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Complete Guide to 70mm Film

Cholentpot said:
Another creative idea. What's stopping me from shooting 70mm in my cameras at this point is getting backing paper for 70mm.
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I can imagine that as a problem. Is anyone making aftermarket backing paper?

Luckily I kept mine for future use, but it does get frayed after three or four uses. I'll search the Net to see if anyone is making it.
 
film4Me said:
I can imagine that as a problem. Is anyone making aftermarket backing paper?

Luckily I kept mine for future use, but it does get frayed after three or four uses. I'll search the Net to see if anyone is making it.
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Hi!

I can get it in big rolls from Astrum. You have to cut and mark it yourself but that’s not so bad considering how hard the actual paper is to find.
 
MCB18 said:
Hi!

I can get it in big rolls from Astrum. You have to cut and mark it yourself but that’s not so bad considering how hard the actual paper is to find.
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That's the issue. I need like 6 feet's worth, max. Don't need enough for production. I'd shoot one or two rolls of the stuff a year.
 
Cholentpot said:
That's the issue. I need like 6 feet's worth, max. Don't need enough for production. I'd shoot one or two rolls of the stuff a year.
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I mean I can send like 6 feet to you if you want, assuming I can find a way to ship it so it isn’t crumpled or anything. But honestly it’s really cheap, so I would personally recommend just get a roll even if you don’t plan to use much.
 
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MCB18 said:
Hi!

I can get it in big rolls from Astrum. You have to cut and mark it yourself but that’s not so bad considering how hard the actual paper is to find.
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Is it on their website? I'm not seeing it there.
 
Terence said:
Is it on their website? I'm not seeing it there.
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Their website is not a great place to look for stuff, better to email and ask, or chat on instagram. Honestly I don’t even remember why I asked about it, it isn’t even on the product sheet I have.

gorbas said:
Sorry, how big (wide and long) roll is? Just curious
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It’s around 8” wide and the roll weighs 1 kg.
 

Just roll it around a dowel. I have to check how many 616 and 116 cameras I have kicking around.
 

Thanks
 
Ok yeah this film is fucked.
 

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If anyone wants dummy film, lemme know. I unfortunately have plenty.
 

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MCB18 said:
If anyone wants dummy film, lemme know. I unfortunately have plenty.
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That film may still be good for exposing, Tightly wound like that would prevent light from fogging 3/4 of the roll from the center out. Only the edges would be ruined. Are you keeping it safe in the black plastic bag?

Do you know yet what type of film it actually is, and the size? Is it 70mm, or larger?
 
The film actually came very loosely wound in the box, I am unsure if that’s how it’s normally packed, but I doubt that there was any salvaging any of it. I just put it on a 1 inch core because the box took up a lot of space and I wanted to get rid of it. Couldn’t quite make myself throw out the film though.

This is 70 mm film, but on a thick sheet base.
 
MCB18 said:
If anyone wants dummy film, lemme know. I unfortunately have plenty.
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I can use a pound or two of 70mm, of dummy film or the entire roll if potage is not too bad.

Cheers and stay warm!
 

Very interesting! I haven't come across these before. Being able to cut notches for any format is a great feature! What length of film can these hold?
 

These are standard European 70mm spools. They were sold by Linhof and Hasselblad, in black cassettes, as accessories for their 70mm backs. The black cassettes were manufactured by Kodak and then enameled black, but the spools were manufactured by one of these companies and shared with the other. All black cassettes originally came with these spools.

Beyond the spools, their other innovation was the double cassette holder that you show pictured. It's purpose was to allow users to pre-connect a feed and takeup cassette together with loaded film and store it that way, for really fast loading into a back. In practice, I think it's easier to load a back from one cassette rather than two, so these holders are of limited use, but do look cool!

A note of caution about the European cassette spools: they are designed to work only with Type 2 perforated film. They work really well when used that way. They could get away with this, because Hasselblad and Linhof 70mm backs were only meant to take this type of film. Since Kodak was supplying many more photographers with many different brands and styles of cameras, their spools were more versatile: the clip ensures that even non-perforated film works well. (You can still use the European reels with non-perforated film, but you should add additional tape or you will risk having your film pull out.)
 
pcameau said:
Any reason why the film advance indicator (the right red/white indicator, closest to the body) stays red all the time?
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If your film advance indicator is always red, that means your film is misloaded, or your back is broken, or your indicator wheel is broken. It should turn white whenever a new frame has been wound.
 
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This is something that I was a bit concerned about at first, although in practice the film gets stuck in their pretty good. You can put a decent amount into the spool itself through the slot, and it will stick there well enough to get a couple of wraps around the spool so that it won’t come undone.
 

Gorbas and a couple of others have recently mentioned this, and I'll amplify it again: 70mm film can be developed in Paterson tanks without any modification at all. You just invert one and stack them. It works great! No need to permanently modify them, and you should definitely avoid 3D printed reels whenever possible (if they aren't printed with the right materials, they will bleed chemicals when developing, deteriorate rapidly, and they are not smooth like molded reels, so can only be loaded from the inside out). Save yourself some money!



If you don't like wasting film for leader, you can attach a spent segment of film as leader at the end of each roll of film you load. I do this whenever I'm shooting valuable film. The easy way to do this is with a Mercury Cassette Splicer. There's a 65mm and a 70mm version, both found on this page: https://mercuryworks.store/collections/65-70-accessories
 
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