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  #21  
Old 28th February 2022, 06:22 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Svend, until I bought a camera without the red in the red window I would have been one of those who said never, but since I bought an old ensign 645 camera that had the red window removed, and no sign of a light leak, I am happy yo say I was wrong, I now hyave several of my red window cameras without the red, and all perform perfectly with no light leak getting to the film, all nice and clear, and thinking about, when a lot of these cameras were made film was mainly ortho, so not sensitive to all colours, whereas pan film is sensitive to all colors, and would show fogging if the shield was normally left open, as I often did, and never had a light leak yet,
Richard
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  #22  
Old 28th February 2022, 06:46 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Hi Richard - that's really good to know. At the present time I have a couple of Agfa red window folders, and they are both fine with Ilford and Kodak films, at least in good light. For darker areas I have the little lighted magnifier to aid me, and that works great. But I just bought a lovely Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 6x9 with a window that seems awfully dark, so I am skeptical that it will work well. I just got it back from a CLA, so will try it this weekend.

BTW, the camera in question which prompted me to start that earlier thread was a Franka, which I have since sold for reasons other than the red window frustration (great camera with a terrific lens, but too many annoyances to allow me to keep it).

FWIW - that Franka did give me badly fogged film when I was dumb enough to leave the window slider open in bright sun, confirming your point that the red window offers no protection to modern pan films.
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  #23  
Old 28th February 2022, 09:07 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Svend View Post
Hi Richard - that's really good to know. At the present time I have a couple of Agfa red window folders, and they are both fine with Ilford and Kodak films, at least in good light. For darker areas I have the little lighted magnifier to aid me, and that works great. But I just bought a lovely Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 6x9 with a window that seems awfully dark, so I am skeptical that it will work well. I just got it back from a CLA, so will try it this weekend.

BTW, the camera in question which prompted me to start that earlier thread was a Franka, which I have since sold for reasons other than the red window frustration (great camera with a terrific lens, but too many annoyances to allow me to keep it).

FWIW - that Franka did give me badly fogged film when I was dumb enough to leave the window slider open in bright sun, confirming your point that the red window offers no protection to modern pan films.
One of my German is a Franka Solida, and I removed the red window, wotks fine, no fogging, I did it as an experiment to see if the German made cameras worked without red window as well as my English cameras, but without the window I think it is important to close the shield, and perhaps just to wind on in shadow, even the shadow of your body turned from the sun, but I have never had any fogging on any camera leaving the shield open, after all, the camera spends a lot of the time if you carry it around your neck sheilded by your chest,
Richard
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  #24  
Old 1st March 2022, 07:28 AM
PeteK PeteK is offline
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Originally Posted by Svend View Post
Pete - join the Red Window Camera Frustrated User's Club

I've had a number of old folders with red windows, and seeing the numbers has certainly been challenging on a few of them, esp. in low light. I've taken to carrying a little pocket magnifier with built-in LED light whenever I shoot with one of these cameras. Helps a lot.

I have something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/EasY-Magnif...NsaWNrPXRydWU=


One of my cameras was so bad that I seriously contemplated cutting the red window out entirely. I polled the group here to see if it was OK to do that, and it was pretty much agreed all around that it was not the best idea. There is a long thread on that topic here:
http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.or...ad.php?t=10993
Yeah I found your thread I couldn't believe, out of all the members here, it was you I seem to be very much following in your footsteps scouring the red window works great but I think there is still a bit of paste under my flap. It will go in time. I just put a dab of paste on a q tip and cleaned it turns out the one on my ikoflex is film rather than glass. I can now see the numbers on ilford delta. They are ridiculously feint though.

In other news, the mirror is going off for resilvering today
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  #25  
Old 1st March 2022, 12:55 PM
Terry S Terry S is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Svend View Post
...in low light. I've taken to carrying a little pocket magnifier with built-in LED light whenever I shoot with one of these cameras. Helps a lot.

I have something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/EasY-Magnif...0NsaWNrPXRydWU
I also found this magnifier. It's a lot cheaper than the Amazon one but doesn't have the large magnifying lens. It does have a bigger magnification though, and if you only want one for checking the film numbers in a red window of a camera, this may do:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362936006...AAAOSwZbpfcXiM

I'm popping out, but will have a better search later as most items on Amazon can be found a lot cheaper with a bit of a look.

Terry S
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  #26  
Old 1st March 2022, 01:33 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PeteK View Post
Yeah I found your thread I couldn't believe, out of all the members here, it was you I seem to be very much following in your footsteps scouring the red window works great but I think there is still a bit of paste under my flap. It will go in time. I just put a dab of paste on a q tip and cleaned it turns out the one on my ikoflex is film rather than glass. I can now see the numbers on ilford delta. They are ridiculously feint though.

In other news, the mirror is going off for resilvering today

Good one Pete. Toothpaste scrub is a great idea. I will have to try that. Just a word of warning not to ever use a solvent on the plastic film - I made that mistake once and it blistered the plastic. Luckily it only affected a small corner of the window before I noticed it and stopped. Can't recall what solvent it was, but clearly it was pretty aggressive stuff.

And great news on the mirror. Thank Ian Grant for that lead.
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  #27  
Old 2nd March 2022, 08:47 AM
Paulographic Paulographic is offline
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Toothpaste is a good "scrub", gentler than kitchen cream cleansers. I got a free tube of an unknown brand with a toothbrush once, tasted vile but cleaned the bath taps fine.
For photographic bits I often use meths on a cotton bud to clean fiddly bits.
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  #28  
Old 5th March 2022, 01:48 PM
Terry S Terry S is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Svend View Post
I've taken to carrying a little pocket magnifier with built-in LED light whenever I shoot with one of these cameras. Helps a lot.

I have something like this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/EasY-Magnif...NsaWNrPXRydWU=
Following on from my previous post, showing a link to a cheaper LED light magnifier for a cheaper price, here are a few more that are similar to the original link above on Amazon, but so MUCH cheaper! For these prices I'm now looking at getting one myself, for the original reason of reading film backing numbers through dark red windows on the back of some cameras:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284678077...cAAOSwj6ViH4f4

This link looks very similar to the original post:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224762967...wAAOSwIpRhytpd

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311821137...AAAOSwTM5Yw9lX

And I'm sure there are many more. I used the two words, 'LED magnifier' in the search box.

Terry S
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  #29  
Old 5th March 2022, 04:36 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Good one Terry - thanks for finding those. Great prices. I am going to look on this side of the pond for a similar deal - I wouldn't mind having a second one of those so I can keep one in each backpack.
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  #30  
Old 14th March 2022, 03:09 PM
Terry S Terry S is online now
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I don't know why, but I was rethinking about this link and the magnifiers mentioned.

I suddenly thought, you need one hand to hold the camera, one hand to hold a magnifier, and then, oh, wheres the third hand to roll the film on to look at the numbers in the red window?...

Terry S
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