I have had trouble with film scratches with two of my cameras that occurred
often enough (despite cleanings) that I have begun to suspect the cameras.
The scratches that I was getting were with my PZ-1 and PZ-1p cameras. These
scratches were intermittent, but when they occurred, they were consistently
in the same place. This was on the side away from the lens about a 1/4 of an
inch from the top of the slide or negative. When I would lay the film in the
camera in the orientation it would be in when it was being exposed the
scratches seemed to line up with either the lower edge of the white roller
attached to the door or to the edge of the metal spring that holds the
roller. If the film was scratched it tended to be so for the whole roll
except for the last frame or so (which coincidentally does not come into
contact with the roller. This has happened on both of these bodies. Because
I had bought date backs for both I was able to swap out the roller on the
bodies and, for a while the problem seemed to stop. Recently, however, my
PZ-1p (which I use more) began doing it again.
I tried to see if I could buy the roller and spring and went as far as to
leave a camera back at a camera shop so their repair guy could explain to
Pentax what part I wanted. Pentax's response was that I needed to send them
both the back and an example of the scratched film before they would send the
camera store a new roller that could in turn be sold to me. This irritated
more then a bit. To date I have not done this, rather I took one of the
rollers and bent the spring some (difficult but not impossible to do without
also changing the position of the roller relative to the film). Since doing
this, I have run a couple of rolls through the camera without it appearing to
scratch the film. As the problem was intermittent I am not convinced I have
solved it. I also have a difficult time believing the little I did could
have made much difference.
I am not even sure I have diagnosed the cause correctly. If this
roller/spring causes scratches, I would think there would be a lot more
people complaining about it.
George Baumgardner
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