Finally figured out why my shutter curtain timing was always off by a hair

I was working on a Pentax K1000 from a local shop, and the second curtain kept lagging just enough to overexpose the right edge. For months I'd been adjusting the spring tension, but it never stuck. The tip-off was a tiny bit of old, sticky grease on the curtain roller axle that I only saw under my bench light at a certain angle. Cleaned that off with some lighter fluid and a cotton swab, and the timing snapped right into place. Anyone else miss a simple cleaning step that turned out to be the whole problem?

2 comments

2 Comments

abby6981d ago

Oh, that's so satisfying when you finally spot the one tiny thing causing all the trouble. Been there with stubborn mechanisms myself.

tyler_king1d ago

Honestly that sounds like a pretty minor issue for months of work. A tiny bit of leftover grease wouldn't cause a huge problem on most cameras. Maybe the timing was just finally broken in from all that adjusting.