Discuss your film loading technique

[dan_south]

<p>Have you learned any helpful film loading tricks and tips? Share them here.</p>

 

<ol>

<li>I load 4x5 holders in a small Harrison changing bag. I tried a tent but I didn't care for the extra size and set-up time.</li>

<li>I try to load no more than six holders at a time as humidity tends to build up in the bag.</li>

<li>I always open the film packets the same way so I get the side with the notch on the open end.</li>

<li>I secure all boxes with multiple rubber bands and mark every box with Post-It notes that indicate how many pieces of fresh film I have extracted or how many pieces of exposed film I've added to the box.</li>

<li>I use separate boxes for push processing.</li>

<li>I always wash my hands before handling film.</li>

<li>I try to relax as load. Tension anywhere in my body seems to make it harder for me to load the holder efficiently.</li>

<li>I unload and load in separate passes. Between these passes I take the film holders out of the bag, inspect them, clean out dust if necessary, and reverse the direction of the dark slides from "exposed" to "unexposed."</li>

</ol>

<p>What's your technique?</p>

[Monophoto]

<p>I always try to load holders in my darkroom. But if I'm traveling, that's not possible and I have to look for alternatives. If the hotel bathroom is windowless, I turn off all the lights in the room, close the bathroom door and stuff a towel into the gap under the door, and lay out my stuff on the counter. <br>

I first unload the holders and put the film into black plastic bags that then go into empty film boxes. I have three boxes - N, N-, and N+. I have two bags in the N- box, one for N-1 and the other for N-2. To be able to tell them apart in the dark, I attached rubber 'bumpers' to the bags (one for the N-1 bag, two for the N-2 bag).<br>

After unloading the film, I turn the lights back on the inspect and brush out the holders, and reverse the darkslides. Then I turn the lights back off and reload the holders.<br>

On a trip to California several years ago I learned (the hard way) to make sure that the bathroom counter is dry, and to arrange my stuff so that nothing can slide into the sink. @#%^&*<br>

I hate changing bags, so I try to stay in hotels that have windowless bathrooms, but sometimes there's no option. I generally agree with your process - the only thing I would add is that I try to have the air conditioning in the room running for half and hour or so before starting to reduce the ambient humidity and moderate the temperature. Loading film in a changing bag in a hut, humid atmosphere is torture!</p>

[brucecahn]

<p>A small addition to the good suggestions above: post-its may be used on the darkslides to indicate loaded, and then to show exposure info and to mark duplicate exposures & other data. The extra sticky ones do not fall off.</p>

[keith selmes]

<p>I use a changing bag.<br>

Probably do just 3 or 4 holders, that is about the number I will have time to load, time to use carefully, and time to process afterwards. No point loading more than I'm going to use, as I don't do LF that frequently.</p>

<p>I close my eyes. I've found it much easier to track whats happening in the bag if I do that.<br>

I do puff over the holders and darkslides with a jetblower, as for cleaning sensors, beforehand, in hopes of removing dust.</p>

<p>Never thought of using postits, I've never had any that would stay on that well. Didn't know there were extra strength ones.</p>

<p>Anyway, some holders have the white space for writing on, but its often been permanently marked by a previous owner, and some don't have them, so I usually stick my own label on, and use pencil. Typically I will number the holders each side, and tick them off after the exposure so as not to muddle the used and unused. I may write the film, lens or exposure as well, but I will probably use a notebook, recording the details against the number.<br>

When they're emptied again, I just rub out the pencil marks.</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>Dan, I use your technique, with a few variations, as I am a fanatic for getting rid of dust. I have a darkroom, so I always lay out my space to make it easy to work in the dark.</p>

<p>When taking out exposed film, I pull the slides half way out, take out the film on both sides, then set the holder to one side.</p>

<p>After all the holders are emptied, I re-load them. I use a large dust-off can to blow out the tip of the slide that is exposed, the groove it goes into, and the "neck" of the holder where the slide comes out of. Then I pull out the side completely, blow out all three areas one more time, then flip the slide to indicate unexposed film. I gather them all up into a neat stack, then turn off the lights and load them.</p>

<p>After they all have film in them, I blow the outside off one time. I use clean doggie poop bags to hold the holders, and replace them every half dozen uses. These are stored in a sandwich box cooler with pill bottle drying tablets to keep out moisture (but I live in the high desert, so static and moisture are not much of a problem for me).</p>

<p>I use a variation of post its. I use the post-it tabs. Blue means N-, and Yellow indicates N+. If I use something beyond N-1 or N+1, then I write N+2 (for example) on the tabs. I find that I can reuse the tabs many times, and I attach them to the lid of the sandwich cooler box.</p>

<p>The holders fit perfectly into these containers. If I'm on the road, using a changing bag, I'll carry the film box in the little compartment to the right. It holds about 8 or 10 holders, and about 4 more with the plastic on the right removed. If it is hot out, I put it in the freezer or refrigerator for awhile and it will keep the film cool for hours. It is also very dust tight. (Sorry, I didn't color-correct the image before uploading).</p><div></div>

[dan_south]

<p>Some additional points:</p>

<ol>

<li>I use the extra-sticky Post-It notes. They're available in office supply stores. They come in a variety of colors which can be useful for labeling things clearly.</li>

<li>I carry my film holders in their original boxes. The box has a Post-It note indicating the type of film that's loaded in the holders and the ISO value.</li>

<li>My holders are labeled (A1, A2, A3, etc.) and these numbers are also written on the box.</li>

<li>I push myself to unload and reload my film holders before doing anything else (except for washing up in the rest room). The later it gets, the more tired I become and the more difficulty I have sliding a piece of film into a holder. So it's better for me to handle the film promptly. Procrastination just makes the process slower and more tiresome. I also want to be READY to shoot. Sometimes opportunities come up before you expect them to. Load film first!</li>

<li>The time and trouble it takes to load and unload film makes me appreciate each sheet and inspires me to compose, focus, and meter that much more carefully. The chrome that I have at the end of the process seems precious to me. I bought it, transported it, loaded it, exposed it, unloaded it, and transported it again to my lab. It's very satisfying when that whole process yields an image that I can admire.</li>

</ol>

[leighb]

<blockquote>

<p>post-its may be used on the darkslides to indicate loaded</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's what the bumps on the darkslide frame are for. Bumps out = unexposed. Insert the darkslide after exposure with the bumps in.</p>

<p>If the holder is unloaded, leave the bottom frame open.</p>

<p>Using the post-its for exposure info and other notes is certainly a good idea. ;-)</p>

<p>- Leigh</p>

 

[Two23]

<p>I generally load film in my bathroom, at night. I take a shower, and then load the film. That seems to really cut down on dust.<br>

Kent in SD</p>

[anton_de_flon]

<p>I prefer to use a changing bag or changing tent both at home and on the road. That way I can at least sit somewhere comfortably and watch TV while loading the films. Bathrooms get warm and humid.<br>

Another thing I find helps before loading film is to practice loading with a reject sheet a few times in full light. That seems to cut down tremendously on the time it takes to "hunt" for the grooves in the holders once I am no longer able to see what I'm doing.</p>

[spodzone]

<p>Most of my film-organization is by layout/placing. When loading, within my changing bag, I set up 4 "stations":</p>

<table>

<tbody>

<tr>

<td>Film box top-left</td>

<td>| film with the cardboard sleeve top-right</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Empty film holders bottom-left</td>

<td>| holder being loaded bottom-right</td>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

<p>Each holder has either E6 or B&W written on it, and a holder-number on one side. (Obviously I run batch-operations in the changing bag: loaded holders get unloaded into a box, then unloaded holders get loaded by film-type.)<br>

Unexposed holders and spare film-boxes go in the front compartment of my rucksack, part/completely exposed holders in a compartment in the main area. Thus, when I'm in the field, I choose either a new holder from the front and shoot starting with the numbered side, or a partially exposed holder and expose the unnumbered side. The darkslides are inverted with every exposure, so I know when there's a mixture or not.</p>

[wieslaw1]

<p>Loading in the darkroom is not a problem, but when I stay overnight in the mountains it has to be done in the open air.<br />If there is a tree or some kind of a cave between large rocks for example, then such places are sufficiently dark at night to just open the cassette, take out the film and put it into a box. <br />If a sleep in a sleeping bag under open sky, then I reload the film inside the sleeping bag.<br />The problem is with identification of each negative. My holders are marked A, B, C, etc. each with no 1 and 2. I make notes on paper when I shoot so I know from which holder the negative comes with other relevant data.<br />Now the negs. have to be stacked in a box in such a fashion that I can later determine proper developing conditions for every negative.<br />So I very carefully arrange the holders, write down the sequence (negs numbers) on a piece of paper and empty them consecutively into a box, one by one without ever putting any of this upside down! The cardboard where the negatives are put into has trimmed the upper right corner for identification.<br /><br />This works with B&W which I develop myself and on short 1-2 days trips when I take 20 to 30 pictures.<br />It does not work with a larger number of accumulated color negatives processed by a lab. So I know nothing about photographs I took for example in Patagonia. Sometimes I even have a hard time to exactly pinpoint the area where the pictures were taken.<br /><br />I remember, on this forum, there has been a discussion about means to mark the negatives directly, for example by drilling tiny holes into the holders, but I cannot find it.</p>

[jimmy_katz]

<p>These all are good ideas, but I will add a few thoughts. I prefer to write on my 4x5 boxes with a sharpie since I am concerned that post-its, even strong ones, could come off. I do this with all the boxes and I always take a few extra empty ones in case I need to push some sheets different amounts during the trip. I also like tape for closing boxes since rubber bands can break and the boxes stack better with tape if you have a lot of them. I think that when traveling, some sort of changing tent is a more consistent way to load and unload sheet film, just incase the bathroom or sleeping bag is not as light-tight as you might have thought. A big rubber blower, blows out all the holders each time before I load and I turn the changing tent inside out before the trip to make sure that that there is no dust in it. jimmykatz.com</p>

[w_t1]

<p>@Wieslaw, I believe what you are talking about is a system to permanently link the film holder to the negative so it can be identified after development - along with your record keeping method. In the book Lambrecht's "Way Beyond Monochrome" p. 278 (mine is the 2003 book that is oop) there is a chapter regarding notching film holders in binary system, so for instance you could find film #9 from a shoot and know that it was PlusX, N+1, etc. This is probably documented on the net, but I just skimmed the chapter a couple of times and understand it.</p>

<p>I haven't got that detailed yet, I'm still working on my stash of Agfapan 100 and dont get that detailed.<br>

ah, i found a link looks like the entire chapter: http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/showthread.php?p=20758</p>

<p> </p>

[wieslaw1]

<p>WT - I just took a View Camera (2006 issue) from a shelf and found ad for the book Way Beyond the Monochrome, but before I managed to run to the Strand Bookstore on Broadway, I inspected the link you provided. Indeed similar methods have been discussed on this forum, with holes being drilled, etc. Very good!<br>

Another question is identification of geographical location where the picture was taken. In Poland/Slovakia, in the Tatras I know the name of every valley and summit but not in Patagonia for example. At the recent photo show at Javis Center in NY I was advised about a small GPS-sensitive device (M-241) for about 60$ which displays the coordinates at the spot. I could write down the coordinates on paper and link to a particular negative. Has anybody used it?</p>

<p> </p>

[w_t1]

<p>In my opinion, I'm into keeping it simple when shooting, especially 4x5, and if you want coordinates, it's easy enough to get them off of Google Earth after the fact. I mean you can't identify the point with sub centimeter accuracy anyway, and Google Earth is accurate enough. My google picasa account allows me to locate uploads with location, which I do sometimes with work related photos, but i do it through picasa, no field data collection required.</p>