touching film while loading reel

Hi Guy's. A novice question here. I have just started dev. my b&w

film again after about a 20 year absense from it. I am using a

Paterson tank and plastic reels and 120 film. If it matters I am

currently using Fuji Acros, Ilford 50 and Maco 25. Anyway, while I

have been practicing loading the reel with a test roll, I noticed I

was touching the film's surface quite a bit. Will the natural acid /

sweat on my fingers have an effect on the developed film? Thanks

touching the back of the film, which is natural to do when loading reels, should not be a problem. touching the emulsion may cause fingerprints if you have really sweaty fingers.

I wash my hands well with soap and water, and then dry them on a clean towl right before I stick them in the changing bag to load reels, and I haven't had any problems at all using similar equipment. I also do my best to only touch the edges, but sometimes for whatever reason that's hard to do.

Doug...

 

I have wondered about the same thing, but it's never caused me a problem. Give yourself some comfort by understanding where the first and last frames are (couple inches from either end, maybe?) and where the emulsion is (on the inside of the curl.) You can touch the film anywhere else without worry (within some common sense limits, of course.)

I've never had any problems, even when I was loading in a changing bag (hot!)...

 

- Randy

I do know people that swear blind that you MUST wear cotton gloves when loading film onto the spiral before putting it in the tank.

 

Personally, I think they're talking absolute crap. As long as you don't get your fingers on the emulsion side - and it would be a quite hard to do this anyway - I don't think you'll ever have a problem. I've been self-dev'ing b&w, colour neg and tranny for 15 years, never used gloves or auto loaders... don't worry about it.

Another vote for "no worries". I try to avoid touching the emulsion side, but I don't try to avoid touching the back. I've never seen a fingerprint on either side of a freshly developed roll of film.

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It IS important to avoid "crinkling" the film. Any crease will show up as a dark mark after development, almost as though it had been exposed to light. The typical mark looks somewhat reminiscent of a crescent moon. I've seen this problem more with 120 than 35mm.

You could try wearing cotton inspection gloves or finger cots.

Thank you so much for those reply's. I had never thought about it before, so I thought I would come to the right place to ask this type of question. Thanks again, doug b.

I wear cotton gloves because my hands sweat in a changing bag. I've never seen any marks on the film, but it's important to have the film slide smoothly through your hands when loading. I use metal reels and load by hand, without "benefit" of a film loader. Gloves are also handy when scanning.

 

Latex gloves will certainly prevent fingerprints, but that doesn't seem to be a major issue. They are uncomfortable and tend to be sticky on the film. Vinyl gloves would work better and be easier to put on and take off. Cotton gloves can produce lint, but that's more of an issue when printing or scanning. A trip through the laundry takes care of the linting issue.

When I first started I didn't use anything - but as a precaution I bought cotton gloves and have used them when handleing film ever since, emergencies excepted. One emergency with a jammed camera resulted in finger smears visible on the color negatives. Therefore, I continue with the cotton gloves for darkroom work. I have not had a problem with lint.

The Fuji and Ilford have relatively sturdy emulsions; however I don't know about the Maco. I had a bad experience with Bergger and scratched emulsion.

 

Also, consider a dark box instead of a changing bag, as your hands won't sweat.

I figure that I've loaded somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 pieces of film in the last couple

of years. I have NEVER seen a fingerprint come through the process. Perhaps the chemistry

gets rid of the oil? And I'm not very obsessive about washing my hands. I just wash them

after handling chemistry, and wear gloves for handling the processed film.

I had problems in the beginning of my four year DR experience but now it's become second nature. I never touch the film except holding the edges when beginning to load the reel. Whether the reel has a spring clip or a slot to hold the end, after cutting off the leader and clipping each corner I pinch the sides of the exposed 3" head end of the film and there's usually enough stiffness there to slide it under the clip or into the slot. I do this with the light on. I apply tension to begin the reel loading trying not to expose anymore film remaining in the cassette. Once I see that the film is straight and aligned correctly, I shut the light and load the reel while all the time continuing to pinch the sides of the film with my right hand as I rotate the reel with my left. I found doing it this way I never touch anything except the edges of the film, and at the same time the problem of initial alignment of the film and reel is solved. The only comprimise I have to make is to be sure when I load the camera I give up enough leader to allow for this procedure, otherwise my first shots may get ruined.

Michael,

 

Besides not being applicable to 120 film, that's a poor method of handling 35mm cassettes: You have to assure that the felt trap is clean, else you'll scratch the film from dust (like you pick up when you put the exposed roll in your pocket or camera bag).

 

As you can see from the other replies above, which I concur with, touching the base of the film with bare fingers is 100% harmless; and in my experience as well as many others,' touching the emulsion of modern films is also harmless.

 

If you insist on loading the clip in daylight, I suggest after you go dark to pop open the cassette and pull the spool out, instead of dragging it through the felt trap.

As I said in my post above I started using gloves for loading as a precaution, I didn't see any problems on film I processed before that. My biggest concern is dust, my cotton gloves are hand washed and risnsed in distilled water before drying. In order to remove dust shile loading I often allow the film to slide between two gloved fingers to wipe off any dust. Since I've been doing that dust problems have decreased.

 

I mentioned a smear from when I unjammed film in a camera in a janitor's closet but I don't know what was on my hand at the time.