Spent 11 hours chasing a light leak in a Rolleiflex, and it was the film back the entire time

River Davis · 2026-10-11T06:55:03.635465+00:00

A customer brought in a 3.5F last Tuesday saying every roll had a thin fog stripe along the right edge, and I was sure it was a pinhole in the bellows. I pulled the shutter, checked the seals, reseated the screen, even swapped the lens board off a parts body, which ate up about 6 hours across two days. Turned out the hinge side of the film back had a hairline crack that only opened up when the camera was loaded and closed, so it never showed on a bare body test. Pressed it closed with the back off and watched a flashlight beam slip right through. Has anyone else gotten burned by a leak that only appears under film tension, because I want to know how you test for that without wasting a roll.

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Spent 11 hours chasing a light leak in a Rolleiflex, and it was the film back the entire time | Camera Repairers - Free To Speak