[Leica] Re: SL2 eats film

["Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>]

Nathan Wajsman <nathan.wajsman@euronet.be> wrote;

>Yesterday, while changing film in my SL2, I noticed a small piece of
film stuck behind one of the white thingies in the take-up spool.
Apparently it came from one of the previous films and was torn off
when
rewinding the film... The SL2 and SL have a peculiar loading system
(they are
Leicas after all) and the take-up spool seems to have a very firm hold
on the end of the film, as evidenced by the great amount of force
required to free the film from the spool when winding it back into the
casette. Any tips on how to deal with this or prevent the film from
being torn in the camera would be appreciated.

I noticed this problem some time back with my own SL2 and asked the
question here on the LUG if the end of the film should be tucked
behind a single "white thingie" or if enought length needs to be
inserted so that the tip protrudes beyond the "thingie". Alas, there
were no replies.

On my SL2 the latter seems to be needed, but the Leitz instruction
books are not clear on this subject.

As you have observed, a "great amount of force is required to free the
film from the spool when winding it back into the
casette". This was worrying me given the modest size on the rewind
crank - I have visions of it snapping off. And, yes, I've seen bits of
film left in the take-up spool.

I'm going to experiment with an old film and see if the solution is to
wind until the crank stops moving, then open the camera and extract
the end of the film from the takeup spool.

Regards,

Doug