Spooling Film for Developing

I generally leave a bit of film leader out when I rewind and remove an exposed roll.

Is there any reason why this cannot be trimmed and spooled onto a developing reel from the intact cartridge in the bag rather than opening the cartridge and removing the spool?

You can certainly do this if the felt light trap is clean--I've done this many times so that I can write a date, etc. with my fountain pen on the emulsion side of the leader (iron age metadata) without a problem. If there is dust on the felt then you might wind up with scratches on the whole length of the film. If you're using fresh film from a good manufacturer and aren't loading/unloading your camera in a dust storm you should be fine.

There are a variety of handy gadgets available to open the crimped cartridges, but the bottle end of a beer can opener will do the trick as well if you aren't keeping the used cartridges. Always storing the cartridges in the canister before & after use goes a long way to prevent dust in the light traps - that includes empties if you are using reloadable.

I also leave some leader hanging out of the cartridge. I've been loading bulk since the late 70's and maybe only twice have I ever gotten a scratch due to grit in the felt. I generally will reuse a cartridge twice before replacing it.

Thanks for the advice and info.

I’ve been practicing with a cheap roll of film and I opened it in the bag with an old bottle opener easily enough.

Just thought it would be one less thing to do in the bag if I could work spool to spool.

I’ll give it a try that way. I keep the rolls in their containers after they’re exposed so the traps should be clean.

A handy accessory for anyone who doesn't want to open the cartridge is a film leader retriever. Various places should still have them. They work best if you have at least 15 exposures on the roll. I keep one for those times the leader isn't left out.

I have done both methods, but more often open the can. I also cut the leader to a slightly curved end, between the sprocket holes to assist its passage through the reel. I also try to pull the reel halves apart slightly (at least put some tension in here) and find this reduces the frequency of too much tension towards the end of the roll.

It depends on what sort of reel you're using. For stainless reels that you load centre-out, the dangling cassette would make loading more awkward.

 

Come to think of it. Having the cassette attached to the film really isn't going to help with loading any type of reel. And the less times you pull the film through the felt-trap the better.

 

There were a couple of designs of 'daylight loading' developing tank that you dropped the entire cassette into, and wound a handle to drag the film out of the cassette onto a reel or apron. Agfa Rondinax was one of them IIRC. They were never that popular.

Back in the day, if I had rolled the film back into the canister, I would just peal it open with my fingers, but I was young and strong then :)

 

Be aware if the air is super dry and cold, pulling the film out of the canister through the felt can lead to static electric sparks which will show up on your film. That's why we always used to use the hand rewind knobs rather than the motor drive rewind on our Canon F1s and Nikon F3s in cold weather.

The way I have been practicing is with the cassette opened, spindle between curled pinky and heel of thumb.

Index and thumb squeeze lightly to create curve in film to allow it to feed between the sides of a stainless Hewes spool.

It works well enough but I thought it might be even easier if left in cassette.

I was concerned about wiping the emulsion through the seal a third time.

Never considered static.

Hmmmmm.

Where I live (upstate NY) the humidity levels vary from very high in the summer to very low when heating systems are running in the winter. I've developed film at both times of the year without a static problem.

I always take it out. Also, usually I spool the stainless steel reels from the far end of the roll first, especially if I don't cut the leader off.

 

The leader end sticks out past the last spiral, but doesn't cause problems.

 

The other way, the trailer sticks out, and could get scratched from the tank, or otherwise not uniformly developed.

AFIK, minilabs always pull out the leader, leaving the cartridge intact. I still have a couple of extracting tools, somewhere, but for accidental rewind when changing film partway through the roll. When processing film, I always opened the cartridge, removed the film from the spool by tearing the tape, and loading the stainless steel reel from the spool end out. I keep the leader so that when I cut the film into strips, starting from the taped end, I have at least enough film to make a strip the length of 3 or more frames.

 

I never had a problem with tape left on the film coming loose. It's partly waterproof, like masking tape, with a waxy finish.

You can certainly do this if the felt light trap is clean

 

That's the rub, literally. Any grit in the felt can scratch the film.

 

Of course if you do it this way, you can reload the cartridge by taping the new film to the stub. However, spools that are made to be reloaded are not expensive and are much more convenient, to my way of thinking.

Back in the day when Ilford cassettes were essentially reusable, it was no sweat to pull the lid off with your fingernails. So I got into the habit of pulling the cassette apart and unspooling the film before loading it onto the spiral. The bare film automatically curls back up into a loose roll that's easily handled and fed onto a reel.

 

So, that's the way I've always done it; feeding the film onto the reel free of cassette or spool. Works for 120 too. You tear the film free from the spool and backing paper, and it's much easier to handle. Or rather, not handle. The bulk of the film can be let to dangle free while you feed an end onto, or into, the reel. Its natural curl stops it getting into a tangle.

 

"Of course if you do it this way, you can reload the cartridge by taping the new film to the stub."

 

- Many reloadable cassettes have a slit in the spool to take a tapered end of film. You don't even need any sticky tape with this kind of spool.

Edited August 22, 2018 by rodeo_joe|1

Kodak used permanently crimped cassettes since the mid 60's. The old, reusable cassettes would pop open if dropped. I always reloaded from bulk while working for a newspaper, and shooting for the yearbook in college. They were easily available, and could be reused half a dozen times or more. You just had to be careful not to drop them. I used a bottle opener for the OEM cassettes )that was before twist-top beer bottles).

 

I would not trust a slotted spool over tape. If it comes free of the spool in the camera, you are in a world of hurt until you can find a dark room, but then what?

Nikon made re-useable cassettes for the F2. The clever design opened and closed the cassette light trap when the camera back was locked and unlocked. Contax and Leica had similar designs, and a company called Shirley-Wellard made universal reloadable cassettes operated by pressing on the rewind knob.

 

All of the above designs used a slitted spool with 'claws' that prevented the film from simply pulling out of the slit. And most professionals quickly learned not to be 'frugal' and wind past 36, for fear of tearing the sprocket-holes or pulling the film free of the cassette.

Nikon made re-useable cassettes for the F2.

 

(snip)

 

And most professionals quickly learned not to be 'frugal' and wind past 36, for fear of tearing the sprocket-holes or pulling the film free of the cassette.

 

There is a story I remember, I believe for the motor drive F, and not the F2, of the motor being strong enough, in the case where the tape and film didn't give way first, of smashing the spool and dragging parts through the film path. Not good at all.

 

In that case, it is probably best to stop at 36.

 

Without a motor, I am mostly good enough to sense the extra tension at the end, and stop in time.

Film curls the same way, toward the emulsion, regardless of which end you load first. It's a losing battle to load against the curl.

 

The real difference is between plastic reels, loaded from the outside in, and metal reels loaded from the inside out. The first is equivalent to pushing a rope and keeping it straight, the latter to pulling it. That said, I load starting with the taped end, because there is much more space between the front end and the first frame, in case you run out of space on the reel and have to cut it.

In the change bag there's not much room to maneuver so I leave the film in the cassette. I'm always conscious of scratched film, fair enough, but I keep the films in plastic zip bags before and after exposure, together with notes of details about scenes, dates, which camera etc after exposure. Also, press hard with a Biro pen on the leader to emboss that information making doubly sure information is not lost before processing. There's been occasions when some of the exposed films have sat around for months in the fridge before developing, letting them accumulate for a fresh mix of chemicals

 

Preparation of the film is to cut the cut the leader off nice and square and cut the corners of the film all in daylight, but only a tiny 45 degree cut avoiding sprocket holes, as someone has said already. Then in the change bag, start feeding the film into the Paterson plastic reel, keeping the cassette not too far from the reel each time it's wound on

 

With the change bag already filled with equipment, tank, reel, scissors and anything else that may be in there, there is more chance I'll scratch a totally unrolled film scraping on those things than by the light seal in the cassette

 

For those cantankerous motorized point and shoots from the 80s and 90s that in their wisdom rewind the film right back into the cassette, leader and all, I decided to buy one of these ingenious magical contraptions Mike Gammill mentioned - they work good - a little practice needed to get the hang of it, but a nice little invention. This is of course if the cassettes are not pulled apart, opening cassettes is something I hardly ever do

 

 

 

Preparation of the film is to cut the cut the leader off nice and square and cut the corners of the film all in daylight, but only a tiny 45 degree cut avoiding sprocket holes, as someone has said already. Then in the change bag, start feeding the film into the Paterson plastic reel,

 

- There's absolutely no need for any of that faffing about if you use stainless reels. You just hook the holes in the end of the film over the sprockets in the centre of the reel and wind away. (You did buy the reels with sprocket pins, and not the stupid ones with a spring-clip or pointed spike, didn't you?)

 

Or if you're wedded to plastic reels, spend a bit more and buy the Jobo ones. They load far easier than Paterson's sticky ball-bearing design.

Or if you're wedded to plastic reels, spend a bit more and buy the Jobo ones. They load far easier than Paterson's sticky ball-bearing design.

 

Never owned or needed anything else Joe, Paterson plastic reels with the ball bearing are fine, they've given me no trouble with 35mm, just on occasions 120 got stuck but only rarely, and they didn't have cut corners. I cut the corners now. I take your point though, but there's no need for me to change anything right now. The only thing different I had to buy was a tank and reel (Nebro) for 70mm film. You need to be an octopus to load that film on a Nebro spool

I bought the Hewes stainless and they were worth the money. First spooling went smoooooth. The pins picked up the film first try.

I did spool directly from the cartridge and that worked very well with no scratches. I do keep them clean in their original containers.

Can you post a photo of the stainless steel reel? How does the film spool on from the center of the reel?

Got it - rough handling though, you can do that in the dark and not spoil the film in any way ?

 

loading a film in a hewes reel - youtube - Bing video