Are there 120 films that are not numbered on the paper backing?

[Helge]

Ah, now I think I've figured out what you are referencing!
Why does decreasing the number of numbers or letters on the backing paper help?
As I understand it, the total amount of ink employed - the "ink load" - is an important factor with respect to whether any interaction between ink and emulsion starts.
The emulsion coating experts and the printing industry experts that struggled with the problem back then tried a bunch of things, but it wasn't just Kodak who used reduced ink load to help deal with wrapper offset problems - Ilford did as well, a few years earlier.

“Ink load” sounds like term made up to placate nosy people.

 

[MattKing]

“Ink load” sounds like term made up to placate nosy people.

No - it is a term very familiar to anyone who has ever run a printing press - which includes a much younger than now me!

 

[Helge]

No - it is a term very familiar to anyone who has ever run a printing press - which includes a much younger than now me!

Ink load as in load on the film.
The influence on the film is local not through a whole roll or even over the frame.
At least I have a very hard time seeing how that would be possible.

 

[eli griggs]

Gather several, more than three, 120 rolls of trashed 120 forms, with the films still in place, ie dropped rolls while handling loading/unloading or trashed rolls with expired or cheap films, and build an index of your camera's winding on spacing.

Start with taking a firmly rolled roll, back open, and first figure out how many strokes it will take to get to the first frame condition, making notations.

Use a fine, black sharpie to draw the frame on the back of the "exposed", then advance to the next full frame, with no marking with the last frame in the exposure space, mark and move on, treating all of your film roll like this.

Finish rolling off the roll, and set it aside, and do the same thing with all your other bad film rolls.

After doing this, more than three times, with whatever rolls you've gathered, measure carefully with a rule so you can average your films spacings and just average them out.

Use the one indexed averages to wind on new films that your shooting, adding notes on divination from your data, and adjusting it to what works best for you.

do this for whatever old roll film cameras you need to adjust for, regardless of format, so you can happily shoot them, knowing your able to count in your hand built database.


This may upset some here, but such dog work is sometimes the only way to use old your special camera, ie Iskra cameras with non working counter, because the thin brass gear is worn beyond use, because those beautiful Jena lens cameras should no be hacked up with a ugly red homemade window.

IMO.

 

[MattKing]

Ink load as in load on the film.
The influence on the film is local not through a whole roll or even over the frame.
At least I have a very hard time seeing how that would be possible.

A press operator understands very well how more ink on one section of the paper tends to increase the amounts of residual ink on the entire roll of paper.
The more ink, the more frequently that ink load combines with all the other non-controllable variables and creates a visible problem.

 

[Xylo]

The thing is we often think that the transfer happens "in camera", but it probably really happens during the spooling process. At that time, there is considerable force applied to the entire package in order to get evenly spooled film. With the speeds that Kodak's machines each, they can't afford to have any slack in the process, so any ink that would happen to be insufficiently adhered to the paper will get squished into the gelatin and stay there.

 

[Helge]

A press operator understands very well how more ink on one section of the paper tends to increase the amounts of residual ink on the entire roll of paper.
The more ink, the more frequently that ink load combines with all the other non-controllable variables and creates a visible problem.

Oh now I see what you mean. I think you are confusing different kinds of printing.
Rotogravure and offset for example.

The first might have bleed because of the doctor blade getting loaded and auto adjustment in ink levels in the fountain.
Where offset is very predictable.
Same with flexography, which looks like what is employed with backing paper.

 

[MattKing]

Actually, my experience is with offset - although entirely with smaller presses.