[Leica] Re: Reloadable cassettes

[Michael Darnton <mdarnton@mindspring.com>]

	This discussion of reloadable cassettes reminds me of the story about the man
in New York City who was seen carrying an elephant gun:

Observer: Why do you have that gun?
Man: To keep away elephants!
Observer: That's ridiculous. That doesn't work!
Man: Of course it does: do you see any elephants around????

	Point being, yesterday I realize I probably have literally thousands of rolls
of negatives in my house. For twenty years I used nothing but cheap reloadable
cassettes, and I never had a single scratch from doing so. Worse yet, when I was
working on a newspaper, I think I ran about 100 feet of film every two weeks
through the same ten or so cassettes, for three years running. Never a scratch.
Now, of course Leica cassettes CANNOT scratch film or leak light, but in point
of fact, under normal circumstances normal cassettes DO NOT scratch film or leak
light, so where's the Leica advantage here, beyond the security of  the merely
theoretical? ("merely theoretical": Fighting words in this group, what? :-)

	For those who are naturally nervous, I recommend that you keep your film in
clean cans or in the camera--not lying around, or unprotected in pockets. If
there's no dirt, they can't get dirty, right? Also, I have to say that I did
"cheat", and every once in a while cleaned the light-traps on those cassettes by
running a couple of pieces of masking tape through them. And I *never* cut a
leader through a sprocket hole, leaving a sharp tooth to grab and break off in
the trap. Save those fives and tens and buy yourselves a nice lens or something.

	(My apologies to Ken below: I'm not picking on him--it's just that he fed me
the right line to respond to.)

	--Michael


>>Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 11:07:51 -0500
From: Ken Wilcox <wilcox@tir.com>
Subject: [Leica] Re:  Reloadable cassetts (was: M6 baseplate)

I never pay more than $5 for them. They are far superior to normal
cassettes because they CANNOT scratch film or leak light,

Ken Wilcox