film inserting problem?

[Florian1234]

Hello,

I'm a quite new Leica M4 user and now faced a problem:

Somehow I did not put in the film correctly, it seems. The rewind crank did not move while cocking the shutter. :bang:

Is it possible to tell me what I did wrong?

This is what I did:

- opened the bottom plate and rear door of my unloaded M4

- took a roll of XP2
- took the small part of the film end into the take-up spool thingie of the M4 and simultanously moved the film roll with my left hand towards the place where it should get in to sit below the rewind crank at the inside of the M4.

then I made sure that the wholes of the frames are on the teeth of the winding roll and tensioned the film a bit by rotating the rewind crank in the direction where the arrow says.

Then I closed the door and put the base plate back on, did two times cock the shutter to get the film counter on "0" and then happily snapped away taking some photos.

And that's where I realized that the rewind crank did not move at all. 😱


so... any ideas, please? Thanks in advance. 😱

 

[kully]

The rewind crank won't move if there is slack in the film inside the canister. You could rewind the crank until you get tension and then see if it moves.

There's another thread ~'how fast can you load your M' which has a good post on loading the M - I always advance one frame with the door open to see if the film is engaged properly.

 

[Sparrow]

If you cycle the wind-on twice before closing the door you can be sure everything is OK, and it avoids ending up with that annoying 37th frame that won’t fit in the negative sleeve

 

[Florian1234]

Okay, thanks for the quick help.

I will go to my local photo-store and ask if they could fiddle out the film leader for me to enable me to get it done correctly with this roll - either it is totally messed up now, or I have some frames left.

To avoid to ruin the possibly made photos I will just practise the loading with this roll a few times and then give it to the lab for processing. 🙄

But how we say overhere - skill comes with practice ("Übung macht den Meister" )😉

 

[Sparrow]

I would imagine it came off right at the start, so you probably have an unexposed film, everybody has their own “best-way” it seems. I fold the end over before putting it in the take-up spool, I’ve no idea if it makes any difference, just habit but I’ve not lost one for years

 

[rlouzan]

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=CEyt94xMNUY

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=56342

 

[payasam]

If you take up the slack in the film cassette before loading, the rewind knob will rotate when the film is advanced for the blank frames.

 

[Santafecino]

You need to be sure the tongue of the leader engages the take-up spool. Best way I know is to fold over 1/2" (1 cm) of leader tongue, so it grips in the slot of the spool.

Otherwise, frankly, I can spend a long time getting my M5 loaded.

--Lindsay

 

[thomasw_]

When you load the M4 to MP Ms with the supposedly faster "lily-flower" shaped take-up spool, I trust in the method of making 2 folds in the tail of the leader, the Zed fold method.
Pull the leader out to the desired length....eg about 12 cm or so.
Do the fold, make a Zed.
Slip the cassette and leader into the M, making sure the Zed goes through or rests in the Lily.
Wind on 1x, watch it wrap on the take-up spool
Use the rewind to tighten the film
Then wind again, and watch the red rewind dots spin.
Close up the M bottom; wind again and find something visually interesting
You are ready to shoot.

 

[rover]

I was so worried about loading my new M the day before it arrived I was a wreck. I studied these instructions till I had it down in my head. When the camera arrived, I loaded it first time, and every time since. It is more intimidating because it is different than it is hard.

http://www.nemeng.com/leica/000b.shtml

 

[Florian1234]

Gentlemen,

it seems that only one negative survived the issue, but it did that only half being underexposed - see attachment (converted to positive and a bit out of focus).

The rest of the negs is destroyed and totally clear. 🙄