Here's a one word explanation of why leader out is so important: time. I do not have the time to pull out leaders with an extractor nor do I want to fumble around in the dark trying to thread in film on a bent reel. I am constantly faced with having to shoot and budget time in order to meet deadlines. Leader out saves me anywhere from 5 - 15 minutes depending on how many rolls of film I have and if I'm hand processing. Plus, it's just bad lab etiquette where I come from to suck leaders into canisters and leave them for our lab staff to pull out. Makes'em cranky. Leader out is a necesity which Nikon should have made a custom function long ago. Believe it or not, the application that programs leader out is an old DOS app. and is strictly command line. Crazy. And yes, Canon does own patents to several custom functions. I found this hard to believe but I've heard it out of enough reps mouths on both sides of the fence to believe it's the truth. Someone should do a patent search and see if it turns up. BTW - sorry my last email posted twice. I don't know if that was my fault or the listserv but I apologize nonetheless. Bob Croslin Staff Photographer, The Tampa Tribune [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home1.gte.net/bcroslin/index.html
