CFV16 needs pro repair

[john_r_smith]

I have the CFV-39, not the 16. On the 39, the cover glass is held down by a plate and several cross-head screws, and is sandwiched to the sensor with a foam gasket. It can't be hermetically sealed, because if it was you would not be able to replace the cover glass on its own - and you might need to do this if the cover got accidentally scratched or marked, which is perfectly possible as it is exposed every time you take the back off the camera. So from a practical point of view, there will always be the possibility that damp and fungus spores might get between the cover glass and the sensor itself. Exactly the same thing can and does happen to lenses and prisms, as we know.

John

 

[wbulte]

I have the CFV-39, not the 16. On the 39, the cover glass is held down by a plate and several cross-head screws, and is sandwiched to the sensor with a foam gasket. It can't be hermetically sealed, because if it was you would not be able to replace the cover glass on its own - and you might need to do this if the cover got accidentally scratched or marked, which is perfectly possible as it is exposed every time you take the back off the camera. So from a practical point of view, there will always be the possibility that damp and fungus spores might get between the cover glass and the sensor itself. Exactly the same thing can and does happen to lenses and prisms, as we know.

John

Foam gasket? Reminds me of the foam stuff used to mount the mirror on in the 500-series non-GLM bodies. Yikes.. One could get a very good (maybe not hermetic) seal with say a high-spec silicone rubber gasket.

I've already decided that if (and that is a big if) I ever get a digiback it will stay on the body more or less permanently, only to be removed in a well lit clean room, never in the field if I can avoid it. I'd simply use another body for use with film. Bodies are dirt-cheap compared to digibacks.

Wilko

 

[john_r_smith]

Wilko

Yes, that is a good idea. I have purchased 500 C/M bodies for about £150 GBP, so one could certainly reserve a body for digital. But I do quite often change viewfinders, and you have to remove the back to do that.

John

 

[saad]

I have used both my CFVs in extremely hostile conditions and never a problem. I am talking humidity of 98% and temperatures of 43 celsius, plus sea spray.

I think you could do with your CFV anything you like within within the bounds of common sense, just don't store it in a warm and humid area with no air circulation, and please don't use it on a camera which has been stored in a such an area before checking to see if there are any signs of small but visible patches of fungus.

Saad

 

[michaelhcothran]

I've already decided that if (and that is a big if) I ever get a digiback it will stay on the body more or less permanently, only to be removed in a well lit clean room, never in the field if I can avoid it. I'd simply use another body for use with film. Bodies are dirt-cheap compared to digibacks.
Wilko

This was how I treated my CFV. I put it on the body, and left it there. However, and to my dismay, bad things still happen. In addition to the problem brought up here, I have lots of the usual little round dust bunnies too, that show up in the sky area. Seems that each time we trip the shutter, there is a chance for dust and whatever to fly around inside the body, and land on the sensor glass. So, it seems to me, as long as lenses are changed, and the mirror flaps up & down, the sensor is in dire, eminent danger.
The only real preventable use is to mount the back to an SWC, where there is no lens changing and no mirror flapping - ever. Then, you could hermetically seal it to the body, and be done with it. A soldering iron might work also!

Michael H. Cothran
Nashville, TN

 

[polypal]

A soldering iron might work also!

Michael H. Cothran
Nashville, TN

Hello Michael,

No doubt about your craftsmanship at all.
There is a saying in German about that subject:
"I doubt very much he knows what end of the soldering iron to grab"


Paul