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I recently bought a Zone VI 5x4 and have been testing it with a Polaroid back. It appears I have a light leak. I have noticed a couple of pin pricks in the bellows but the scans of two images suggest something else. The light leaks are in the same place despite using two different lenses 150mm/300mm so the bellows were in two different places? I can rule out the lens boards, any ideas?


Martin

So four evenly spaced dots, at same part of frame irrespective of lens and therefore bellows extension. Agree with you, if it were bellows, then we'd expect position to shift as the light leak moved.

It makes me think that it must be happening at the film plane area. Rather than suspect camera, it might be the Polaroid film itself. The film might have been punctured when coming out of back or otherwise damaged in the box. It might be worth putting a DDS in and shooting a sheet of other film. Try shooting both landscape and portrait, if in same place when landscape, then camera issue. If in a row across top or bottom of landscape shot with or without Polaroid, then this indicates it's a film issue.

Definitely must be something right at the film plane to give you marks that small and sharp. Most camera-related light leaks will be quite broad and soft edged.

I suspect it might be dirt on the Polaroid back rollers, hence the even spacing.

Paul Mitchell wrote:I suspect it might be dirt on the Polaroid back rollers, hence the even spacing.

I would concur with that.

Cleaned the rollers and everything is fine. Thank you to everyone that helped.

Another lesson learnt!

Martin