bulk loading hie in dim light

[AgCl4ever]

I recently got a 150ft roll of bulk Kodak HIE Infrared at a good price. Has anyone attempted bulk loading infrared with a Watson loader (or it's aliases) in very dim light - just enough to see the tape, scissors, cartidge, and film end? Is this a recipe for disaster, or does it fog basically the leader and tail?

 

[glbeas]

You would risk fogging to some extent, though you will fare much better than you would using full lighting. Watsons are very easy to use, best thing is to practice a bit with regular film then learn to do it in total darkness. It's no more difficult than loading a developing reel in the dark.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Silver forever, HIE doesn't have an anti halation (AH) backing. If you load bulk HIE film in darkroom or dim light, the film will get light fog.

The reason is that as there is no AH layer, the light travels through the film from the ends and sides, this is called, "Piping". As in the light travels through the film, like light traveling through a pipe.

Personal experience from doing this myself as an experiment, was that the film gets so much fog that the pictures were useless for the whole roll.

In fact the film was taken out of the camera after it had been put in the camera originally in total darkness, exposed and then removed in the dim Ilford amber B&W safelight in my darkroom.

After about 5 minutes I realised that the roll sitting on the enlarger table was HIE. I quickly put it into total darkness, but the damage was done. This was a very good lesson (experiment).

Mick.

 

[AgCl4ever]

Thanks Mick, "the whole roll" fogged answers the question. I would sacrifice a few frames at each end for convenience, but clearly dark means dark!

 

[htmlguru4242]

Yeah; definetely don't ever load HIE in light; it's coated on an almost perfectly clear bas with no Anti-Halo layer; any light is going to light-pipe along the film and fog the film.

You MAY be able to use a really dim green light, but I'm not sure; better to sacrifice some convenience than the roll

 

[Rombo]

Only total darkness! Anything else will definetly fog Your HIE film.