Hello people,
I just sealed the back door of my F80.
I bought a 4mm thick foam pad from a local store here in Jeddah, and cut a couple of straps out of it (about 6mm wide.) I then stuffed the two straps into the top and bottom grooves on the body using the handle of a plastic knife, without using any glue.
I wanted to stuff the foam into the grooves on the door itself, but they were too shallow to hold the foam in place. Besides, the door is made of plastic, and one wrong move would have broken it. The grooves in the body are much deeper, and seemed to hold the foam in place.
I did this with my N65 when it was still new a couple of years ago, and it works great. With all the desert motor races I shot in Jordan and Syria, the film compartment of my N65 is still as clean as a whistle!
When I first did it, the door seemed not to want to close, but after a few film changes, the foam had set in and the door held in place fine, albeit still a bit tight, which is a good thing.
Now I’m trying to figure out a way to seal the built-in speedlight. There seems to be very little clearance between the speedlight and the body, so I’m thinking about cutting a few narrow straps of electric tape and stick them onto the edges of both the speedlight itself and the edges of the body where the speedlight sits.
Unfortunately, the N65 is not as well built as the F80. There is too much clearance between the N65’s flash and the body to make this practical. I’ll figure something out and keep you posted.
Shady