This one I can't quite figure out...

I just got back three rolls of film that I recently took with my TL120. These are the first rolls I had taken with it in a couple years, and before that had only taken a couple rolls to test out the camera when I got it.

In each of the three rolls are sections with double-exposure (mainly in the black lines between images). It would appear the double image is of the ground which tells me this must have occurred as I was winding the film forward. I inspected the camera by holding it up to the light with the back door open, and lens cap off. I clicked the shutter and wound the lever and discovered that in fact, the shutter (or at least one half of it) was going off as I wound the camera forward. I did this a few times, and it looks like it's no longer happening, but now I am left to wonder how it happened in the first place, and if it will happen again. Any ideas? Prior to these two rolls I had unscrewed the ring around the shutter release button, and then retightened it...could this have caused such a problem? I noticed that at least once, the shutter button got 'caught' under the ring slightly, so I again unscrewed and retightened, but it seems unlikely to me this is related to the double-exposure issue. Is it possible the shutters are now out of sync?

Any enlightenment on this would be appreciated. Thanks-

Stefano

Hello Stefano

I have had the exact same thing happen numerous times with my TL120. Since I often have a strobe connected for fill flash it's very obvious when it happens. Having a shutter release cable connected seemed to exacerbate the problem. In my case taking out the shutter release assembly and carefully putting it back together seemed to clear up the problem, but I generally try to cover the lenses when winding just in case. If you open the camera you can see the shutters flex when being cocked while winding.


While I love the TL120's optics and build it drives me up the wall that the shutter cocking and winding is linked. This leads to problems like yours, wasted exposures and no chance of ever doing creative double exposures. As I've said before this is not an automatic camera in any sense of the word - what is the possible benefit of a self-cocking shutter? I would gladly pay a few hundred dollars to have the shutter cocking disengaged from the winding mechanism, and failing that a working shutter lock would be a big help.

Jim Harp

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, "jamesbharp" wrote:

>
> Hello Stefano
>
> I have had the exact same thing happen numerous times with my TL120. Since I often have a strobe connected for fill flash it's very obvious when it happens. Having a shutter release cable connected seemed to exacerbate the problem. In my case taking out the shutter release assembly and carefully putting it back together seemed to clear up the problem, but I generally try to cover the lenses when winding just in case. If you open the camera you can see the shutters flex when being cocked while winding.
>
>
> While I love the TL120's optics and build it drives me up the wall that the shutter cocking and winding is linked. This leads to problems like yours, wasted exposures and no chance of ever doing creative double exposures. As I've said before this is not an automatic camera in any sense of the word - what is the possible benefit of a self-cocking shutter? I would gladly pay a few hundred dollars to have the shutter cocking disengaged from the winding mechanism, and failing that a working shutter lock would be a big help.
>
> Jim Harp
>

Jim,

Thank you for this explanation. It helps to clear things up...though it's certainly frustrating to know that this could be a recurring problem. My camera is the later model with the shutter lock, so I am surprised this was not an error which was fixed with that adjustment. When you took apart the shutter release, did you simply unscrew the ring around the release button, or did you make some internal adjustments?

Stefano