35mm bulk cartridges: How long do they last?

Worker 11811 · Jun 15, 2010

jmcd said:
I would sure like to know what exactly is going on here. Is the fogging continuous and does it start at the very edge, does fog bloom around the sprocket holes (of course there is no film in the actual holes), run the entire length of the roll, along both the top and bottom edges, or just one?

Attached image: A scan of one roll of negs in question.

I have other rolls from the very same reel of bulk film, from the very same loader, shot, one after another in the very same camera. One roll does it, the other does not.

Although it's not always possible, I always try to go under a doorway or, at least, find a tree to stand under when I reload the camera.

I always keep the film in a plastic container, saved from a roll of store-bought film. I often keep them in a pocket but they bare carts never roll around in my pocket without being in a container.

Some rolls do this. Some rolls don't. When I find a roll that does it, I set the cart aside and use a new one.

I'd sure like to know if it is because I am doing something wrong because I could save some time, money and trouble if I knew what I was messing up.

Still, I can't help but to think that they get old, wear out and need to be replaced after three or four uses.

Maybe I can put a thin strip of black tape around the rim of the cart after I load it. :shrug:

Minor light leaks don't bother me at all, as long as they don't affect images. I wish they had DX coding, as I use P&S cameras without manual ISO override.

BTW: DX coding can be faked. Some adhesive backed aluminum foil tape, some nail polish and some patience is all it takes.

BetterSense · Jun 15, 2010

Mine look about the same. I haven't been able to match it with the cassettes since most of mine do it actually. It can't be the bulk loader because I don't use a bulk loader.

frobozz · Jun 15, 2010

I'm sure I've seen bulk cartridges with DX coding... was that just a hallucination? OK, I see 100 and 400 coded carts on Adorama.com for example.

Duncan

fschifano · Jun 15, 2010

IloveTLRs said:
Maker-specific cartridges are nice. I have a Nikon F one, but lack an F to try it with...

Minor light leaks don't bother me at all, as long as they don't affect images. I wish they had DX coding, as I use P&S cameras without manual ISO override.

Yeah, I just checked my old Nikon F and darned if the key to unlock the back doesn't have a dog on it. Looks just like what would be needed to slide open the cassette door.

Minor light leaks with re-loadable cassettes are part of the game, and they don't bother me either. Only rarely, and only with sub par quality or damaged cassettes, does the edge fog invade the image area. Heck, I've had edge fog with factory loads too. Happens when you're forced to reload in bright light. If in doubt, blow through the first frame or two and no more worries.

You can get DX coded cassettes. Freestyle carries them, as do most other places that carry re-loadable cassettes.

jmcd · Jun 15, 2010

Thanks for posting the scan, Randy S. That's a significant amount of fogging at the end of your roll. What loader are you using?

Worker 11811 · Jun 15, 2010

Watson. But I do not think it is the loader because the next roll of film I loaded did not have that problem.
I am not 100% sure but I can do a test.
The next roll I load will be in a brand new, unused cart.

Edit: I'll check to be sure the top loading door of the Watson isn't coming open a crack. I can use a piece of tape around the edges if I suspect it.

jp498 · Jun 15, 2010

This is one of the 20 year old cartridges that has never failed me. The ends snap on and don't have any wiggle when in place. The finish is sort of a satin black. I had about ten of them and would reload them all every couple of weeks for several years.

Dead Link Removed

frobozz · Jun 15, 2010

Looks like the old HP-5 carts...

Duncan

stevebrot · Jun 17, 2010

I have been bulk-rolling film since the early 1970s and currently have several Kalt-style cans that I bought several years ago. So far, I have no light-leak issues with these cans. My secret?

Deal gently with the cans and lids..."nudge" instead of "snap" when capping/de-capping
Be gentle when working the film edge into the felt channel
Test the seating of the cap by rotating it in its channel after it is attached

My main long-term concern with the reusable cans is dust contamination of the felt and the potential for scratches.

Steve

BTW...Where does one get Legacy Pro 100 for $1.50 a roll?

fschifano · Jun 17, 2010

stevebrot said:
BTW...Where does one get Legacy Pro 100 for $1.50 a roll?

Assuming 18 rolls (a reasonable expectation) of 36 exposures from a 100 ft. bulk roll, the cost of Legacy Pro 100 or 400 works out to about $1.33 per roll for the film if you buy from Freestyle. This does not include the cost of cassettes, taxes, or shipping charges, etc. If you buy 20 roll packs of 24 exposure factory loads, the cost per roll works out to $1.50. The same 20 roll pack of 36 exposure factory loads works out to $1.75 per roll. Again, shipping charges, taxes, etc. not included.

jordanstarr · Jun 17, 2010

I have some really old vintage Kodak Plus-x cartridges that I bought just to try out. Some scratched the film as the felt became harder I suppose as they got older, so I scrapped them. Some were rusted and I just keep them in storage 'cause I'm a packrat. But I would guess some of them are 30 years old and work fine. I good measure would be to take he leader, but it almost all the way in the cassette and bring it out again a few times to see if it scratches. If it does, get rid of them. If you develop one roll at a time and keep your cartridges organized you should be able to point out the ones that have light leaks and can scrap those ones as well.

wclark5179 · Jun 17, 2010

I've found they last a very long time, especially the units designed to be used over & over. What happens to me is that the black caps, especially the one that's removed over & over will wear and will pop off easier & easier as it's used over & over.

How many times, I haven't kep track but quite a long while.

Hope this helps.

erikg · Jun 17, 2010

jnanian said:
i am still using some i got in 1981,
no problems ...
i don't change my razor after every use either ..

so that's why your beard is fogged!

stevebrot · Jun 17, 2010

fschifano said:
Assuming 18 rolls (a reasonable expectation) of 36 exposures from a 100 ft. bulk roll, the cost of Legacy Pro 100 or 400 works out to about $1.33 per roll for the film if you buy from Freestyle. This does not include the cost of cassettes, taxes, or shipping charges, etc. If you buy 20 roll packs of 24 exposure factory loads, the cost per roll works out to $1.50. The same 20 roll pack of 36 exposure factory loads works out to $1.75 per roll. Again, shipping charges, taxes, etc. not included.

Oh! 24 exposure rolls...so if I roll 24 exposure rolls instead of 36 exposure rolls...the cost per roll from bulk drops to...$0.89 per roll. That looks like a savings of 40% off the cost of the factory load.

I could factor in tax and shipping, but that would only widen the spread. As for cassettes...The cost for cassettes per roll is minimal since those can last for years (in my experience) with reasonable care. If you are not me, it is safe to assume at least 5 uses per cassette. In that case, you can add $0.13 per roll.

So, there is a pretty nice cash incentive to roll from bulk. On the other hand, it is pretty inconvenient, particularly if you shoot a lot of film between processing sessions. To be honest, I am not sure that I would load from bulk if I had not been given one of the old-style Watson 66-C loaders several decades ago. (Yes, I have the Bakelite and metal version made by Burke and James. Very nice!)

Steve

stevebrot · Jun 17, 2010

erikg said:
so that's why your beard is fogged!

Only adjacent to the perforations...

Steve

karthik · Jun 17, 2010

Worker 11811 said:
Attached image: A scan of one roll of negs in question.

I have other rolls from the very same reel of bulk film, from the very same loader, shot, one after another in the very same camera. One roll does it, the other does not.

This is exactly what mine does too, and I have been trying to figure out if it is the reloadable cassettes (Freestyle brand, not DX coded) that are bad or the something not OK in the loader (Watson).

The gaps in the fogging on the edges makes me suspect that it is not the loader - I would expect a much larger stretch to get fogged it that were the case. I don't have any significant pauses when loading the film, so I cannot explain the gaps.

In my case the fogging only happens in the edges of the last (innermost in the cassette) 5-6 frames. Even among these, the innermost one is worst. But I cannot understand how the core of the cassette could be affected by a light leak.

Worker 11811 · Jun 17, 2010

I'm pretty anal about winding film at a consistent speed. (It's an occupational hazard of being a projectionist. )
Whether I am winding film through the bulk loader or rewinding film in the camera, I always use the same pace; about 1 crank per second. Therefore, I am inclined to believe that the way I wind hasn't got anything to do with it. I might be wrong about that so, on the next few times I load film, I will double check my film loading and winding practice to be sure.

Further, it looks like the pattern of marks on the edges of the film is consistent. They look like they are a similar shape and they all appear to be similarly spaced. It looks like it would be possible to wind the film in a circle and have all the marks come out on the same place along the diameter.

It only takes 1/1000 of a second to fog the film. If one little bit of light leaked in for just one millisecond, those marks could occur at any time. That's what's making them so hard to figure out in my mind.

frobozz · Jun 17, 2010

karthik said:
This is exactly what mine does too, and I have been trying to figure out if it is the reloadable cassettes (Freestyle brand, not DX coded) that are bad or the something not OK in the loader (Watson).

The gaps in the fogging on the edges makes me suspect that it is not the loader - I would expect a much larger stretch to get fogged it that were the case. I don't have any significant pauses when loading the film, so I cannot explain the gaps.

In my case the fogging only happens in the edges of the last (innermost in the cassette) 5-6 frames. Even among these, the innermost one is worst. But I cannot understand how the core of the cassette could be affected by a light leak.

Doesn't the fact that the light leaks are at the core pretty much guarantee it's some issue with the loader? That's the part of the film that's going to be exposed by any light leaks in the loader trap mechanism as you're taping the end onto the spool, then once you close the whole thing up to do the loading, no more light gets in. Or something.

Duncan

stevebrot · Jun 18, 2010

frobozz said:
Doesn't the fact that the light leaks are at the core pretty much guarantee it's some issue with the loader? That's the part of the film that's going to be exposed by any light leaks in the loader trap mechanism as you're taping the end onto the spool, then once you close the whole thing up to do the loading, no more light gets in. Or something.

Duncan

What I was wondering about is the smoke-like density on the tail end of the roll. It may have been mentioned, but how was this film processed? Bromide drag or something similar?

There is also one section on the margin where the pattern of the overlaying sprocket holes has imprinted on the space between frames 16/17. Are we sure that there is not a light leak in the CAMERA?

Just throwing out a few wild ideas...

Steve

Worker 11811 · Jun 18, 2010

Developed in a plastic tank with XTOL (straight) agitated by inversion, not by turning the spindle.

The same camera has produced clean negatives before and after this one was shot.
I have another camera and have had the same problem with it. Again, some rolls are clean and some are fogged.

The leather cases are always on the cameras when they are being used. The only time the cases are off is when they are being loaded or unloaded.

Just a thought... If I can match the sprocket hole imprints to another spot on the film I might be able to determine what position the film was in when it got hit with light.
Do you think?

PVia · Jun 18, 2010

Try bulk loading in a darkroom.

erikg · Jun 18, 2010

stevebrot said:
What I was wondering about is the smoke-like density on the tail end of the roll. It may have been mentioned, but how was this film processed? Bromide drag or something similar?

There is also one section on the margin where the pattern of the overlaying sprocket holes has imprinted on the space between frames 16/17. Are we sure that there is not a light leak in the CAMERA?

Just throwing out a few wild ideas...

Steve

Pattern of overlaying sprocket holes? That suggests to me that it happened when the film was out of the camera, perhaps when loading the reels.

jp498 · Jun 18, 2010

One other thing to be aware of is that all film spool/spindles do not universally properly fit all 35mm cartridges. If there is play or sloppiness in the spool, you might have be using a spool that wasn't meant for that cartridge. For example, a spool from a non-reloadable cartridge.

I used to reload in the darkroom with my watson loader. I'd have an inch of film sticking out of the loader light trap, put tape on it, shut off the lights, put the spool on, open the trap, assemble the cartridge, and load the film cartridge, close the trap, lights on, trim the film. This way, I never lost the last frame as waste. If you've shot a lot of film, we all know the last frame is often a keeper.

Worker 11811 · Jun 18, 2010

I did a little bit of analysis on the patterns of flash marks on the edges of the film.

Look at the sprocket hole imprints @ Fr-17. (Actually 1/2 way between.)
It appears they match up with the flash marks @ Fr-22A.

Take a ruler and measure the distance. It comes out to 20.7 cm. Divide by pi. The diameter of the roll at the time of the flash that fogged the film would have been 6.58 cm. (2.59 in.)

Now, if the film was inside the cartridge at the time it could not have been rolled into a circle (spiral) 2-1/2 inches in diameter. Right?

That could be the diameter of a developing reel.

It could also be the diameter of a roll of bulk film if it was half way used up.

(Yes, I understand this measurement is not exact, especially if the film was spiraled on a developing reel because the diameter of each lap around the reel is different. It's still a good estimation.)

I feel pretty confident that it didn't happen inside the Watson loader.
I'm not 100% sure. If I was, wouldn't be asking about this problem. Would I?
The next time I load film I will double check and triple check my procedure to see what's happening there.

That leads me to believe that erikg might be onto something.

I'm going out to shoot a project this weekend.
If you noticed the title on the negative sheets, "Industrial Grunge," you'll know where I'm headed.

I will probably be loading 3 or 4 rolls of film this weekend.
I've got one already loaded and there is one in the camera, right now, ready to shoot.
That gives me the expectation of using about a half-dozen rolls of film. That should give me plenty of opportunity to check things over to see where the fogging might be occurring.

karthik · Jun 25, 2010

I suspect that at least in my case the fogging happens after I load the film onto the developing reel. I am using a Paterson 2 reel tank. Here are my reasons:

(a) The marks are periodic. So the film is more likely to have been in a rolled state when the fogging happens.

(b) The marks only occur in the innermost (i.e., last frames to have been shot) few frames. But the centers of the reloadable canisters are among its most light-tight parts (the central post has a flange at both ends, making it more likely for the outermost parts to fog, if at all). I originalyl suspected the film-leader retriver - but that would affect _all_ frames, not just the innermost few.

(c) It happens with both camera bodies I have, but not on every roll. So the light leak is neither in the cameras, nor in the loader.

It is possible that I have been leaving the Paterson tanks sitting in bright light (an overhead bulb) for too long without keeping the lid on, and the light trap isn't perfect, especially with light coming directly from above?

35mm bulk cartridges: How long do they last?

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