film retriever or film opener?

pentaxuser, I have a Paterson.
Jessops give away free fuji 200 colour film when you get colour prints developed there. I've got about 10 of them and won't use them because it's not a very good film, so I'll have a practice loading with those.

I'm bidding on a bulk loader on ebay (woo) and am hoping to start loading up my own rolls, so keeping the cassettes in tact would be useful. They can be pretty expensive to buy otherwise.

I have tried a bunch of retrievers, but the best one is also the cheapest $2 little simple chrome one. Never fails. I don't like taking the tops off of canisters since I use a dark bag for loading. I don't want all of that extra junk laying around in there.

I have both, but the danger of pulling the film through the cassette light trap again is that any grit in the felt could possibly scratch the film.

I'm with pentaxuser and Steve, I use a film retriever, round off the edges, then go into darkness.

If possible, I don't even use a film retriever, I just leave out the film end when rewinding.

benjiboy said:

I have both, but the danger of pulling the film through the cassette light trap again is that any grit in the felt could possibly scratch the film.

Click to expand...

It's already been past it twice in the camera.


Steve.

I just open it with my fingers. Pry the slot open, rip back the metal sheet and pull off one of the rings, out pops film

My EOS-1N RS has a setting, leader out or leader in after rewind. My EOS 650 does not unfortunately...

With my older AE-1, TX and FTbN bodies I hand crank to rewind and if I watch the rewind button on the bottom it has a little dot on it that spins while the film is coming out, it stop spinning once the leader is off the take-up spool so if you stop winding at that point you don't need to retrieve the leader.

wet old film

I have found licking the emulsion side of an old film to get the leader out works better than a retriever .

hpulley said:

My EOS-1N RS has a setting, leader out or leader in after rewind. My EOS 650 does not unfortunately...QUOTE]

CF2 leaves the leader out on probably all EOS bodies but definitely EOS 1v, EOS 3 and EOS 600, which is almost the same body as EOS 650.

Click to expand...

Retrievers never work for me, seems they can never catch the film. Recently a friend brought round a film that his camera had rewound mid-roll by accident, we spent ages trying to get it out, retrievers didn't work and the tape on a piece of old film did nothing. In the end I was getting worried we were working the felt light trap open so we just ripped the cassette open in a changing bag. Bottle openers have never failed me, the retriever went into the bin.

I have two retrievers. The first is a little metal one that quite frankly stinks. The second cost me about ten bucks and is the plastic type. It works so much better.

I don't like to leave the leader out on finished film because I don't like running the risk of shooting the same roll twice.

Bottle openers, pliers, bare hands (force your fingers into the velvet trap and bend the cassette open), teeth and the dedicated Ilford cassette tools all work fine for cassettes. But I'm with the 'retrievers never work' school. Much better use the method below for leaving the leader out, if you don't have an auto function to do it.

When you're loading film on a manual rewind 35mm camera, once you've closed the camera back and wound on a couple of frames (in order to reach unexposed film and make sure the roll has been taken up), use the rewind lever to gently rewind the film until it becomes tense. Doing this means that when you wind on to a new frame the rewind lever will rotate confirming that the the take up mechanism is operating correctly (hands up all those who, on some occasion, have found that they've been shooting away blithely whilst no film was being pulled through the camera). More importantly, because of the tension you've put into the system, when you reach the end of the film and rewind you should be able to feel the exact moment when the film leader has been released from the winding mechanism. At this point stop rewinding and remove the film from the camera - the leader should still be hanging out of the cassette.

Remember to crease or fold the leader before you return it to your camera bag - you don't want to load it again by accident. Old pro's often left the leader out like this and would use the trailing end to make notes (such as 'exposed at 1600iso' or 'underdevelop -1'), others would use the number of folds they made on the leader to indicate development (two crimps = underexposed 2 stops etc). The beauty of this is that you can use any old pencil or biro, no need to rely on special felt tips in order to write on glossy cassettes.

Adding tension also enables you to unload a film mid roll, should you wish to change films and then reload it accurately at a later date. Just make a note on the leader of how many frames ("x" frames) you've exposed and then, when you reload it, close the aperture to it's smallest opening, set the highest shutter speed and, with your palm tightly covering the lens fire off "x +2" frames, then carry on shooting. (You can use a lens cap, instead of your hand, but I hate them : They get lost, they're hideously expensive and, if you're shooting from the hip they can mean the difference between being Henri Cartier-Bresson or just another a bloke with a camera round his neck...

Regards
Jerry

lxdude said:

A while back I purchased a film retriever. It's gold anodized aluminum.


I like it-I always wanted a golden retriever.

Click to expand...

Jeff

I have a retriever that I use to reload a partially exposed roll of film when the leader got wound all the way into the cassette. It is very small, made of metal and works very well.

For decades I have used a church key to open non-reloadable cassettes. I use SS reels and load from the tape end.

alef_fela said:

I have found licking the emulsion side of an old film to get the leader out works better than a retriever .

hpulley said:

My EOS-1N RS has a setting, leader out or leader in after rewind. My EOS 650 does not unfortunately...

Click to expand...

CF2 leaves the leader out on probably all EOS bodies but definitely EOS 1v, EOS 3 and EOS 600, which is almost the same body as EOS 650.

Click to expand...

Sadly the EOS 600 (EOS 630) has it but it was the first one that did. It is not available in the EOS 650, amazing the difference 2 years made with EOS. There were no custom functions at all in the 650 or 620, 750, or 850:
Dead Link Removed
Custom function to leave the leader out on rewind Yes
Dead Link Removed
Custom function to leave the leader out on rewind No

Thanks, I'll perhaps try the wet film trick for my 650.

Am I the only one who slams them open???

Take the canister in your hand, with the "sticking-out" bit sticking out on the side of your hand away from the thumb. Make a fist. Slam fist down on a firm flat surface. Top lid pops off, film spool is loose.

Ole said:

Am I the only one who slams them open???

Take the canister in your hand, with the "sticking-out" bit sticking out on the side of your hand away from the thumb. Make a fist. Slam fist down on a firm flat surface. Top lid pops off, film spool is loose.

Click to expand...

I used to do that when I was in the darkroom, but now I am loading the tank in a changing bag, so I do not want to damage the cloth by banging the canister cord on the counter.

Steve

Sirius Glass said:

Ole said:

Am I the only one who slams them open???

Take the canister in your hand, with the "sticking-out" bit sticking out on the side of your hand away from the thumb. Make a fist. Slam fist down on a firm flat surface. Top lid pops off, film spool is loose.

Click to expand...

I used to do that when I was in the darkroom, but now I am loading the tank in a changing bag, so I do not want to damage the cloth by banging the canister cord on the counter.

Steve

Click to expand...

I load in a darkroom, so I don't worry about the cloth. But I find that I have a tendency to drop them when I try to slam them open.

Then I'm crawling around in the dark looking, make that feeling, for the stupid thing.

I'm enough of a moron about other things. I don't need to add this too.

A lot of people here prefer to have the leader sticking out on an exposed roll of film. This scares me, personally. Sure, you can sometimes tell by the direction of the curl whether the film has been previously loaded or not, but this is not so on cameras that do not have a take up spool that curves the film the opposite direction. I have it ingrained in my head that leader out means unexposed, and leader in means exposed. The potential risk of reloading a shot roll would be too scary for me – and not just me reloading it, but possibly someone else. Popping the ends off of cassettes is no trouble at all, and is cleaner and safer IMO.

In any case, I view writing on exposed film cassettes/spools/holders after exposure in Sharpie to be a must, given how absent minded I am. I would suggest this no matter how one retrieves ones film for processing.

What I do is deliberately put a crimp in the leader by folding it over sharply and pinching it.

On cameras that leave the leader out (my preference) I do a double fold over of the leader. No mistaking it then.

OK, another retriever user here. I was given a plastic Konica one from a friend and it proves to be the best one I have ever used.

As for the leader out thing......yes, I am guilty of mixing up rolls due to this. In the heat of the moment, I got two rolls mixed up, which meant that both had to go in the queue for developing. Luckily, the first one of the two that I developed was the exposed one! now, the leader gets crimped when removed from the camera and there has been no mixup since

Until I read Athiril's post I was going to joke that I just press up with my thumbs on an end cap. I didn't think fingers alone would work on factory cassettes. (but pressing with thumbs works with reloadables).

I guess what I have is a Kaiser Film Cassette Opener. Used it for years and hasn't broken yet, but every time I squeeze it together I feel like it's going to be its last. The handles squeeze together all the way and the cassette usually doesn't pop apart immediately, so I shift the roll and try again or wait under full leverage for a short dwell.

Ole

Am I the only one who slams them open???

Take the canister in your hand, with the "sticking-out" bit sticking out on the side of your hand away from the thumb. Make a fist. Slam fist down on a firm flat surface. Top lid pops off, film spool is loose.

Click to expand...

Did that for a time - until a gorilla, who was using an enlarger in the next room, threatened to do the same with my head...

Jerry

Thanks for all the replies.
Jerry lebens, your advice is great. I will certainly be trying the changing films mid way thing.

So that I know whats what when it comes to developed and undeveloped films, I write "shot" on a bit of masking tape and stick it on the cassette. it comes off easily so the cassette can still be reused.