M4 And the Girl from Ipanema

[Florian1234]

So, my hint towards the baseplate was not completely wrong path, eh? 😀😎

 

[Keith]

So how's the M7 I sold you ... still good I hope? 😛

That's a tragic story Marek but life does this constantly ... you were never meant to get those shots ... fate intervened!

I think that any time I buy a used camera, after reading your first post, I'm going to be damned sure it advances the film correctly before using it for the first time!

 

[35mmdelux]

I recently acquired a mint, in every sense of the word, Mamiya 6. I desired to shoot MF at my neices wedding but I resisted and lugged my MP and M7 instead. Why? Because the Mamiya had not been fully tested by me. A few yrs ago I did an important (for me) portrait shoot with recently acquired Hasselblad 501. A few frames into the shoot the filmback starting locking up; what an embarassment. Additionally, when I got the proofs found the filmback leaked light 80% of my shots for an almost total ruin. I had flown cross country to produce garbage. I'll never make that mistake again.

 

[Trius]

When LIFE sent Eisenstadt to photograph Marilyn Monroe, he was so excited he forgot to put film in the camera. He had to go back and do it over.

Happens to the best of us.

He had to work with MM twice? Oh, the horror.

 

[35mmdelux]

On the second Monroe shoot Esie forgot to adjust the settings on his Leica causing his most famous image of MM to be under-exposed by a wide margin. He mentions this in his book, Remembrances.

 

[elshaneo]

Ouch Mate, I feel your pain, it was certainly a very unique situation to photograph. Let's hope by great luck that it will happen again later ;-)

 

[mfogiel]

Well, I have looked at Leica baseplates on the bay, and it looks like the baseplate I have is indeed an M4 baseplate.... So the thing becomes ever more mysterious, and at this point I do owe excuses to jbf, who in fact has sent me a very nice M4, and with a proper M4 base plate, BUT, it still does not work!

Here are a couple of shots, which might help to illustrate the point, first is the baseplate itself, which to me looks like the right one - there are no engravings on the back, and no spool take rod, like on the M2/M3 plates:

Then, here is the suspected culprit - the locking knob disassembled, laid out (hopefully) in the same sequence as it was assembled before. Is it possible, that there is a piece too much in this???

I have measured very accurately the distance between the winding knob inside and the border of the camera, and it is precisely 5cm in both the M4 and M7, so the room on the upside is correct - this is confirmed by the correct alignment of the film with the sprockets against the take up mechanism, therefore the problem has to be in the excessive height of the closing knob, I belive.

Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[Kozhe]

Do you have the M2 military manual? It´s just priceless, full of diagrams, descriptive and with a good troubleshoot section, it might help you with this.

 

[funkpilz]

I know what you're feeling. If it helps, I enjoyed reading your story, almost as much as I might have enjoyed the actual pictures.

 

[Florian1234]

No clue if this helps, but the film cartridge could move. I had that issue with my Fed-2 where the rewinding caused the cartridge to move and somehow - no clue why - there was scrabbed off paint from it inside the camera then. 😀😱

The hint towards the M2 military manual is very good! It helped me to figure out where to look for that small spring (although I did not fix it myself but let it do the repair guy).

 

[mfogiel]

I have tried to load 3 different brands of film cassettes, and the problem happens every time, so the casette is not the cause.

 

[splitimageview]

Then, here is the suspected culprit - the locking knob disassembled, laid out (hopefully) in the same sequence as it was assembled before. Is it possible, that there is a piece too much in this???

Marek, that looks right to me, I've disassembled countless baseplates for painting.

 

[mfogiel]

The latest news is, that the problem is being caused by the plastic basket on the other end of the base plate... It looks like this part here is too long, so when I close the camera, the edge of the basket obstructs the border of the film, the film starts winding around the basket instead of winding around the take up rod, and it fills completely the cavity after a couple of shots. Afterwards, the resistance and the partialy lifted film combine together to push away the sprokets from the take up dents and here comes the gritty sound, and no film advance. I have removed the basket, closed the base plate and made several shots with no problems, then I put the basket on again, closed the camera, and after a few shots again everything came to a halt, so this is definitive, JBF is kindly trying to get hold of the right basket now...

Leicas are much better tools than Kodak Brownie, but how many more things can go wrong !

 

[MikeL]

Marek, just to clarify, your M4 basket is taller than your M7 basket?

 

[Florian1234]

as the film will advance fine without the basket.

I would think it would be worth a shot to try a roll or two with the basket completely removed from the baseplate. What have you got to lose?

My M4 works fine even with that M2/M3 baseplate that never had a basket installed! 😀

edito: And you surely place the baseplate in the right way? Since your photo shows it the other way around... Just in case... ^^

 

[mfogiel]

I am totally mystified, I have taken off the basket from my M7, put it on the M4 baseplate, and it works perfectly, but, to my eye this basket is actually identical to the one which makes all this mess... This is a true Leica mystery...
JSU, thanks for the tip, I am going to try shooting without the basket while it will take some time to arrive. I have made a test, and if you load up the film precisely at the beginning, and tighten correctly, the film accumulates nicely around the rod without any problems.
And @ Florian1234, yes, haha, you cannot close the baseplate the other way round...

 

[splitimageview]

I had a customer who sent in an M4 with an M2 baseplate to paint black, the lack of a basket didn't seem to make any difference...

 

[matt335]

I empathise with you. As a memory I of doing this exact same thing with my then-new M4 I stuck the unexposed processed roll of film on my wall. My brother said that I processed the roll beautifully 🙂 I quickly learnt from the wise advice given here in how to load an M4 properly. I fold over a centimetre on the film leader and I always fire off two rounds with the back open, and then when closed I take up the slack carefully before I wind on for my first frame. happy shooting. The M4 is a great camera !!

 

[chrishayton]

To Marek, Maybe the spool or the bit that attaches it to the baseplate is bent and therefore causing to interfere with the film? (my m4 has a film in so I cant see how this all fits together at the moment)

Desperate shame on the missed photos, sounds like they would have been captivating

 

[Florian1234]

I fold over a centimetre on the film leader

I do that, too, and I think it is also recommended by Tom A.