Hass 2000/2003fc curtain question

[zenza]

Recently I've been in the market for either a 2000fc m/w or a 2003fc m/w. I have come across some one eBay and I've read to be weary about the condition of the shutter curtains in the back. My question is, what kind of condition is bad? All of the curtains that I've seen have wrinkling in them to a certain extent. Is this just from normal signs or wear were these accidentally damaged by the owners? I have read about a Hasselblad repairman that's been making his own hybrid version of the shutter curtains so I might consider getting it repaired if it's that bad.

[Q.G.]

Wrinkled shutters may work for a while longer. How long depends on how bad the wrinkles are.

What happens is that the forces released when the curtains are accelerated and decelerated 'concentrate' in the wrinkles, and they will get worse.
You'll never know when the last time will be the shutter fires before crumpling up completely. And the concentrated stresses will create breaks in creases of the metal foil, even if the curtains don't crumple up completely.

These stresses alone could cause wrinkles in the curtain, i guess. But i bet all are due to not being careful enough.

Here's an example i once came across. It was being sold as 'in working order', 'nothing wrong with it' and all that.



Needless to say not something we should spend money on, shutters that look like that.

dr. John Emmet does (or did?) indeed offer to replace damaged (and undamaged) shutter curtains with 'plastic' ones. (See this PDF document) Worth a try perhaps. je@bpr.org.uk

[zenza]

QG, you seem to be the wizard at this stuff, thanks. I came across a another used 2000 FC and it confused me a little. The curtain appears fine in two of the photos but in one it is a bit wrinkled and mentions a "2nd" curtain in the caption. Are there multiple curtains in these cameras?

1st


2nd


3rd(wrinkled)


The description also says:

"The camera works fine, however the 2nd curtain has a slight dent, but there is no light leak and the camera functions fine."

Halp?

[Q.G.]

A focal plane shutter has two curtains, yes.
One that covers the film when the shutter is set to go, and will start to move from one spool on one side of the film gate to a spool on the other side, uncovering the film as it does.
The other, second curtain will follow the first curtain, but a little bit behind. That delay creates a 'slit' between the two curtains, where the first curtain has already uncovered the film, the second not yet has had chance to cover it again. Variations of the width of that slit, i.e. the gap/delay between the two curtains is what determines the time the film is exposed, i.e. shutter speed.
When the shutter is cocked, the two curtains are wound back to the other side of the filmgate again, but now with the second curtain overlapping the first, so that the film will not be exposed again when you reset the shutter.

So the first curtain covers the film, and can be seen in photos taken of the back of the 2000-series Hasselblad, when the shutter is cocked. The second curtain covers the film, and can be seen in such photos when the shutter is released.
The last photo you show shows the second curtain (on the left) overlapping the first curtain (on the right). It is taken somewhere around midway resetting the shutter.

I would rank this shutter, with the "slight dent" as it is, as something i would not spend money on. It is way beyond "slight" in my book.
It will probably still work for a while. But absolutely not as long as you would hope it would.

It's getting hard to find 2000-series cameras for sale that have shutters that are still o.k. But unless this camera is meant to spend the rest of its life sitting on a shelf as part of a collection, my advice would be to look for another one anyway.

Or if it is cheap enough to have dr. Emmet install his shutter, perhaps worth a try.