K3 issues.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

Does anybody know a good servicehouse for a K3? I jsut got some footage back and there were a few scratches on it, also it seemed to be dipping in and out of focus ( film not being adequately withheld by the pressure plate?)

 

have any of you had these issues?

[Joe Lotuaco]

Does anybody know a good servicehouse for a K3? I jsut got some footage back and there were a few scratches on it, also it seemed to be dipping in and out of focus ( film not being adequately withheld by the pressure plate?)

 

have any of you had these issues?

 

 

I see you are in LA, but Du-All Camera in NYC is one of, if not the best, places to get your K3 repaired. I had my K-3 overhauled by them for about $225 which was then covered by a 90 day warranty. Check out their website for more details of what the overhaul involves. http://www.duallcamera.com/

 

Their warranty came in handy when my camera stopped working in the middle of a shoot and they covered the diagnosis and repair of a broken take up sprocket under the warranty (a VERY good thing for a film student who has to pay for processing and transferring of film out of pocket). I have nothing but praise for their knowledge, professionalism, and quality of work, on a camera that's probably twice as old as I am.

 

As for the film dipping in and out of focus, a classmate of mine has a K3 that sometimes the pulldown claw misses the sprocket holes and just pushes the film off the film plane on every frame. This would happen after triple checking to make sure the film was loaded properly. He never took his camera in to get looked at, so we still don't know what the cause was. It could also be your lens needs to be collimated, but that would probably cause your footage to be consistently out of focus.

[adam berk]

Does anybody know a good servicehouse for a K3? I jsut got some footage back and there were a few scratches on it, also it seemed to be dipping in and out of focus ( film not being adequately withheld by the pressure plate?)

 

have any of you had these issues?

 

 

duallcamera.com

 

they do an overhaul, upgrades, super16 conversion too i think

 

i've had good experiences with them buying kit for my bolex

[Henri Melaanvuo]

Does anybody know a good servicehouse for a K3? I jsut got some footage back and there were a few scratches on it, also it seemed to be dipping in and out of focus ( film not being adequately withheld by the pressure plate?)

 

have any of you had these issues?

 

To me this sounds like improper film loading and most likely your camera is just fine. First clean the gate and when you load the film, double check that the gate is properly seated and closed and that the claw meets the sprocket holes. Also be sure that the loop is of appropriate size, otherwise the film might get scratched. You should hear the difference if the camera is properly loaded or not.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

To me this sounds like improper film loading and most likely your camera is just fine. First clean the gate and when you load the film, double check that the gate is properly seated and closed and that the claw meets the sprocket holes. Also be sure that the loop is of appropriate size, otherwise the film might get scratched. You should hear the difference if the camera is properly loaded or not.

Yeah, I'm positive i loaded the film correctly because i did it in light, and i made sure everything was good, I even ran it for a few feet to insure things were fine. My guess is that the plastic guides are the culprit.

[Alessandro Malfatti]

Try to make smaller loops in that case... worked well for me, I made the loops a little smaller, so they would barely or not at all touch the guides when running the film without closing the lid (which means, that the guides were not retracted). I only got my first roll scratched, as soon as I started threading the film like this I've never had any problem.