Cartier-Bresson sproket hole encroachment

Just wondering if anyone knew which camera Bresson was using that sometimes caused the sprocket holes to encroach into his image area. I've recently been looking through a huge anthology of his work and really didn't notice this before, and its not in a whole lot of images.

Here's an example, at the bottom of the frame:



ps: sorry i spelled "sprocket" wrong

Cartier-Bresson almost always used a Leica and regularly had his printers make the print with the film rebate showing. But I've never seen an HCB print with the sprocket holes encroaching on the image area. Are those actually sprocket holes in the lower right? Sometimes, light leaks in to the frame area via the sprocket holes, but that would cause more density on the negative, not less.

I'd like to see a larger example of this photograph as well as another example of it, to compare...

5stringdeath said:

Just wondering if anyone knew which camera Bresson was using that sometimes caused the sprocket holes to encroach into his image area. I've recently been looking through a huge anthology of his work and really didn't notice this before, and its not in a whole lot of images.

Here's an example, at the bottom of the frame:
...

ps: sorry i spelled "sprocket" wrong

Click to expand...

That was relatively common with the old screw mount Leicas.

PVia said:

Cartier-Bresson almost always used a Leica and regularly had his printers make the print with the film rebate showing. But I've never seen an HCB print with the sprocket holes encroaching on the image area. Are those actually sprocket holes in the lower right? Sometimes, light leaks in to the frame area via the sprocket holes, but that would cause more density on the negative, not less.

I'd like to see a larger example of this photograph as well as another example of it, to compare...

Click to expand...

The book I'm looking at is "The Man, The Image, The World" it a restrospective of his work. There are actually a bunch of photos like this .. and yes, the holes are IN the image area, its not light leaks.

Surprised me too because most of the prints I've seen before (and I own a few of the smaller books of his) don't include any prints like this.

Doing a quick scan in the book, it seems to be roughly 1946-1948 dated images, with some exceptions, and not every image from that period has it.

Interesting!

Interesting indeed! Thanks for pointing this out...and thanks to Mark for that bit of info.

Happened fairly often when shooting with my IIIa and IIIc. If I took the time to properly load the film with a business card or by taking the lens off, it was easy to get the film all the way down in to the channel that runs along the film gate; the cassette also followed the film, and ended up a few mm short of being properly seated. If I was changing rolls quickly, it was harder to get the film seated perfectly, and the sprocket holes ended up in the image just a little bit.

It wouldn't have been a problem if I had bothered to properly trim my film leaders to make bottom loading easier. It's possible that the use of Leitz cassettes may help as well.