M7 Loading Issue

[Xmas]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

The three petal assembly is attached to the wind on mechanism by a slipping clutch, if it was too loose it will cause some problems, It should be ok of there is some friction if you turn it gently, with the camera/shutter wound on ready to fire.

 

Hold the sprocket shaft with thumb as you wind anf fire repeatedly there should not be any erratic movement, unless a gear has stripped or similar problem.

 

The rewind latch should flip back to upright imediately you operate the wind on lever, (on most Ms donno about M7).

 

If you are still worried write on leader one inch, two inch, three inch and shoot blank frames using B with the lens removed.

 

If you are realy worried remove the back door, attach the baseplate, and watch the film more or not move, this will fog the film of course.

 

The petal Ms are the most dificult to load successfully 100% of time, the others are easy but slower.

 

Noel

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[pico]

My impression is that the take-up does not pull the film through the camera, but has just enough grip/slip to collect the film that is driven by the sprocket gears. How could bending the tip of the leader cause problems at all?

[andybarton]

A bent leader tip might damage the shutter when being re-wound.

 

As I said above, the take up spool doesn't do anything to drag the film across the gate, it just collects the exposed film. The winding is done by the sprockets, which is why sproket holes get damaged sometimes if film jams.

 

It's also the way that cinema film is transported at a constant speed through the gate - those 18" diameter reels just collect the film after it's been projected to prevent it falling on the floor. And, after all, 35mm film is just fancy (or not so fancy) cinema film.

[Caterman]

I've always found the M7 very quick to load. If you're right handed hold the camera in your left hand with the opened back hinged door against the palm of your left hand and just make sure the sprocket holes are roughly in the right location reference to the drive sprockets. close the door put the bottom back on and fire off two shots checking the rewind handle moves and you are good to get 38 exp out of a 36 film.

 

The only problem I have had is not rewinding the old film in my rush to get another film in:mad: a mistake you hope to make only the once, if at all.

[Xmas]

A bent leader tip might damage the shutter when being re-wound.

Hi

 

There are two hazards a crimped leader might get off the film rails into the shutter gate, and if you fired the shutter that would not be good. It will snag on the edge of the pressure plate for sure, and drag across the blind which normally wont cause damage...

 

The 2nd reason is the reason why Leitz used the base plate diagram as is, in cold weather when you are rewinding film can be brittle and will shatter like glass. If you dont clear all the shards and any get into the shutter path the light seals top and bottom of the blinds can be damaged. The shards will tend to stay in the camera when you invert to reload.

 

Clean the camera frequently right way up in such cold weather, bottom off. back open, camel hair & blower brush...

 

The M fabric shutter is real reliable, it can be burnt real easily and a ribbon may snap after a long time, but the only other failure is foreign material.

 

Noel

P.S. in warm weather I dont use the baseplate load diagram, but...

 

I retype the instruction manual circa '94

 

'

Under ordinary conditions it does not matter if the film extends through the three post assembly but in extreme cold dry weather the end might break off,...

'

using a crimp deliberatly, is similarly asking for trouble... the normal tulip will work ok with very thin PET film, (all I use) so normal (much thicker) film should be held real tight (with/when the baseplate (is) in place). If it is not held there is something wrong, with the loading (operator) or the tulip assembly.

 

Some people open the camera when the film tightens up on rewinding at end slower maybe.but dersirable on real cold days.

[tobey bilek]

Take a practice roll and see if you can figure what is going wrong.

 

Years back I bought some plastic film cans which I thought were the same type I used years back in a Pentax. Five frames work, then the camera will not advance. Happens on R, M, and screwmount Leicas. Clearly something is wrong. I threw them away and went back to metal Kalt cans or the brass cassettes for M

[andybarton]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Is there any suggestion that the OP is rolling their own film?

[Waldo]

Put the film in. Baseplate on. Press the shutter and wind on. Reverse the spool rewind to make sure the film is tight. When you start shooting you should see the spool rewind rotating. That way you know the film is spooling.

[pico]

My mother-in-law used to bring her camera (Leica III) into the camera store to have the film rewound, and a new roll put in. Some found that amusing. If she were to do that today, the chances are very good that the clerk would not know how to do it.

[hhanebeck]

All,

 

Many thanks for your help and comments!!!

 

I did what Peter and Tobey suggested: sacrifice a roll to practice on and get good at it. After more than 50 repetitions, I can clearly say that it must have been my fault. I am still not sure what went wrong, but I have only seen a handful of issues during these practice runs. I found a couple of things that might be interesting though.

 

For one, I am returning to simply following the diagram on the bottom plate. When I used three prongs, although that holds the film extremely tight, it ripped off during rewinding on a few occasions. It was very difficult to get the severed end out of the tulip afterwards.

 

Leica had suggested that you can follow the baseplate diagram at all temperaturs and it turned out to work well for me in the end. What helped considerably was to ensure that the film is tightly locked into the toothed gears of the transport mechanism. I found that it is even a bit crooked, that can cause problems. Probably spent more time on this per load than anything else.

 

Catermans comments were also very helpful. The way I held the camera clearly made a big difference. Being right-handed, I found that holding the camera so that the lens is turned away works best. That must be personal preference, but it worked far easier than the other way around and allows me to slightly tilt the camera to ensure that the film tightly fits into the toothed gears.

 

Last, it turned out to work best when I put the baseplate on immediately after loading. I have tried to use my thumb and just could not get it to work well. The key was to pull enough film through that the tip of it touches the winder housing e.g. pull it through two prongs of the tulip as far as you can and then close the camera.

 

So far, so good. Again, thanks for all of the great help. Happy Easter!

 

Cheers, Chris