@Moose22 Maybe AgX meant to say that saving money is not a good reason to get a bulk loader.
[EDIT] Actually, I take this back. I looked at the current prices and wow... At my local place the Delta 100 is $10 per roll, but $90 per 100ft, that's 50% savings and a single 100ft roll will pay for the cassettes and the loader.
I don't disagree, in principle, to the money thing. I'm not doing it for that. I want to load rolls of varying length for personal reasons.
Partly this is to kill rolls faster as I don't always shoot 36 all at once and sometimes the camera stays loaded for a couple weeks, though. And it is partly for experiments where I want to do something then experiment with development -- not for art, I'm not going to be Ansel Adams with an F2 and a $100 lens, it's just because I want to learn about the whole process. And to learn you do. But 36 shots on a 135 is a LOT to waste doing something like taking a high contrast scene and pulling, or test doing stand processing, or whatever. I can get the point in 12 shots, do a second roll of 12 shots normally at the same scene, compare the results, etc and not waste film.
I can probably do this experimenting in 120 as well, 9 or 12 frames is not too much, but I have decided to experiment with 135 for now and save the 120 for keepers.
Those personal reasons aside, HP5 is 85 for 18 rolls bulk, and it's $8 a roll at B&H right now. 85/18 is about 4.75 a roll, call it $3 difference to make it easy. $54. The first bulk roll pays off the loader and some of those metal cartridges I bought, the second roll pays for the rest of the loading supplies. After that I'm saving a few dollars a roll. Since I'm shooting Delta at the moment (I'm not married to it, I was just shooting one stock while learning xtol) I could do an $85 roll of FP4, learn to love it instead of Delta, and save quite a bit. Delta's getting spendy. Even the bulk rolls are $105 at most places, so the difference is still about $3 a roll bulk loading, but FP4 bulk loaded is a lot cheaper than what I'd pay for Delta by the roll now.
$3 is
not enough to matter in real terms, but 2 or 3 bucks is 2 or 3 bucks. Between that realization and the "I'll never use all this xtol" that cost me $12 to mix up, it removes a psychological barrier that keeps me from burning through film to try something. Now , in my mind, it's "6 bucks a roll developed." Or "it's only 12 shots, let's try something a little out there". The developing was the bigger savings, by far, but I'm still excited to experiment some with the short rolls on the (relative) cheap.
back then the savings in general were greater than today.
I have learned that it was a LOT more of a savings, even relatively recently. I found more than a few threads from 5 years ago or more when searching for info here.
Oh well. I missed the less-expensive boat on some stuff. But I am here now and enjoying relearning this stuff.