Bulk loading question

Have an Nikon F2, the leader to start the roll is rather long, is there a trick, so one does not have to waste this amount of film?

Yes, load and load in total darkness.

John Wiegerink said:

Yes, load and load in total darkness.

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Oh that's a great answer will try not to do it in daylight.
What were actually wanting to know, is about the leader, after the roll is made, there is what about 4 inches of waste, to get it started on the take up real in the camera. Is there a trick, or something yoiu can do, to cut out this waste?
Thanks p.

Needing a 4 inch leader is quite common among SLR's. Many other cameras require even longer leaders. Next time you buy a pre-spooled roll measure the leader. So don't worry, be happy.

What John probably meant was to load and unload the camera in darkness. That way you won't lose the first frames to exposure. But it's probably more trouble than its worth.

I have no idea about f2 and its leader. Is this question about bulk loading and how to not waste film then cassette is getting started?
If so, some more expensive than film leaders are available, still and somewhere.
But I just do it in the dark once cassette is attached to the film.
Under light - attach cassette. In the dark - get cassette to where it should be and close the lid. Turn light on.
If greed is about how many frames it takes to start the film going in f2, it has nothing to do with bulk loading.

I know in some ways it defeats the purpose of "daylight bulk loader"... but I just do the entire operation in the dark. It's not very hard to attach the leader to the spool in the dark.

It's probably not necessary. I have two bulk loaders ( Lloyds ) and a few years ago after a lot of wasted time and effort, I finally traced light leaks back to both of them ( one is much worse than the other, but they both leak ). I started spooling in the dark during that time, and so now that's my habit, but in the end it wasn't the spooling that caused the leak. Both of them have very slow light leaks that eventually get to the film inside. I put them inside black plastic bags that come with 5x7 photopaper and the light leak problem disappeared and has never come back again.

Ko.Fe. said:

Is this question about bulk loading and how to not waste film when cassette is getting started?

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Yes alas it is, about how not to waste film when the cassette is getting started! We referred to Bulk Loading, for we thought we had some comments from those who do bulk loading on the waste of leader, and comments that seemed to refer to a solution.
We worded the question very poorly, and apologies for the confusion to everyone.
Background:
We are testing Film Ferraria's P30 back and white, which only comes in cassette's. You have to understand that you cannot purchase this film as you would normally do, as it is in a limited production. . Having never shot this film before and not knowing how it would react to our bright southwestern exposure environment, we only order three rolls to check it out. After shooting the first roll of 36 exposure's, we developed and like it. But the developing time and method was off, and contrast was to high.
On the second roll, we have cut off short sections of the film from the cassette and developed it at different times and in different developers. Were getting to a developing sequence that we like, but want to test it on more than one shot at a time, to verify and slightly adjust the devloping. Preferably at this time, equaling three exposures, but would rather not lose about that many images to leader feed.
So we cut a leader off an old roll of expired B&W C-41 film that we haven't shot in years, and carefully taped to the p-30, overlapping slightly to line up the sprockets. Shot three shots, but we had a hiccup, on the second shot when we were advancing the film. It caused the last of the second to be double exposed on the start of the third. .\

So is there another way of doing this from those who have had experience with Bulk Loading and shooting smaller cassettes?

peter k. said:

Oh that's a great answer will try not to do it in daylight.
What were actually wanting to know, is about the leader, after the roll is made, there is what about 4 inches of waste, to get it started on the take up real in the camera. Is there a trick, or something yoiu can do, to cut out this waste?
Thanks p.

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Just what I said in my post above. It wasn't a joke. If you load your film onto the spool from the bulk loader and then load the loaded cassette into the camera in total darkness you will waste no film. JohnW

lantau said:

What John probably meant was to load and unload the camera in darkness. That way you won't lose the first frames to exposure. But it's probably more trouble than its worth.

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Yes and yes. Thanks! I guess I was a little to simplistic in my explanation.

John Wiegerink said:

If you load your film onto the spool from the bulk loader and then load the loaded cassette into the camera in total darkness you will waste no film.

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Get it, at last.. but alas with the Nikon F2, the lens opening is on the left of the camera, close to the roll of film in the cassette, thus the area used for the leader is at least four inches long. Maybe an area that would have been equal to four images? Done as you suggest, which is an excellent idea, and most likely works with your 35mm, will not work for the NIkon, for they cannot be exposed, there past the lens opening area. .

What I've been doing is to leave a 2" strip of film attached to the spool core, and attach my bulk film to this tab, with transparent tape;
I then wind on my film, usually to a count of 24, and cut the film square.
Finally, I attach (tape again) a 5 or 6" leader tongue, which I re-use as often as it passes inspection.
It's a bit of fussy work, but it pays off in the long run.

barzune said:

attach (tape again) a 5 or 6" leader tongue

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Yep, tried that but overlapped about one sprocket hole to get them properly lined up.. and it had a hiccup..
How do align your leader tongue so the sprocket holes are correct?

Hi Peter:
I do not own a F2 but I did have a Minolta XE5.
Both the F2 and XE5 have the lens mount and shutter biased towards the film cassette side of the camera.

This is a problem for wasting frames on the leader side but you can make part of this up, in my experience, because you get access to usable film at the end of the roll since it is that much closer to the cassette.

When I bulk loaded I would only expose a minimal amount of film in bulk loader hatch to secure the tape to the bulk loaded end of the film
I would shut off the lights, pull some additional film from the loader and attach the spool
I would then put the cassette cover on and locate the cassette in the well of the loader
put the hatch on and turn on the lights

Hope it works for you as well

Best regards
Todd

You may be able to squeeze 40 frames on 36 roll. It will not fit on developing reel. If you send it out, they will screw it up by exposing leader.

I have loaded IR film in the dark and it works perfectly and is necessary.

I must remind all the shortened leader necessary for screw mount camera was shortened 1960`s, but they did not shorten the roll length.