[Leica] On the Loading of Magnetic Cameras, Especially Leica Thread-Mount

[marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)]

We spent huge quantities of electrons discussing 
this on the Leica Users' Group during the first decade of its existence.

In the beginning was the word ... well, to be 
more precise, in the beginning was bulk film 
only, and the owner had to cut film and load his 
own cassettes:  Leitz marketed a handy 
proprietary cassette, and Zeiss Ikon was shortly 
afterwards to introduce their own superior 
cassette design.  Then came factory rolled 
preloaded film.  (This was the time when 
"tailor-made" cigarettes were sold individually 
in Ma and Pa stores, by the way, to keep this in 
perspective:  most cigarette smokers then rolled 
their own, as I used to do back in the Red Dog 
Saloon era when I did my own car work.  I've 
mellowed, and Bull Durham is now spurlos versunkt 
and only commemorated in the name of a Minor 
League baseball team.)  A preload was a roll of, 
generally, 36 exposures which you took into a 
darkroom and loaded into your Leitz or Zeiss 
cassette or the like.  Then you shot the film and 
took it back into the darkroom, unloaded it and 
developed it.  By the middle 1930's, film 
companies began to market film in cassettes 
based, I believe, on an AGFA design.  From the 
day of the first preloads, there was no agreement 
on the length of the leader.  Most companies 
adopted a 4" film leader but some held to a 
shorter 2".  Leitz thread-mount cameras had a 
rather delicate constitution and clean loading 
really required the long leader:  Leitz claimed 
that any work-around to avoid the use of a 4" 
leader might ran the risk of causing chips of 
film which might foul the advance mechanism.  To 
be fair,  both Steve Grimes and Tom Abrahamson 
have told me that they have never found any 
film-chip jams in the many LTM cameras they have 
overhauled or repaired, but both admitted that 
they often found small quantities of film chips 
in the innards of such cameras.  Leitz went so 
far as to insert instructions for trimming the 
leader to have a 4" leader from the later IIIc's 
through the last IIIg's.  These were visible when 
the baseplate was removed.  Leitz went to some 
lengths to allow for the use of short-leader 
films in the M cameras (though, as Stan notes, 
this does not go for the M8!).  (Leitz made the 
mistake of marketing a "Quick Load" kit for the 
M3 which generally did not work at all and when 
it did work, worked best with a 4" leader -- many 
Leica shooters came to refer to these as "quack 
load" kits for their pronounced 
unreliability.  Leitz GENERALLY had good ideas 
but when they had bad ones, such as this kit or 
the Imarect auxiliary VF, they came up with doozies.)

 From the 1950's to the early 1970's, film 
manufacturers went to short leaders to cut down 
on production costs.  Around 1975, Kodak and AGFA 
and Ilford made the switch.  From that time, 
anyone using Leica LTM cameras other than 
bulk-loaders had to find a workaround to allow 
the loading of short-leader film into their IIIa or the like.

This issue really is a non-starter but seems to 
present a significant problem for some folks.  I 
just pull out my Swiss Army knife (a smaller 
Wenger when I am in a suit or a larger Victorinox 
when I am in my more customary shorts or blue 
jeans) and clip by sight and I've never had much 
of a problem, as it only takes a few seconds to 
do this.  But some seem hampered in the doing of 
such a simple operation.  These are the folks for 
whom Leitz marketed a film gate which allowed 
precision clipping of films:  you pulled out the 
short leader film into this, dropped the gate 
over it, and then cut it precisely with a razor 
blade.  Again, my Mark I Eyeball works just fine, 
but mileage DOES vary and others like these film 
gates.  There were a number of quite useable 
Japanese clones which were marketed widely in the 1950's and later.

The Leitz cassettes remained in production into 
the late 1980's, and my M6 Wetzlar takes them, 
though Solms M6's do not unless retrofitted with 
an earlier baseplate.  The same design was 
marketed for twenty years or so after the end of 
the War by Canon for use in their own LTM cameras 
though these will also work in Leitz 
cameras.  The Zeiss Ikon cassette lasted until 
the demise of Zeiss Ikon as a camera company in 
1973;  Nikon marketed a clone until 1990 or 
so.  The Zeiss Ikon design was especially nice in 
that you could use one on both sides, and could 
clip the film if you wanted to process an 
especially valuable or "hot" string of frames, a 
matter of import to photo-journalists.  Thus, if 
you came across, say, an auto accident, you could 
shoot ten shots or so, advance the film a couple 
of frames, open the camera and cut the film, 
preserving the rest of the roll, and have those 
ten shots developed for printing in the late 
editions of the newspaper and shades of 
Spiderman!  Capa died with a Nikon RF and a 
Contax around his neck, both with such cassettes 
in them.  The Soviets also produced clones of 
both the Leitz and Zeiss Ikon cassettes, though 
those for Leica cameras seem rare in the West and 
I have only seen photographs of them.  The clone 
of the Zeiss Ikon cassette remained in production at least until 1986.

"Pre-loaded" 35mm film disappeared during World 
War II in the West, but continued to be available 
in the Soviet Union up to the fall of 
Communism.  I have a couple of such rolls of 
SMENA film though I have never opened them or used them.

AGFA and ORWO and other European houses normally 
sold bulk film in 30 meter rolls (roughly, 98.4 
feet), while Kodak and Ilford sold theirs in 100 
foot rolls.  AGFA up to the end sold its 
technical films in the US in 200 foot rolls.

This is a complex matter but one fascinating to me.

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu
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