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FILCA A, B and C, Where's D


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On 1/31/2021 at 7:17 PM, Pyrogallol said:

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I'm curious also about the daylight loading spools mentioned in the manuals that sound pretty much like rollfilm for the FILCA. Does anyone know when they stopped making those?

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6 hours ago, Anbaric said:

I'm curious also about the daylight loading spools mentioned in the manuals that sound pretty much like rollfilm for the FILCA. Does anyone know when they stopped making those?

There are various makers still making daylight loaders (Ars Imago, AP, etc) but these are designed for modern reloadable cassettes, using felt seals. My father had a Leitz daylight loader, which had a lever for closing the cassette after loading but since my earliest memories are from around 1950, by which time pre-loaded cassettes were readily available, even in the north of Scotland, I never saw him use it.

I am guessing it would have been bought by my great uncle who got a new Model III in 1934, before ready loaded cassettes were available. My grandfather had a Model II from 1935 but I understand he was so "cack handed" that the likelihood of his being able to operate a daylight film loader successfully, would have been low. I would guess that my great uncle loaded a couple of FILCA's at a time for him. There were certainly a few FILCA cassettes sitting in one of the drawers of my father's darkroom and some very expired tins of bulk film. My great uncle shared this darkroom up until his death in 1949, as he did not have one in his own house.

I have a Rondinax 35U daylight developing tank, which has a cassette opening lever, at the side of the cassette compartment, for I assume both FILCA and IXMOO cassettes but I have to admit I have never used it with one of my FILCA cassettes. 

Below is a picture of the Leitz FOOVA daylight loader. These are now very rare and correspondingly expensive. There are folks trying to sell the Correx daylight developing tank as a FOOVA, which it very definitely isn't and I don't think works as such. 

Wilson

 

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I think Anbaric probably means the preloaded spools which can be inserted in a Filca in place of the original spool. They are daylight loading because they have a paper wrapping round the start of the film. I too am curious to know when such things ceased to be offered. The Sommor film loaders were intended to take either short lengths of film (10m or 25m) or else the lengths of film with the ends cut to suit the Leica. The little loader which fitted on to the very small film magazines was able to close the Leica cassette. They are so common that they must have been widely used. When were such precut film lengths or the daylight loading spools last for sale? 

Sadly the only FOOVA I have seen for sale was too rich for my retirement income.

Stuart

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This is slightly off topic, but since these posts inspired me….

 

I remembered that I have some expired film in the cut lengths that were sold for loading on to FILCA spools. As it expired in 1945, I did not think that anything would appear on the film, but it has. The original film speed of Perutz Peromnia was, I think, about 40ASA (19 DIN) but now seems to be more like 3 ASA. I don’t know how much time passed between manufacturing date and expiry, but it is safe to say that the film was created about the same time as me. I have not slowed as much as the film which is comforting.

 

I will try again with another short length. I used HC110 in a very small (75cc) tank to avoid wasting chemicals. Getting anything at all has made me feel gleeful. It is now midday. I started unwrapping the film in a dark bag at about 10.45, took the photos and have a result. What fun!

 

 

Stuart

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35 minutes ago, levegh said:

This is slightly off topic, but since these posts inspired me….

 

I remembered that I have some expired film in the cut lengths that were sold for loading on to FILCA spools. As it expired in 1945, I did not think that anything would appear on the film, but it has. The original film speed of Perutz Peromnia was, I think, about 40ASA (19 DIN) but now seems to be more like 3 ASA. I don’t know how much time passed between manufacturing date and expiry, but it is safe to say that the film was created about the same time as me. I have not slowed as much as the film which is comforting.

 

I will try again with another short length. I used HC110 in a very small (75cc) tank to avoid wasting chemicals. Getting anything at all has made me feel gleeful. It is now midday. I started unwrapping the film in a dark bag at about 10.45, took the photos and have a result. What fun!

 

 

Stuart

You may find this of interest.

https://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Colour_Darkroom/Early_Perutz.html

The mystery Perutz film in my 'Swiss Roll' found in a FILCA B has still not been identified. It just marked Perutz with no Scheiner indicated.  Scheiner was the German precursor of ASA /ISO ; see conversions in the article . It was clearly bulk film which had been loaded into a FILCA. It is marked 1, 1A etc with the A beneath the frames in mid frame and with the ordinary numbers with no suffix between frames. The highest number on the roll is 38A and the lowest is IA with the last exposed frames being from 2 A to 22A . The linked article mentions an orthochromatic Perutz Persenso film being introduced in Britain in 1952 , but as we now know, the 'Swiss Roll' film was exposed around June 1950 (and processed in August 2020), so, it is likely that the film was one of the 1939 types listed in the article. Old film does lose sensitivity over time and , on advice from an experienced professional , I gave the roll one hour stand development with 15 seconds gentle agitation every minute.

Earlier that day I had processed a roll of 116 Verichrome Pan 125 which was about 65 years old, albeit exposed in 2020, but the results were disastrous as the chemicals seem to have been reacted previously, possibly due to damp storage conditions. I had bought a camera which was 116 format and a friend told me that he a roll of unexposed 116 film which had belonged to his uncle. I had allowed for loss of sensitivity in both exposure and development, but sometimes time just catches up with old film.

The FILCA had done a superb job of preserving the 'Swiss Roll' and the only damage was light leaks some of which were caused by myself opening the FILCA without knowing that there was film inside it. Using old film can be quite an adventure.

William

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6 hours ago, levegh said:

I think Anbaric probably means the preloaded spools which can be inserted in a Filca in place of the original spool. They are daylight loading because they have a paper wrapping round the start of the film. I too am curious to know when such things ceased to be offered. The Sommor film loaders were intended to take either short lengths of film (10m or 25m) or else the lengths of film with the ends cut to suit the Leica. The little loader which fitted on to the very small film magazines was able to close the Leica cassette. They are so common that they must have been widely used. When were such precut film lengths or the daylight loading spools last for sale? 

Sadly the only FOOVA I have seen for sale was too rich for my retirement income.

Stuart

Yes, that's what I was thinking of. The IIIa manual has a fair bit of detail about loading these paper-wrapped spools into the FILCA, so they must have been commonplace in the 30s. They are still mentioned in the IIIf manual from the 50s, but by then I suppose disposable cassettes had become the first choice for people who didn't want to mess around with bulk loading. A pity in a way, as the spools would have been rather less wasteful.

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Most of the gen that I have gleaned on Perutz is post-war. It was sold in the UK by Hanimex from about 1952. Perpantic was 17 DIN, Peromnia and Perkine were 21 DIN and Superomnia 22 DIN. I assume that Persenso was the same film as pre war Neo-Persenso.

Pre war speeds were given as Peromnia 19 DIN, Perpantic 17 DIN and Neo-Persenso as 16 DIN. I suppose that might translate as Peromnia being about 40ASA (as it was after the safety factor reduced in early sixties) Post war Peromnia as about 100ASA, Perkine as 100ASA and Superomnia as 125ASA. 

Not that any of those numbers apply to long expired film. of course. I also have some Isopan F of about the same age. It was one of the films used by E.R.Hall for his book on ice skaters just before the war; all the photographs being taken with Leicas. He was better known as a racing driver and member of Britain's two and four man bobsleigh teams, which has nothing to do with photography, but is interesting.

Stuart

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59 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

Yes, that's what I was thinking of. The IIIa manual has a fair bit of detail about loading these paper-wrapped spools into the FILCA, so they must have been commonplace in the 30s. They are still mentioned in the IIIf manual from the 50s, but by then I suppose disposable cassettes had become the first choice for people who didn't want to mess around with bulk loading. A pity in a way, as the spools would have been rather less wasteful.

A  III/IIIa 1937 manual, which I have, refers to one time use 'Leica cartridges' of Messrs. Agfa, Gaevert, Hauff, Kodak and Perutz, but I believe that these were the 'modern' type cassettes, such as we have today, and that the term Leica cartridges was used to denote compatibility with Leica cameras rather than a product of Leica. I have never seen or heard of paper backed 35mm film for FILCAs and I cannot see how this could be loaded into a FILCA other than in a darkroom or a specially designed loader, such as that shown by Wilson above. I would certainly be delighted if you could point me in the right direction on this.

William

 

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They were not paper backed in the way that a 120 0r 127 would have been. The paper was at the end and, as far as I could tell, it went round a couple of times. You put the spool in the cartridge, pulled the paper through the slot until the end of the film appeared, closed the slot and pulled through the half width end of the film after tearing off the paper. That information came via email from somebody much older than me, so her memory may not be perfect. Perhaps someone can confirm it.

There was paper backed unperforated 35mm film, of course, but nothing to do with Leica.

Stuart

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2 hours ago, willeica said:

A  III/IIIa 1937 manual, which I have, refers to one time use 'Leica cartridges' of Messrs. Agfa, Gaevert, Hauff, Kodak and Perutz, but I believe that these were the 'modern' type cassettes, such as we have today, and that the term Leica cartridges was used to denote compatibility with Leica cameras rather than a product of Leica. I have never seen or heard of paper backed 35mm film for FILCAs and I cannot see how this could be loaded into a FILCA other than in a darkroom or a specially designed loader, such as that shown by Wilson above. I would certainly be delighted if you could point me in the right direction on this.

William

This version of the IIIa manual covers both types - the 'Daylight loading film spools' for the FILCA (p8-10), and the self-contained modern style cassettes. The former were apparently made at the time by Mimosa and Gevaert. As Stuart suggests, it looks like there was just paper at one end wrapped around the roll:

https://www.cameramanuals.org/leica_pdf/leica_iiia.pdf

The reference to the three types of film (cartridges, daylight spools, and cut lengths for darkroom spools) in the IIIf manual is on p26:

https://www.cameramanuals.org/leica_pdf/leica_if_iif_iiif.pdf

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3 hours ago, levegh said:

Most of the gen that I have gleaned on Perutz is post-war. It was sold in the UK by Hanimex from about 1952. Perpantic was 17 DIN, Peromnia and Perkine were 21 DIN and Superomnia 22 DIN. I assume that Persenso was the same film as pre war Neo-Persenso.

Pre war speeds were given as Peromnia 19 DIN, Perpantic 17 DIN and Neo-Persenso as 16 DIN. I suppose that might translate as Peromnia being about 40ASA (as it was after the safety factor reduced in early sixties) Post war Peromnia as about 100ASA, Perkine as 100ASA and Superomnia as 125ASA. 

Not that any of those numbers apply to long expired film. of course. I also have some Isopan F of about the same age. It was one of the films used by E.R.Hall for his book on ice skaters just before the war; all the photographs being taken with Leicas. He was better known as a racing driver and member of Britain's two and four man bobsleigh teams, which has nothing to do with photography, but is interesting.

Stuart

I used to own a Lagonda M45 racing car (BGF662 - now in the Brooklands Museum), which had been raced by Eddie Hall a number of times in the 1930's. I knew Eric Thompson quite well when he was a Lloyds broker like me. He used to share driving cars with Eddie Hall at Brooklands in the 1930's. He remembered the Lagonda M45 quite well and I took him out for lunch in it in the mid 1980's, when I took it up to London on the way to an engine rebuild at Hoffman and Mountford. 

Wilson

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I suppose Eddie Hall would have been too busy racing to use his Leica round the paddock. I have seen the splendid Lagonda, this household is a small car one... Morgan three wheelers, Frazer Nash and Aprilia. You don't see many film cameras at the Goodwood Revival, but I bought an M2 after a complete stranger trusted me to walk around with her camera unaccompanied. (Thank you if you see this.) I did see someone with a Delahaye who had a very nice Alpa, but these days it is all DSLRs with huge lenses. To get almost back on topic, if you want to develop a very short length of film from a Leica, look for a tank made for an Eljy. You can just get eighteen inches of film into it. If you are a cheapskate like me, it saves a lot of chemicals.

Stuart

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Stuart, 

I need the other extremes of developing tank. I need one for 4.5 metres of 70mm film from my Combat Graflex and 10 metres of 35mm film from my 250 FF. I can find the 70mm film spirals from Hewes in the UK but they are made for dip/tank processing and they don't have a large cylindrical tank to suit. I don't know of anyone who makes a spiral for 10m of 35 mm albeit it may just not be possible to wind that length in. I probably need to send it to a Cine processor who processes rushes and test strips but make sure they know to return my very precious KOOBF cassettes to me. I only have 4 of them and two are the originals, engraved with the first owner's name (Brighams of Bridlington). 

Wilson

PS I have matching exhaust pipe burn scars on my legs, one from a Frazer Nash Bristol Le Mans Mk1 and the other from my Morgan Three Wheeler.  :)

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2 hours ago, Anbaric said:

This version of the IIIa manual covers both types - the 'Daylight loading film spools' for the FILCA (p8-10), and the self-contained modern style cassettes. The former were apparently made at the time by Mimosa and Gevaert. As Stuart suggests, it looks like there was just paper at one end wrapped around the roll:

https://www.cameramanuals.org/leica_pdf/leica_iiia.pdf

The reference to the three types of film (cartridges, daylight spools, and cut lengths for darkroom spools) in the IIIf manual is on p26:

https://www.cameramanuals.org/leica_pdf/leica_if_iif_iiif.pdf

Thanks, mea culpa. I have all of these manuals and many more, but I only checked the 1937 manual which has the emphasis on the then new cartridges rather than the daylight loading spools. An earlier manual I have from 1933 does mention them, however. Likewise, I have two versions of the IIIf manual and I am surprised to see that they were mentioning the daylight loading film at that stage. I have to admit that I have never really been conscious of the daylight loading film with paper leaders until now. I was aware of both standard cassettes and bulk film in tins, but not this hybrid type which borrows some aspects of roll film. I am really grateful to you for bringing this to my attention. I must try to find out how long this type of spool was available. Looking at the rudimentary early instructions it was not there in 1925, but it had arrived by 1928. It seems that it may have been still around until the early to mid 1950s.

I wonder if anyone here has any memory of them. Wilson, do you have any memory of seeing your ancestors using actual spools of daylight loading film, as opposed to a loading machine?

William

 

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8 minutes ago, Pyrogallol said:

Back on the original question, ABC cassettes where is D? What happened to all the other letters of the alphabet between D and N?

My guess is that by the time D, N and IXMOO cassettes were available, the market had almost wholly moved over to pre-loaded disposable cassettes. The quantities sold would therefore be a fraction of the number of B cassettes, which appear by some margin, the most common. IXMOO cassettes I would guess were almost certainly really only used by professional photographers, both art and news, who were using large volumes of film, where the cost saving of bulk film would have been significant. 

William, as I posted earlier, my earliest memories are from 1950 by which time my father had moved wholly over to commercial cassettes, nearly 100% Kodachrome or Perutzchrome in his Leica. For black and white he used Zeiss, a 6 x 6 (120 film) Super Ikonta B and later a 35mm Contax IIA. I never saw the FILCA cassettes in our darkroom being used. Of course I now wish that the FOOVA loader had not ended up at a local jumble sale, along with a number of my father's cameras and all the rest of the darkroom equipment. The local vicar managed to rescue my father's Contax IIA, saying he assumed my mother had not meant to give that to the church jumble and quietly passed it back to me some time later. 

Wllson

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1 hour ago, Pyrogallol said:

Back on the original question, ABC cassettes where is D? What happened to all the other letters of the alphabet between D and N?

I believe that Wilson is correct here. We concluded before that the D , as shown in Frith’s book, became the Agfa Leitz cassette which design developed into ready filled cassettes. The example from 1937 , which I quoted yesterday, indicates that by then ready filled cassettes from Agfa and others had spread in the market to other film manufacturers. It is strange that the daylight loading items are mentioned in a 1950s manual, but they must still have been around at that time. The link to the Perutz film which I posted yesterday shows boxed film cassettes from around that time. We probably need to look further at the development of that market to get a full picture. There are websites devoted to old film products, particularly those of Kodak. 
 

William 

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21 minutes ago, Pyrogallol said:

What I was wondering was that if the last FILCA was called type D, why was the IXMOO known as type N rather than type E ?

Looking for logic with regard to the naming of Leica products is a difficult task. Dennis Laney referred to the IXMOO as 'New Type, model "N", suitable for all Leica models'. So, maybe the 'N' stood for 'new'. The most comprehensive article on the IXMOO is this one by my fellow LHSA Board Member David Knoble https://lhsa.org/2017/10/ixmoo-leica-ixmoo-variations-brass-reloadable-cartridges/ . If you are an LHSA member you should be able to read this in full. In the article David says that "Jim Lager tells me he never met a Leica user who employed the FILCA or the IXMOO." Make of that what you will.

William 

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I have read that LHSA article and would disagree with David Knoble on one point. The ABCOO knife was not designed for trimming the leader with an ABLON template and I can tell you from experience with my ABCOO, that it is rather a poor tool for that, in spite of mine being sharpened to a razor edge. It has a tendency to tear or put nicks in the film. I much prefer to use the slightly concave ultra sharp paring blade on my Victorinox Mini Champ knife. The ABCOO was designed to cut off part-used KOOBF cassettes (cut off at the wind on/exposed cassette) on the 250 Reporter cameras, so that you got a nice right angled edge. One would then trim the end coming from the other KOOBF cassette with its remaining unexposed film, using an ANZOO template (see below), in to make a leader to reinsert the film into an empty KOOBF cassette.

The 250 Reporter cameras wind from one KOOBF cassette to another, similar to my 70mm film Combat Graflex does, with its Kodak 70mm cassettes. That actually has a built in cut off knife for dealing with part exposed films. To take the bottom cover off a 250 reporter camera, it has a latch at each side, that close the KOOBF cassettes, when turned to the open position, making the cassettes light tight, so that you can safely open the camera film compartment. 

Wilson

 

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