.4 volts.  As a backup I 
will use the article Sandy found at

http://www.acecam.com/photography/5591.html

Sandy is very observant in finding that article about the Olympus.  
Thanks Sandy for your reading list.

Dad


On 7/13/2010 9:07 PM, Doug Gentges wrote:
> Dad
>
> you may want to run a roll of film through your camera before you go.  
> As I recall, the last time I used it, the shutter was sticking, 
> causing one side of the frame to be black
>