Hi. I have aquired a shooter IIIc and am having BIG problem loading the thing. I have visited Stephen Gandy's site, where he suggest removing the spindle by pulling it out. The problem is I can't seem to do this and I don't want to risk damaging the camera. Without removing the spindle, there is just no way for the film to catch round it. The sproket engages the holes but the film won't spool round and therefore will not load. I have no problem guiding the film in place through the lens mount when camera is in T, but the damn film just won't spool. Help please.

-- Steven Fong (steven@ima.org.sg), January 02, 2001

Answers

Hi, it's myself. Forget the question, I have finally figured out how to remove the spool. This is after 2 hours of fiddling! For those who complaint about M6 loading, myself included, this is a revelation. The Barnack cameras make the M series look like child's play. I would strongly advice M shooters to get a chance to play with a screw mount Leica. You will appreciate your M that much more. Thanks and happy shooting.

-- Steven Fong (steven@ima.org.sg), January 02, 2001.

You need to cut your film lead to 21 sproket hools in order to load the film properly. I believe new films have only 9 sproket hools.

Hope this help!

-- Cing-Dao Kan (cdkan@yahoo.com), January 02, 2001.

You're not kidding. While the M body is no model of convenience regarding loading - it's not really that bad, though -- I picked up a model 'A' from about 1931 I believe and found it to be about 400 times more difficult. I spent several hours trying to figure out how to load it. I have a bunch of the old Leica metal film canisters which I thought were necessary. After wasting two rolls of film (the film kept binding somehow and would not freely move when winding) I _FINALLY_ said to heck with it and loaded a roll of Tri-X in its original Kodak can and it worked perfectly. I never thought that current films would so easily fit into 70 year old camera bodies. The metal canisters have now gone into the rat hole.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), January 02, 2001.

Loading screw mount cameras:

http://www.mediakyoto.com/camerashopper/lrc_e/b_e/index_e.ht ml

Remember that film chips are the number one killer of screwmount cameras.

Cheers

-- John Collier (jbcollier@home.com), January 02, 2001.

Thanks for the mediakyoto site. I actually managed to re-align the rangefinder for the IIIc just by following the step-by-step guide on IIIf posted on this site. Thanks again.

-- Steven Fong (steven@ima.org.sg), January 03, 2001.

An advantage of removable takeup spools, whether IIIc or M2/3, is that the preloading of the film onto the spool, followed by insertion of the spool and cassette simultaneously, ensures that the film will be fully seated in the gate, without having to poke it home with fingernails, little finger, etc.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), January 03, 2001.

I just loaded a new roll into my Leica II. It definitely helps to have the long leader. It really isn't all that difficult, you just can't be in a hurry. The last of the Barnack cameras have a retractable knob on the takeup spool, which makes it a lot easier to remove the spool from the camera body. The most important thing about loading, however, is still observing the rewind knob for the first several exposures, to make sure that it's turning backward.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), January 05, 2001.