B Setting on P30 back with 503CW

[Richard Man]

I am having trouble with the 503CW and a P30 back (not the P30+). The images are fine all up to 1 sec (or at least after I found a lens without lens shutter issue with low speed). However, with B, first, it always terminates no more than after 5-6 secs even if I hold the shutter release down longer, and second, it never seems to obtain an image.

I have checked the B setting does hold the lens shutter open by removing the back and raising the mirror so I can see through the iris. The lens shutter seems to operate as it should.

I tried two different sync cables with the same result. I also tried raising the mirror and again the result is the same.

Any idea? I know the P30 back doesn't do as low light as the P30+, but it's almost like hardly any light is admitted.

Thanks.

[Aztecaphoto]

It seems that is is related to the wake up signal.
Try to clean the Pal pin with a green kitchen pad and check if extends at least 2.8mm. It should be shiny.
I hope this helps

[Richard Man]

To put a closure on this: yes, it's a lens problem. During some point in the history, Zeiss made some "newer" lens that shut off the sync signal under B to save power or something. This does not affect normal usage using flash and film, but cause the digital back not to operate correctly.

Thanks for the help!

[digitalcameraman]

It seems that is is related to the wake up signal.
Try to clean the Pal pin with a green kitchen pad and check if extends at least 2.8mm. It should be shiny.
I hope this helps

That pal pin can bite you when you lest expect it. The problem is that a P1 back has a sensor that is looking for reflectivity to tell the camera back to wake up. In my experience (15 years since Lightphase was released) with these backs. I use a small piece of sandpaper (fine grit) to sand off some of the tarnished color to the pin that is normally silver. Hasselblad also made black pal pins and those can too be fixed this way. Works just about every time. Now it took a few years before the engineers at P1 understood this and published a white paper which was a blessing because I had some demos I could not make other V bodies work until we knew about this issue. Nasa comes to mind, Space Shuttle takes off and during the burst it started creating 2 shot time out errors. We missed some shots due to this. But we were able to fix this with the sand paper.

Keep in mind this usually creates 2 shot time out errors as the wake up call never gets recorded so when the shutter released, it is just waking the camera up when the lens fire, thus making no exposure. Just FYI



Sincerely,

Chris Snipes
Sales Manager, Florida
Capture Integration
http://www.captureintegration.com

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