35mm Film canisters?

Who’s making the best 35mm Cassette For Bulk Film loading. It’s been 20 years or better since I last rolled my own.

Oh and DX coding is not important to me.

Thanks for the input

Have a look at this website: (site no longer exists) It could be they are the same ones that Freestyle sells.

Hans

I know it's not a direct answer to your question, but the old Ilford cassettes for their factory spooled film were well made and reloadable. Don't know how the new ones work for this.

I HATE plastic cassettes.

I use Kodaks. There are a few boxes of NOS out there...

I go to my local lab and ask for old film cassettes. They have about 1/4" sticking out that I tape to the bulk film. Best part about them is the price. (free!) I sort them so the dx coding matches the film speed I'm loading. I write the film type and length in felt marker on the leader. When I remove exposed film from the camera, I make sure I leave the leader sticking out so I can pull the exposed film out to load in the developing tank.

If the film does get rolled completely into the cassette, I just open the cassette with a bottle opener and throw it away after. (the cassette parts, not the bottle opener)

They are hard to track down. They are expensive. The best of the lot were made by Leitz, Zeiss and Nikon. Perhaps they were alsomade by others. These are cassettes without the use of felt. If you buy them in good shape and care for them they will last indefinitely. I have no preference between the Leica, Contax or Nikon brand. Keep your eyes peeled on Ebay. Good luck.

ricksplace said:

I go to my local lab and ask for old film cassettes. They have about 1/4" sticking out that I tape to the bulk film. Best part about them is the price. (free!) I sort them so the dx coding matches the film speed I'm loading. I write the film type and length in felt marker on the leader.

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I would recommend putting a label on the cassette itself rather than marking the leader. A few days ago I lost a roll of BW due to my own error. It had been in the camera for some time and I had forgotten that it was a reload. Thinking it was what was originally in the cassette I had it processed as color negative and lost the entire roll!

I use the metal ones from Kalt. I haven't had any problems.

Given the choice, and if I am using a camera with pull-up rewind knob: Shirley-Wellards.

That being said, we are probably talking about the ones made out of stamped sheet metal. The old reloadable Ilford and Agfa are pretty good, but better pick the ones where the film emerges tangentially; those slightly earlier ones with a little kink tends to put a kink on the film which cannot be flattened by the pressure plate, and a lack of sharpness can show on the image.

Efke and JandC cassettes are easily reloadable.
And you get one free with the purchase of a roll of film

I prefer the feltless cassettes. I use the one made by Nikon for the F2. They are indestructible, will not scratch the film, and provide less resistance to the motor drive. The only disadvantage is that they will not work in my other 35mm bodies.

In my other bodies, I have used plastic and metal cassettes. Since I tape my film to the take-up spool, I prefer the smooth take-up spool in the metal verses the fenestrated spool in the plastic. When I must travel with a large amount of film, I prefer the lighter weight of the plastic cassettes. Even though I have never had a metal cap accidentally pop off, the screw cap of the plastic gives me a greater sense of security. Even though I only load my cassettes with 30-exposoures, both plastic and metal cassettes have given me problems with binding.

The best cassettes that were intentionally made for reloading were made by Kodak. They were made of heavy gauge metal and had a matte finish with areas for writing the film data in pencil. Also good were the older metal cassettes used for german films such as Agfa and Adox.

Plastic cassettes have a nasty habit of coming open at inopportune moments. Most metal cassettes made today are too flimsy.

BruceN said:

I use the metal ones from Kalt. I haven't had any problems.

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I usually use the metal Kalt cassettes. The Leica and Nikon cassetes were far better, but are not interchangable and are awfully expensive in large quantities. My experience with plastic cassetes wasn't good.

I have always used the Kalt cassettes as well, with no problems over the years.

Dave

Gerald Koch said:

Plastic cassettes have a nasty habit of coming open at inopportune moments.

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I had that happen to me just a few days ago. It was a roll of Svema film (factory-rolled in a re-usable plastic cartridge). When I opened the camera back after finishing and rewinding the roll, I discovered that the plastic top had come off in the camera. I slammed the camera's back shut and unloaded it in my darkroom. I was lucky; I only got some fogging around the sprocket holes of the first few frames. As a side note, I discovered that Svema FN64 doesn't get along well with XTOL; the grain was huge (bigger than any ISO 400 film I've used) and development was severely uneven. The same type of film in Rodinal is nice, though.

More generally, I'm not really happy with anything I've tried:

• Re-using cassettes from a minilab (or from factory-rolled film I've processed myself) is cheap, but I'm not dexterous enough to attach the film to the stub in the dark, so I lose a bit at the end to fogging. (With re-usable cassettes, I can tape the film stub to the spool in the dark, so I lose nothing at the end of the roll.) I also once had the film detach from the stub, which was a nuisance.
• As above, plastic cassettes can open unexpectedly. I also find them difficult to load in the dark -- it's hard to find the opening to slide the film through. I once ruined a plastic cassette doing this (the felt got pulled off in my efforts). I have yet to find a DX-coded plastic cassette. This isn't a huge problem for me, since most of my cameras aren't DX models, but I do have a couple of cameras with DX coding and no override, so it is an issue. I know there are DX stickers you can buy, but I've never bothered to buy any, since they seem rather pricey.
• I have a hard time getting the caps to snap back on with the Kalt metal cassettes I've tried. I've also re-used a few Efke and Foma cassettes and have the same problem with them. (My latest Foma cassettes don't appear to be re-usable, unfortunately.) I've got some metal cassettes with ISO 100 and 400 DX coding, which is useful for some films but not for others.

Given all this, my current preference tends to shift away from whatever I loaded last.

Tangentially to what? I'm not sure what you mean there, Seele...

I have used the plastic "general brand" ones from BH, where one side unscrews off. I have also recently tried the metal ones from Freestyle - their "arista" cassettes - where both ends can pop off.

The metal ones are nice because you can pop off both ends for cleaning the felt. But I found the effort of putting the ends back on to be much harder than expected. I can load the plastic ones much, much faster.

allan

Here's a tip that I stumbled on and have mentioned in a previous bulk loading thread:

I always take a post-it note and slide it into the slot of the cassette before loading it. It has the perfect amount of stickyness to pick up any dust or grit from the felt without destroying it.

kaiyen said:

Tangentially to what? I'm not sure what you mean there

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Allan,

Imagine you have removed both ends of a metal cassette, and look down the hollow. The more recent ones have the velvet light trap positioned tangentially to the main cylinder, but for some earlier Agfa and Ilford (perhaps others) cassettes, the light trap is at an angle to the cylinder, where the film has to emerge out of the coil after negotiating a small reverse kink.

The British photography writer A.M. Carlsson first noticed the adverse effect of cassettes not allowing the film to emerge tangentially. After leaving the film in that kink for a while (overnight or longer perhaps), the film will develop a reverse bend that cannot be flattened out by the pressure plate. So you will see the following happening:

After you have started a film, you put your camera aside overnight, and then when you wind on again, the piece of film with the bend will be in the film gate, but since the film is not flat, you will see a vertical band where sharpness is lost. This is particularly obvious when you are photographing at infinity, where the distance between the lens and the film is actually less than what it takes to achieve infinity focus. But this can only happen during the first half of the film; as the coil of film gets smaller in diameter, the angle of the velvet light trap becomes progressively more tangential, therefore no longer putting that bend on the film.

For me I still use those older cassettes, but since I shoot off a roll quite rapidly I do not have much of a chance to let the bend to set in anyway.

Seele,
Thanks for the clarificaiton. I got it now

allan

I want to start bulk loading my own film. What type/manufacture would be recommended to use? Also, how many times can you safely use them?
Thanks,
Brad

The KALT brand ones (metallic) are very good and can be used many times.

I learned that after 3 or 4 rolls the felt can be cleaned with sticky tape to eliminate dust and others from it

This is a good question and I'd like to hear experienced people's responses. I use the plastic cannisters from Adorama with the screw off top. I heard somewhere that the metal cannisters tops sometimes pop off. That wouldn't be good. I've been marking my cannisters with a Sharpie every time I use them to keep track of the light seals. So far I've reused them about 4 time and I haven't encountered any scratches or light leaks. Even if you only use a cannister 5 times, it's still more economical to bulk load most films.
Ara

I tried both metal and plastic canisters, but always liked the metal more. I used to load them the same way, but the film in plastic canisters for some unexplained reason was very hard to pull once in camera. Especially towards the end. I never had the cover to pop out, unless you abuse, force or drop the canister. As for reuse, I used them about 5 times, and they still look like new. Of course, cleanliness is a must, keep out of dust.
Bulk loading can be very economical and not that hard to do, once you find your way. What’s nice about it is that you can load as many frames as you wish, handy when testing film or just when experimenting. But I know that some people wouldn't be caught dead doing it.

There was a similar topic today in (there was a url link here which no longer exists) thread, it might help as well…

Metod

The Kalt metal casettes have served me well for years. They should last indefinately if kept clean. Replacing the spools with ones salvaged from Kodak factory loaded cassettes provides a smoother surface for taping the end of the film. The plastic cassettes I've used seemed relatively flimsy.

Dear Brad,

I have used both the plastic, metal (Kalt) and cheapie metal (turned out to be a hand assembled cartridge from an off brand film). Both the plastic and Kalt cartridges have worked without any problem. Stay away from the cheapies if you want to reuse them. As stated above, if they stay clean, you can get many uses from them. I had to toss some of my plastic ones because the light trap got dirty, but otherwise they work great.

Neal Wydra

Neal Wydra