Cable release warning re: Leica Motor M vs Rolleiflex

Robert Lai

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I hope that this may be of help to others. I had to discover these things at my own expense.

First, I found that my Nikon AR-3 cable release would jam my M7 with Leica Motor M mounted. The camera could not wind, and I would have to rewind the film and take the motor off in order to clear the jam. I read here on RFF that the cable release needs to be shortened in order to prevent this. I cut the cable release tip, but it still jammed.

I thought that perhaps something was wrong with my camera, so I sent it, along with the motor, and the cable release to Don Goldberg (DAG). He discovered that too long a cable release tip prevents the shutter button from popping back up fast enough as the motor winds, to clear the mechanism. The result is a jam. He found that by cutting back my already shortened tip by 2mm more, the jamming problem was eliminated.

So, for the record, a cable release tip of 6mm - 8mm is needed to fire a Leica Motor M mounted camera without jamming.

Once I found this out, I cut all of my Nikon AR-3 releases to the 5mm tip length. I thought that this would prevent me from jamming the Leica regardless of which Nikon cable I picked up. My Nikon SLRs also fire fine with the shortened cable release.

Well, I just got a Rolleiflex 3.5 F back from Krikor Malarian (Krimar) after an overhaul. Of course, I had to put it on a tripod to check the focus. Well, it turns out that my "Bobbitized" cable releases don't penetrate sufficiently to give the Rolleiflex any satisfaction :bang: The Rolleiflex needs a deeper thrust to activate it. So, I've had to resort to purchasing a new cable of different make (from the Nikons) just to make the Rolleiflex happy.

A word of warning to owners of both Leica and Rolleiflex cameras, of whom there must be others in the RFF audience.
 
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