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Developing 12 cuts of 120 film separately

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Tae Young Lee

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I always envied that large format camera would shoot one shot and develop it based on the zone system.
I use Rolleiflex mainly.
I wonder if it would be possible to precisely cut 12 frames of film before developing in darkroom and develop them separately.
It would be very difficult to cut the undeveloped film in advance, but I wonder if anyone has tried it.
 

Pieter12

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Why, really? I doubt you could cut between 12 frames in the dark. You might be able to do it this way. but fewer frames per roll: look at a processed, uncut roll from your camera. Measure the distance from the start of the film to the first frame. In camera, shoot a blank frame, then make your shot. Shoot another blank frame. And so on. Figure what the layout of the frames is and cut the film accordingly. Oh, yeah, and measure and cut the film in the dark. A major headache. You'd be better off shooting 12 frames of the same thing, varying angles and exposures. Film and chemicals aren't that expensive in the end.
 
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Tae Young Lee

Tae Young Lee

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Why, really? I doubt you could cut between 12 frames in the dark. You might be able to do it this way. but fewer frames per roll: look at a processed, uncut roll from your camera. Measure the distance from the start of the film to the first frame. In camera, shoot a blank frame, then make your shot. Shoot another blank frame. And so on. Figure what the layout of the frames is and cut the film accordingly. Oh, yeah, and measure and cut the film in the dark. A major headache. You'd be better off shooting 12 frames of the same thing, varying angles and exposures. Film and chemicals aren't that expensive in the end.

I know it's a stupid question, but thanks for your advice.
If take one shot and empty one shot, it may be able to save 6 cuts even if I cut it inaccurately.
 

choiliefan

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Get a plate back for your Rollei.
Set usually consists of the back with a slide in ground glass panel and three single-sided film holders.
The ground glass isn't necessary for normal shooting situations, only when exact parallax correction or shooting macro.
Occasionally you find a set for a good deal.
 
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Tae Young Lee

Tae Young Lee

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Get a plate back for your Rollei.
Set usually consists of the back with a slide in ground glass panel and three single-sided film holders.
The ground glass isn't necessary for normal shooting situations, only when exact parallax correction or shooting macro.
Occasionally you find a set for a good deal.

I didn't know that I could attach a film bag to Rolleiflex.
I could find rolleiflex film back on eBay.
Thank you very much for your advice!!
 

ic-racer

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Try printing with paper of different grades or multigrade paper. Many subject brightness ranges can be accommodated during printing even though all film exposures on a roll are processed to the same gamma.
kentvc3.gif
 

Arklatexian

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I always envied that large format camera would shoot one shot and develop it based on the zone system.
I use Rolleiflex mainly.
I wonder if it would be possible to precisely cut 12 frames of film before developing in darkroom and develop them separately.
It would be very difficult to cut the undeveloped film in advance, but I wonder if anyone has tried it.
Please don't do this just to save money. Shoot 12 "rolls" if necessary and develop each one separately but don't try to develop 12 pieces of 6x6 cm film. Doing that might make you want to give up photography entirely....Been there and tried to do that. Your time and sanity is worth something.......Regards!
 

abruzzi

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While it won’t work on a Rollieflex, one possible benefit to all the medium format cameras with interchangeable backs (Hasselblad, Mamiya RB67, various Bronicas, etc.) is you could have an N back, and N+1 back, and N-1, and so on, and just attach the back appropriate to the shot. It does mean that it would probably take longer to finish out a roll and get to developing.

As far as cutting the film before developing. Take a look a several rolls of processed film from your camera and look at how consistent spacing is from frame to frame, and from the beginning of the film to the first frame. Then look at the existing frame spacing and consider that your margin of error. If frame spacing is very very consistent (lay several uncut film strips over each other, and remember spacing errors are cumulative, so look closest at the last few frames) then what you could do is to shoot and develop a test strip. Then after developing rather than cutting the frames apart, just cut a small wedge on one side where the gap between frames is. Then use that as a cutting template to tape it flat to a table or flat surface with the freshly exposed roll beneath it. Feel for the wedges in the dark and with a razor start a marker cut at each wedge, remove the template and finish each cut, then develop each.

Realistically, there is probably a 1 in 1000 chance your camera is that accurate and a 1 in 100 chance you could do all that in the dark without messing things up (the gaps on my medium format cameras are always around 5-7 mm). Add in the fact that undeveloped, 120 film is tightly coiled, so processing flat in a tray probably wouldn’t work, and it seems like a hopeless quest.
 

bernard_L

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A plausible situation is where you have groups of consecutive shots under similar lighting conditions. Just skip a frame and aim to cut in the middle of the skipped frame. Much easier than aiming fot th emiddle of a regular inter-frame gap.
 

GarageBoy

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Interchangeable backs is the solution you are looking for .
 

darkroommike

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This was all more important before really good VC papers became the norm. I read once of a guy that developed 35mm by inspection in a deep tray and with a loupe and pair of scissors would remove individual negatives from the roll with a snip as each negative was developed to his satisfaction.
 
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