Loading through the bottom

July 2010. I want to redo black and white photo, old style. I bought T-Max 400 (and the necessary for the development), I have filters for black-and-white photography (yellow, yellow-green, orange, red) in 40.5mm for the Zorki lenses (except Jupiter 9), I even found a 35mm viewfinder for shooting with the Jupiter-12.

I put the Zorki-1 in my "Zorki suitcase" I add a film cartridge and go for a ride.

The error is not having loaded the film into the camera before going! Once there, impossible to load, the film finally gets torn, a piece goes into the mechanism (and blocks it), and I must go home, and disassemble the camera to recover the piece.

I made some research (yes, I should have done before ...), here is the explanation:

In the past, the 135 film leader tongue had a narrow part around ten centimeters long (in 1). This narrow strip was needed to load into the first Leicas and other sole-loading cameras.
Then the standard changed, the tongue became shorter (2). It allows to expose one view more on the same length. But it no longer allows to load a Leica II and related.

I made an explanatory drawing for cutting. Take care to make continuous cuts, and not to cut the middle of a perforation. In short anything that could initiate a tear in the film.

I made the cut on my film, and I could easily load the Zorki.
(you can see that the film was torn right where there should have been a cutout)

Concerned cameras (in my collection): Fed 1, Zorki 1, Zorki S, Zorki 2S, Zorki 5, Zenit 1, Zenit S, Zenit 3.

September 2016:
I received for servicing a Zorki 1 which owner had the same problem. Shutter stuck open.

Body opened: the film pieces are found in the shutter control gear (arrow), there was also one behind the bottom baffle.

December 2019:
The first Leica was designed to use cinema film. To facilitate cutting the leader tongue, Leitz sold an accessory called ABLON. Ones can occasionally be found on ebay, obviously very expensive.

Users of 3D printers have designed printable copies of this accessory, made available on free access on the Net. And as I have 3D printer since a few months, I printed ones.

(there is a version engraved "Leica", but this is not the one I made!)

The original version is made of metal, you just have to follow the shape with a sharp blade. With the plastic version, it's more delicate. Perhaps the best solution is to mark the cut with a felt pen and then cut with scissors.

Reference:Copies of Leica ABLON on Thingiverse.com