negative position on m6

[rog]

The actual frame on my negative is situated a little lower then the middle of the negativesleeve. It is closer to the sprocketholes on the bottom then the top. This means that when i try to scan i loose some of the picture, even when i manually select the frame.
My question is if this thing is common to all leica's (m6)?

And did anyone find a solution? I bought the digitaliza from lomo, hoping that it would allow to scan the whole negative, but that doensn't seem to work with scanner (even not with vuescan)
The only other options is to cut out the original filmholder of the epson v600....any experience anyone?

thanks

 

[baisao]

I have never noticed this with my M6. Every frame is perfect positioned.

Did this happen on one roll? If the spool does not go all the way into the rewind spindle then the film will not sit right.

I use a Nikon CoolScan IV with the Nikon software and find it works great. I scan strips of six easily if a bit slowly.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

One of my M6 bodies does this, the other centers the film better. It never bothered me since my Nikon scanner handles it fine, and the image doesn't actually touch the sprockets.

 

[MartinP]

From using a Barnack Leica long ago, I recall that the brass re-fillable cassettes were apparently a slightly different height to the current disposable ones. I saw that the film was fractionally lower than expected, relative to the gate, which seems also to be what you describe. Is it possible that someone has made an adjustment, at the latch end of the baseplate, to allow the old style cassettes to fit better? There doesn't seem to be much to modify there on my M6 though, so it's puzzling.

For the old Barnacks a recommended 'temporary' solution was to put a felt washer under the bottom end of the disposable cassette to lift it slightly (remembering that the image is upside down in the camera of course). If your M6 was adapted, as suggested above, then this might help you for a while at least.

Edit:

Now that I think logically, if someone had made this modification then the latch would have to be modified to the old style in order to open the reloadable cassettes. What does the inside of the latch look like? Flat or with a small lever/lump?

 

[rog]

thanks all three of you!

I don't know if someone made an adjustment. It has as far as i know the regular wind up spool. It is a M6 from 1990. It has the three arrow shapes metal pieces with the spring in the middle inside the camera and a slighty lifted wheel on the baseplate.
I geuss that it doesn't make a different if i do what you desctibed, or will it?

It is on all my negatives.
I just bought it a few weeks ago. It has been repaired because the 'friction' was of. Can it have anything to do with that?

best,
rog

 

[MikeL]

Just thinking out loud, I wonder if the 'friction' problem was due to the film moving out of the rail slot and sliding between a border rail and pressure plate. This film position might move the image position on the negative too.

 

[MartinP]

It has the three arrow shapes metal pieces with the spring in the middle inside the camera and a slighty lifted wheel on the baseplate.

That is standard and sounds fine. The device for opening a Leica cassette would be on the inside of the baseplate, over the latch at the other end of the baseplate. For the older Leicas a projection here opened the concentric cassette as the latch was closed, while on the standard M6 baseplate the inside of the latch is flat.

In any case, a piece of double sided sticky-tape on the inside of the baseplate over the latch can hold a washer of felt to raise the cassette a millimetre or so - ie. use felt, or something similar, to provide a lift in height without damaging the disposable cassette or impeding the turning of the core.

The 135 cassettes now used for most of our film were originally standardised for the Kodak Retina (mid 1930's) while still being usable in the Leicas, Contaxes and other pre-existing cameras which had been using their own designs of re-loadable cassettes. This meant there were cameras expecting a fractionally different sized cassette to the ones we have now, and leading to occasional small alignment errors (one d.i.y. fix being the felt washer idea, above).

However, this all happened decades before the M6 was produced, so it should be a large surprise if you get a slightly poor fit. Is it even possible that the baseplate is actually from another M model?

 

[Dwig]

The actual frame on my negative is situated a little lower then the middle of the negativesleeve. It is closer to the sprocketholes on the bottom then the top. This means that when i try to scan i loose some of the picture, even when i manually select the frame. ...

Before you go shiming the cassettes measure the height of the negative. The "standard" would be 24mm and should be centered. You may find that the body casting has been milled out a little extra on one side of the opening and thus spills a little extra image. I have a very early Nikon F (c. 1960) that does this, leaving a 25mm high image wilth all of the extra image on one edge.

The film guide rails should allow the film to mis-track vertically more than about 0.5mm regardless of any mis-postioning of the cassette. It's not likely that any shiming of the cassette's positioning will make much difference.

Whatever the issue, you are not losing any image that was within the framelines when you shot. The M-series VF isn't that accurate. The framelines map to an area less than 22x33mm.

 

[Rob-F]

I'm wondering if the brand of film might make a difference. A slightly different width or thickness . . .

 

[rog]

the negative is 24mm, the main problem is with scanning the negative, or at least, i want to scan with the blackborder, and that is a little complicated but that is in an other thread about the digitaliza under scanners.

thanks all for helping

 

[John Cox]

I've had this happen on my leica CL too. I bought that second hand from the original owner (who engraved his name and SIN on it). There be a valid reason to get these cameras adjusted for some reason that would cause this.