[Leica] IMG: Cassette light leak

[amr3 at uwm.edu (Alan Magayne-Roshak)]

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 lrzeitlin at aol.com wrote:
Subject: [Leica] IMG: Cassette light leak 

>Tom's film on reloading a Leica cartridge is interesting and harks back to 
>the first days of Leica. However for maximum convenience at a low cost, buy 
>a Watson 100 >cassette loader at any old camera store. I don't know if 
>these are still being made, mine is 50 years old. Real camera stores should 
>have a couple in their junk boxes. I'm >sure Freestyle sells similar 
>models. They will hold 100 feet of film, load Leica and Kodak cartridges, 
>open and close the Leica case, and count the frames. They never >wear out. 
>http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Watson+100.jpg.html 


>Larry Z 
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I would say if possible find an old Watson loader made of Bakelite, with the 
removable door.  In my experience, they attracted less dust than the newer, 
plastic models.

And I had experience!  

At UWM Photo Services, we stretched our budgets by bulk loading as many 
films as possible, so before we went to color negative in the late nineties, 
I bulk loaded everything we used but Kodachrome, which meant (over time) 
Panatomic-X, FP4, Tri-X, TMax P3200, Agfa APX 25, HIE Infrared, Ektachrome 
64, 160T,  & 200 EPD, 400EPL, Lumiere 100, later  64T, E100S, Fuji 64T, 
Provia 400, and Kodalith for copy work.  I had dedicated cassettes and film 
cans labeled to avoid confusion, and I marked the cassette each time I 
reloaded to know how many times it had been used.  We had about six Watsons 
loaded at any one time.  I used to spool the film in the dark, removing the 
door while spooling, which made it faster, and didn't fog the end of the 
roll, so we could be sure the last frame wasn't wasted.  I got so organized 
and efficient with all the bulk film we used that I could go in the 
darkroom, set out all the cassettes and tape, and load a whole 100 foot roll 
in 30 minutes - which would yield 15 - 35 exposure and five 20 exposure 
rolls.  I used white Scotch paper tape for the film and also to label the 
outside of the film cans.  We always bought enough factory loaded rolls when 
a new film came out, so that we could have the film cans with the labeled 
tops to use when reloading from bulk.

Alan

Alan Magayne-Roshak, Senior Photographer
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Photo Services
(Retired)
UPAA POY 1978
amr3 at uwm.edu
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alan+Magayne-Roshak/

"All the technique in the world doesn't compensate
 for an inability to notice. " - Elliott Erwitt