film not straight

[MrRom92]

Reminds me of the sprocket holes visible on Robert Capa’s WW2 D-day pictures. Shot with Contax, negatives now go by the name of “the magnificent seven”

Yes, and for a long time there was a false story perpetuated that the negatives were dried at such a heat level that the emulsion actually shifted and slid down the film base. Not the case, common issue for any Leica of that era. I guess the Contax film chamber was also made to the Leica spec.

I wonder if the Kodak 135 cartridge spec was originally taller and changed at some point early on, or if they always made them a little short. It seems like few cameras of the era (if any) were actually designed to take the slightly smaller cartridge. Maybe the Kodak Retinas. I have a roll of Super-X from the mid-30’s that states on the box that it’s for Leica, Contax and Retina cameras, I’ll have to put it up side by side with a modern one.

 

[45govt]

Hello
I was wondering if anyone had the thickness of the spacer used in mm
Thanks
Don

 

[maddoc]

2mm. I use a Teflon (Diflon) ring-shaped seal for high pressure gas valves, works perfectly.

Hello
I was wondering if anyone had the thickness of the spacer used in mm
Thanks
Don

 

[David Hughes]

...I wonder if the Kodak 135 cartridge spec was originally taller and changed at some point early on, or if they always made them a little short. It seems like few cameras of the era (if any) were actually designed to take the slightly smaller cartridge. Maybe the Kodak Retinas. I have a roll of Super-X from the mid-30’s that states on the box that it’s for Leica, Contax and Retina cameras, I’ll have to put it up side by side with a modern one.

It would be great to see a 1930's made for Retina etc beside a Leica and Contax cassette. The story seems to be that Kodak made the Retina to use 35mm film and take their cassettes.

There's also this thread where it would be welcome:-


https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87322


Regards, David

 

[MrRom92]

It would be great to see a 1930's made for Retina etc beside a Leica and Contax cassette. The story seems to be that Kodak made the Retina to use 35mm film and take their cassettes.

There's also this thread where it would be welcome:-
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87322

Regards, David

Thank you for the link David, that’s a fantastic thread. Some of the links are down now but still, lots of eye candy there! I’m a little crazy for the older stuff. Just before the outbreak started I managed to shoot through a roll of Super-XX from 1942, come to think of it that was actually the first day I heard about any of this stuff on the news… haven’t really been able to take any of the cameras out much since then, feels like that was in another lifetime already

 

[jcb4718]

All the solutions aim to do the same thing: raise the film cassette so it fits more snugly. I have three Barnaks and I have fitted them all with an M6 thin washer (thickness 0.6mm) held in place with Blu-Tack. It works perfectly.

 

[45govt]

2mm. I use a Teflon (Diflon) ring-shaped seal for high pressure gas valves, works perfectly.

Thank You
Don

 

[jcb4718]

As others have said, without a spacer and with a cassette in place if you gently shake the camera you can feel the cassette move. If the shutter is open you can see the sprockets. With the correct spacer in place, whatever it is, the cassette doesn't move. If the spacer is too thick, the wind-on becomes stiff. It's easy to check that you have got the right spacer.

 

[David Hughes]

It's complicated..

It's complicated..

I've been doing my head in thinking about this and taking photo's and now I'm going to have a cup of tea, go down to the river and have a walk and a think and then come back and reveal all.


Watch this space...


Regards, David

 

[Bill Clark]

What I do with my IIIa is put an O ring on the cassette, the piece sticking out, after loading the film in camera. The O ring keeps the cassette in place after closing up with your bottom cover. I have a IIIa that I use this method to hold the cassette in place. If you look on the cover of later Barnacks there is a piece of metal that, when the cover is placed on the camera body, holds the film cassette in place.

If this idea could help, take a film cassette and go either to a hardware store or home center like Home Depot and go to the plumbing department to get a proper sise O ring. It shouldn’t fit tight but loose. I have a couple of O rings just in case one gets misplaced or lost!

a IIIc should have the piece to hold the cassette in place.

Maybe this will help you!

Link is to Facebook. Easy for me to upload there. Shows baseplate.

 

[MrRom92]

What I do with my IIIa is put an O ring on the cassette, the piece sticking out, after loading the film in camera. The O ring keeps the cassette in place after closing up with your bottom cover. I have a IIIa that I use this method to hold the cassette in place. If you look on the cover of later Barnacks there is a piece of metal that, when the cover is placed on the camera body, holds the film cassette in place.

If this idea could help, take a film cassette and go either to a hardware store or home center like Home Depot and go to the plumbing department to get a proper sise O ring. It shouldn’t fit tight but loose. I have a couple of O rings just in case one gets misplaced or lost!

a IIIc should have the piece to hold the cassette in place. Like this:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2584751278404966&set=a.1478893225657449&type=3&theater

Maybe this will help you!

Link is to Facebook. Easy for me to upload there. Shows baseplate.

The link’s broken, but I know about the little “foot” some of the baseplates have. Thank you anyhow! Interestingly enough my IIIf baseplate does not have the foot, and has a 1/4” tripod mount - it’s my understanding that the 3/8” euro tripod mount is much more common on these.

 

[Bill Clark]

The 3/8” I have has an insert to bring it down to 1/4”

Can’t figure it out as link works for me. Cleared cache and then clicked and the link worked. Maybe it’s because of cookie I have for FB.

I own a IIIc that has the metal piece on the baseplate.

At any rate,
Goofy!

 

[David Hughes]

Looking at the cassettes and worrying as they are all different sizes I realised we always look at them upside down. Here's a selection:-

Here one is the right way up standing on the base plate of a Leica:-

So here's an old and fairly new one side by side aligned with the base as it would be in the camera. As you can see the spool sides line up but there will be a gap at the top:-

And here's some standing side by side with the ends of the little knobs level:-

Clearly the spacer is needed at the top of the cassette to push the cassette down but, as the next photo shows the cassettes kept changing.

So I doubt if saying it should be a certain size will work for everyone's camera. I hope this is some use.

Regards, David

 

[Ko.Fe.]

My after war IIIc is barely not at the sprockets. Person who has it CLA and claims to work for Leica for 50 years, has no clue, with clear image provided.
So is another seller, who also fixing old LTM. "It was normal" the only response I'm getting for exposures on the sprockets with his made in occupied Japan Nicca III.
Both are able to fix LTM, but total clueless about this problem.
I can't recall this problem with IIf, which was from third seller, who doesn't CLA them 🙂

 

[jcb4718]

Whatever size of cassettes were used in the past and whatever design changes were made to the base of the Leica's (if there were any) we can all agree that current cassettes all have the same dimensions. Therefore it is just a question of fitting a spacer of the right size and thickness. The correct spacer for a given camera only has to be fitted once. If not thick enough, the cassette will still move; if too thick it will bind. As I said, I found an M6 thin stainless steel washer (0.6mm thickness) fixed with Blu Tack works perfectly with my three Barnaks. Obviously the Blu Tack adds to the 'thickness' but it works.

 

[Erik van Straten]

Once I had to remove one "wheel" from a take-up spool to get the film in the camera so that the sprocketholes of the film did not show up in the picture. A spacer did not help.

There is no solution that works for all the cameras. Even Cartier-Bresson had these problems: all the pictures from his wonderful series from Ireland in the 1950's are spoiled by sprocketholes that show up in the picture. (These are for publication often retouched on the pictures).

Erik.


This is with a III:

 

[Ko.Fe.]

...spoiled by sprocketholes that show up in the picture...

This is so leica.

 

[MrRom92]

So, I’m looking at my FILCA’s (never used them before) and I’m noticing all of them seem to have a different inner spool - probably swapped around by the previous owner.

One in particular seems to not fit in the FILCA quite right, as it can be moved slightly up and down within the FILCA. There is no mechanical play with the other FILCA spools.

Maybe this inner spool was originally from an IXMOO? is it worth using this one or will the film end up dropping down in the chamber just the same as a commercial 35mm cart? I can just use the others so it’s no big deal, just curious if this one in particular should just stay on the shelf.

 

[MrRom92]

Whoa, turns out you can just transplant the center spool from a 35mm cart straight into a FILCA. TIL! that seems like a relatively easy solution to this problem

 

[MrRom92]

Update, a little over a year later:

I’ve resorted to cracking open my commercially preloaded 35mm carts and transplanting the center spool into a FILCA. Works fine, kind of a hassle. But it works.

Of course, I don’t develop all my own film - particularly any color film. So what then?

I got some of those plastic reloadable cassettes, you know the kinds with the tops that pop off. So now after shooting in the FILCA, I transplant the center spool yet again. These plastic carts are pretty cheap, so it’s not the end of the world if I never see them again after sending them off to a lab. Double the hassle. But again, it works.


I could just shoot stuff directly in their original carts if I could figure out a reasonable solution to this spacer thing. I got a couple of O rings at a hardware store, doesn’t appear to have done much of anything though. Maybe I got the wrong size, dunno, they do fit around the end of the center spool. Don’t really support the base of the cart so much though. Not sure what else I could do. Maybe a spring would be a decent option, put some constant pressure on the bottom of the cassette.