Floating Goats

The last 6 rolls of reversal film I've shot through my F90X have all come back from processing with scratches down the length of the film. At first I put this down to bad handling at the lab, but when it was consistent over 6 rolls, and the scratches in the same relative position on the image, I started suspecting the camera.

Now this would give me an excuse to go to a used camera with more features like the F100 (100% finder but no MLU or mechanical cable release) or an F4 (100% finder, MLU, both mechanical and electronic cable release, and good compatability on older lenses).

The last time I changed the film I took a real cleaning to the internals of the camera, particularly the pressure plate and guides on the MF-25 back and the film takeup reel. The 2 rolls I got back tonight are totally scratch-free and it seems that the culprit was ultimately a grain of sand on one or the other.