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120 idiot


There are prerequisites to my little theory.
 
wilfbiffherb said:
At kind of imbecile puts his hands in the darkbag and puulls ouut the film instead of the backing paper!!UNBELIEVABLE!!!!entire roll of todays rock climbing session gone!!!
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One that will not do it that way again.
 

I'm always panicking in the changing bag. Especially with 120.
 
Try it with 4"x5"
 
Never unroll the backing past the tape, then you can identify it because it is still attached to the spool.
 
If you are not making mistakes, you are not using enough film...
 
I use plastic reels for 120.
I always let the roll of film lay on my palm and unroll it far enough to get the end onto the reel then, with one hand, twist the reel while the film unspools from the backing paper.
The film goes onto the plastic reel, leaving behind an empty coil of paper. The relative amount of space used never really changes much because the film is moving from one place to another, taking up the empty space on the developing reel but leaving empty space behind it on the film roll.

This is the way I have always just done it. I never thought of parting the paper and the film as an extra step, before.
 
For everyone who has "the film never spooled" issues, you need to watch your rewind knobs when you advance. Don't close the back until the film has done atleast one full rotation too. Was that extra frame worth the zero recorded shots of a mis-loaded roll?

It's very simple. Spool the film, close the back, expose, advance, take out slack from rewind knob, expose, did the knob move? Continue. Did the knob sit there? Don't pass go.
 
My "inside the bag" process is very similar to the video, and so far I have never gotten confused about which is paper and which is film (knock wood).

There are two differences in my process:

1) I clip the corners of the film on the end going first into the Patterson. (This is recommended by Patterson to avoid jams.) I just always do it, though perhaps it is not necessary. (I just clip a tiny bit to remove the sharp corner. Fingernail clippers work, though I usually can't find them when I need them, so just throw a small pair of scissors into the bag.)

2) I never spool it up as fast as the guy did in the video. If it did jam on him, I think he might damage his film before realizing he had a problem (maybe he did it that fast just for the video). I go at a pace that allows me to sense what is going on. I listen and feel as the film slides into place.

Even with a tiny changing bag, I've never had an issue with space. I just ignore the stuff lying there. I did once find the masking tape inside my tank after development, but it didn't hurt anything, thankfully. Somehow it came off the paper and snuck in. Tricky devil...
 

In my Rolleiflex, Yashica Mat and Ikonta, I run the leader around the takeup spool one full revolution, just as you say but, then, I hold my thumb against the spool and put tension on the leader as I turn the crank/knob and advance to the start position.

If the leader is securely attached to the takeup spool, it will be able to pull the film through the gate and into the start position even with a fair amount of back tension, supplied by your thumb. The amount of tension the camera would put on the film is less than the tension that you put on manually.

If you survive this acid test, you're good to go. Close the camera and shoot away. If not, rethread and check your work again before proceeding.

With my 35mm cameras, I do similar but I also I make sure that the film is wound around the takeup spool far enough that there is at least one or two sprockets worth of film going over the film counter sprocket. Once the back has closed, it should trap the film onto the sprocket so that it can't fall out of the film path.

Both of the 35mm cameras that I use regularly have a film motion indicator that tells me whether the film is threaded properly and is taking up on the spool. However, I agree with you about checking the rewind knob. Regardless of any other tricks you use or indicators there are on your camera, that knob won't turn if the film isn't being pulled through the camera.
 
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Mistakes, however they occur, are part of the photographic process. Chock it up to experience and move on. The disappointment of lost images will fade in time.
Never let a non photographer handle your camera. They will always find a way to open the back!
 
Grr. Literally just filled my Paterson Orbital processor with 4 sheets of TMax-100. Popped it out of the change bag, the corner of the processor wasn't closed properly. I'll develop it anyway and you never know.

Edit. Buggered up, as suspected.
 
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dehk said:
Oh better than me not loading the film right on the camera. You know that feeling when it kept going after frame #37. "OH F**K"
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My parents did this once on a helicopter trip over the US Virgin Islands. This was in 1984, and they still remember it today.
 
Helinophoto said:
Sorry to hear
I always un-roll my 120 film like this clip (from 35seconds http://youtu.be/6cD8eP8kjdo?t=35s ), because that way, I am always left with the film in my hand and the backing paper that is now lying around, can take a hike
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Why would you do it that way? Seems cumbersome to me. When I load the film I peel the backing paper in the proces. When the film is on the spool the backing paper is left. You can do that in the smallest changing bag.

See the vid by Jason Brunner:
http://youtu.be/6P9bNcBE_Hc
 
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Twice in the last 6 months I've managed to load 120 film upside down, ie with the paper side out, and the film nicely protected by the paper from any light that I might allow past the shutter. Did it once with the Hasselblad and once with the Yashica. No idea how I could possibly have managed it without noticing that the paper was black, there were no arrows to line up as I wound it on. Both times the film had been loaded for weeks and I couldn't remember the circumstances under which I'd loaded it. Exhausted? Drunk? Working in the darkroom without the fan on? Under the effects of medication? In the dark? Asleep? All of the above?
 

Simple answer is that it works for me. And it is kind of fool proof (on my part), because there is no danger in rolling on the backing paper etc, you also have less "mess" in your hands, while putting the film on the actual spool
I am sure you can do it other ways, I do it that way and it works for me, you do it like this and that works for you, dandy =).
 

It gets you to paper in one hand and film in the other in a tidy roll very quickly. All you really do is just pull the paper with one hand and almost by magic the film is in an easy-to-deal-with roll in your other hand. Tear the tape at the interface between film and paper and drop the paper. It's slower to describe than to do it.
I got into the habit with the method when I was processing 20 roll batches of film in an industrial lab.
 
dehk said:
Oh better than me not loading the film right on the camera. You know that feeling when it kept going after frame #37. "OH F**K"
Click to expand...

I've let a person who 'knew all about cameras' manage to take a bunch of shots at the end of the roll because, it turns out, they were cranking the advance lever so hard the sprocket wheel had sheared through the sprocket holes, so the last important family group shots were all laid down on the same frame. I'm the stupid one here: I should have taken the pictures; no need for me to be in them, I know what I look like.

Better get a 2GB card for the F...

s-a
 
I have been in the bag and things went all to hell and my hands sweating and everything. I figured at that point the best thing was to throw the raw film and backing paper into the tank. put on the lid and pull my arms out for a breather.

Once, like posted above, I had the reels loaded and placed into the tank to see the lid halfway across the room. I turned the tank upside down to seal off any light when I took my hands out of the bag and went and got the lid. Fortunately the lid fit through the arm opening.

I always put the center tube into the tank before it goes into the changing bag. I didn't want to make that mistake.

Thanks to you guys on the internet, I have been lucky to avoid a lot of mistakes.
 

That is one thing about the Canon EOS series- I hate that they always advance 3 frames automaticlay at the start, because every roll of filmI develop has almost 4 inches of blank film at the start, But at the end they rewind automgaicaly and so there is never a chance of that sort of damage. Mind you the rewind after 36 shots, so you don't get the advantage of rolls that are slightly longer than average. I get an extra frames worth of blank film from FOMA for example.
 
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