Film Problems w/ Fold-out Camera

Hey all. I was having troubles a while back with an old Kodak Six-20 foldout and light leakage, but that seems to be mostly fixed. I got a roll back with no apparent leakage, but I just got the next one back, and it looks like I may have some new problems, and I was wondering if anyone would have any idea as to their causes. I've attached two images from the latest roll. One is my sister, shot with window light. In this one, there's that great big artifact-looking thing marring the image. My suspicion here is that this is flare from the window, as the same pattern appears on another image shot more away from the window, but to a lesser extent. There also appears to be some light leakage in the lower right of the frame, which I think may be due to the fact that the film didn't wind completely tight on the spool, and some of it may have bulged out and had some light leak in past the backing paper. Or perhaps it's just another pinprick on the bellows?

On the other attached image, shot in broad daylight, there's a more troublesome white blotch, which I'm finding especially worrisome because you can actually see one of the numbers from the backing paper. I'm afraid that may mean that there's light leaking in from the back, unless there's some other way that the backing paper could have gotten imprinted onto the film.

On a final note, I also have a shot on the roll that was done at night, with long exposure and a strobe, which has no apparent leakage at all: likely because there wasn't enough light around to penetrate the bellows and/or camera. Also, I should probably note that I did do some nasty underexposure thanks to metering errors, and so had to have this film pushed a stop when they developed it, and I'm guessing that probably accentuated any defects of the camera at play. And, of course, C&C welcome on the portrait welcome (this wasn't really my favorite of them at all, but I uploaded it to make sure to show the light leakage issue)

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It looks to me as if what you have is flare from the cheap lens. Try wrapping tinfoil around the bellows & duplicate the shot with the bright window & darker area at the side & see what happens.
You've probably got years of film built up on the surface of the lens, too. Careful cleaning with lens cleaning fluid might help, but don't expect much improvement.

In addition to what Frank said, it looks like light is leaking from the back of the film. You might want to tape the seams, remember that the image is upside down at the film plane when addressing problem areas. I would use a flag to try to eliminate flare from the window. The lenses on those cameras were never top performers but they have a certain look that many people like.

I'm curious as to where you find 620 film. Was it old outdated film or fairly new still in date?

Tixeon wrote in post #6157704
I'm curious as to where you find 620 film. Was it old outdated film or fairly new still in date?

I don't. I sold my soul on eBay for a handful of 620 spools, and now I just respool 120 film onto them. Also, I just redid the flashlight-in-a-dark-room test, and it looks like the gaffer tape I patched the bellows with has developed leaks of its own, so I'm going to retape with electrical tape soon. I also tried putting the flashlight inside the camera and looking for leaks in the back, and didn't see any, but I'm guessing those are probably harder to detect. I guess I'll tape up the bellows with electrical tape, expose another roll properly, and then see how things are looking. At least I'm getting something usable out of it now, which is fun.

And yeah, I know the lens is crap It's still kind of impressive how well it works out, though, considering that it's basically a plastic bubble...

Cool.... Concerning the frame #'s showing up on the negs - Does the camera have a red (?) plastic view window on the back for the frame count? If so, then it's possible that it's not dark enough.

Tixeon wrote in post #6158223
Cool.... Concerning the frame #'s showing up on the negs - Does the camera have a red (?) plastic view window on the back for the frame count? If so, then it's possible that it's not dark enough.

It does, but the number that's showing there is one of the numbers for a 6x6 camera, I believe. The numbers that show at my viewer's level only go up to 8, so unless there's some weird angles involved, it doesn't seem like that could be it...