Nikon F5 shot counter- will it go up to 50 shots with an overloaded roll of thin film?

xonefs · Aug 23, 2023

I'm thinking about how I can get more shots out of a roll without changing rolls for the upcoming eclipse (reloading could potentially mess up my tracking mount alignment and another setup I have planned). I have some bulk techpan than is 50% thinner than most film and would be a great stock to use for this anyway. A 100ft size bulk roll of techpan is actually 150ft. So I'm thinking I should be able to also cram 50% more in a canister and get 50-54 shots.

Will the F5 counter count that high and keep shooting or will it try to automatically rewind? Or does it only rewind when it feels tension from the roll? The sensible answer would be to test this but this film is rare and I don't want to waste any, or know of anything similar.

Kino · Aug 23, 2023

If it IS set to auto rewinding, it probably will rewind when it hits 36 exposures. Turn off auto rewind at a minimum. Beyond that, I would think NOT as this camera can take the 250 exposure bulk back.

ic-racer · Aug 23, 2023

I'd be interested to know how high the counter of the F5 goes. My Rolleis go to 72. There was a similar discussion here:

Ilford 72 exposure HP-5

This is one for the Ilford historians. When was the the 72 exposure HP-5 discontinued? I'm trying to narrow a date range for a photo.

www.photrio.com

ic-racer · Aug 23, 2023

The eclipse will go right over my home. I have no long Nikkor lenses, so I may buy or rent one just for the day.

What lenses are you going to use on the F5

drkhalsa · Aug 23, 2023

I believe there are three available settings at Custom Function #12 for number of frames. E35, E36, and --. -- would be the setting to continue to advance until the film runs out.
I used to use that setting when I wanted to try and get as many frames past 36 on the roll of film as possible. But I've only used 36 exposure rolls to try and get one or two extra exposures, not longer rolls.

xonefs · Aug 23, 2023

Kino said:
If it IS set to auto rewinding, it probably will rewind when it hits 36 exposures. Turn off auto rewind at a minimum. Beyond that, I would think NOT as this camera can take the 250 exposure bulk back.

i'll have to look into the settings. Unfortunately there is not a 250 back for the F5, the last one they made was for the F4. Trust me I've been looking and tempted by them but that's a lot of money to spend for this and it would also be pretty heavy hanging off the end

xonefs · Aug 23, 2023

ic-racer said:
The eclipse will go right over my home. I have no long Nikkor lenses, so I may buy or rent one just for the day.

What lenses are you going to use on the F5

I'm using a 420mm focal length telescope with a Daystar Quark hydrogen filter to image the chromosphere which has a built in 4.2x teleconverter.

xonefs · Aug 23, 2023

ic-racer said:
I'd be interested to know how high the counter of the F5 goes. My Rolleis go to 72. There was a similar discussion here:

Ilford 72 exposure HP-5

This is one for the Ilford historians. When was the the 72 exposure HP-5 discontinued? I'm trying to narrow a date range for a photo.

www.photrio.com

I wonder if I could cram even more and get 70... were the cartridges any different or just thin base? are any cartridges better to use for overloading to fit more?

interesting adox scala 50/hr 50 mentioned as that is the other film that will work for this application and I would like to use (see above). I wonder how many of that I could fit in a roll I don't have a bulk roll of it now to test.

mshchem · Aug 23, 2023

The NASA Hasselblad lunar cameras achieved 200 exposures in 70mm backs by, thin film and eliminating the metal cassettes. Ilford sold 72 exposures in a standard cassette.
F5 has the little window in the back, you would need to cover the hole, load and unload in the dark.

Nikon made an 800 exposure back at one time, 100' of film

mshchem · Aug 23, 2023

Interchangeable Film Backs for Nikon F2 Series Part II

reddesert · Aug 23, 2023

Eclipses don't come around very often and there is not much time to fix problems if your gear misbehaves. If you want to do this, I suggest testing. If you don't want to waste film (which I understand), load a roll of 50 exposures or whatever and fire off 50 exposures with the lens cap on and/or in a darkened room. Then reroll the film for future use.

As totality approaches and during totality, be sure to look around at your surroundings, the whole scene, listen, and so on. There's a lot going on during a total eclipse that cannot really be captured by a camera. You don't want to spend the unique 5 minutes entirely looking through a viewfinder.

xonefs · Aug 23, 2023

mshchem said:
The NASA Hasselblad lunar cameras achieved 200 exposures in 70mm backs by, thin film and eliminating the metal cassettes. Ilford sold 72 exposures in a standard cassette.
F5 has the little window in the back, you would need to cover the hole, load and unload in the dark.

Nikon made an 800 exposure back at one time, 100' of film

Eliminating the cassette seems like a good idea I didn't think of.

Bringing a dark bag is no problem but I'm wondering what to do with the film after and what I can unload it into to bring through TSA security and have them do a hand check without them doing something dumb and ruining it. Cassettes I at least don't have to worry about there and they are familiar with.

Chan Tran · Aug 23, 2023

My F5 never rewinds automatically. I get 37 frames often but the counter only counts to 36. So if you use thin film and have a long roll you can shoot a lot more frames but the counter won't count after 36.

mshchem · Aug 23, 2023

xonefs said:
Eliminating the cassette seems like a good idea I didn't think of.

Bringing a dark bag is no problem but I'm wondering what to do with the film after and what I can unload it into to bring through TSA security and have them do a hand check without them doing something dumb and ruining it. Cassettes I at least don't have to worry about there and they are familiar with.

Some old Kodak metal canisters that pre-date the plastic version of today. Then mail the canisters home. No X-ray no inspection. You would need to figure out the auto rewind.

xonefs · Aug 23, 2023

mshchem said:
Some old Kodak metal canisters that pre-date the plastic version of today. Then mail the canisters home. No X-ray no inspection. You would need to figure out the auto rewind.

Under other circumstances this could work but may be difficult. I was hoping to avoid having to make a stop to mail things since this will be a quick turnaround trip, and I am returning on a sunday so finding any place open to mail it will be a challenge. On the saturday the day of the eclipse I am going to be in the literal middle of nowhere in Utah several hours from any real civilization so I don't know the chances I would have for finding any place to mail them from that day either.

I'm flying out of SLC on Sunday night so no idea if there are any mailing places open then or what my options would be.

On the good news I did just check with calipers and the Adox Scala 50 is just as thin as techpan or even slightly thinner. I ordered a bulk roll of HR-50 from europe and will feel less bad about doing a test with that, and thought I got better surface detail on it.

Sharktooth · Aug 24, 2023

This is an interesting challenge. I’ve got an F5, and I also have a roll of exposed film that was inside an old bulk loader I purchased a while ago.

Here’s some things I experimented with:

1) I took 12 feet of film and wound it onto a core spool. The film was larger in diameter than the spool flanges, and when I tried to put it in the camera it wouldn’t fit. This was without the canister.

2) For the next test, I used 9 feet of film on the core spool. The film was still larger than the spool flange diameter, but this time it just barely fit in the camera without the canister. When I pulled the leader forward, and closed the back, I would almost always get an Err message on the screen. It obviously didn’t like something, and wouldn’t advance the film. I tried this several times and kept running into the same problem. I finally took a regular test roll in a canister, and that roll started fine. After that roll got to frame 5, I turned the camera off, and swapped in the long roll without the canister. This time it started winding. I discovered that the counter will count up to 39, but it will continue to advance the film after that. I didn’t keep track of have many additional shots I was able to take, but eventually I got the END signal showing up in the display. At that point I opened the back, but noticed that there was still a lot of film that hadn’t been advanced yet. I puzzled about this for a bit, and then realized that the take-up spool had filled up, and there simply wasn’t any way more film could be advanced.

3) I cut the film length down to just over 7 feet, and the film diameter was about the same as the spool core flange diameter. When I put this in the camera I was able to get 51 shots, but the counter stops counting at 39. I still had problems loading the film on just the spool core. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes I got the Err message when trying to advance the film. I put the film in a film canister and it seemed to fit O.K.. When I loaded the film in the canister I didn’t have any problems getting the camera to advance the film. I’m guessing that when the film is loose on the spool without a canister, it doesn’t seat properly on the sprockets.

My final take is that it would be a nightmare to try and load film in the camera without the canister. I was doing this in daylight, and it almost never worked properly. Trying to do this in a changing bag would be next to impossible.

I ran just over 7 feet of film in the canister, which gave me 51 shots. I could probably get a little bit more film in the canister before it bound up, but it probably wouldn’t be much more. I don’t know what type of film it was, but it was something of normal thickness. The camera did advance the film its full length, so the takeup spool can handle about 7 feet of film.

The film you’re using is thinner, so I’d expect you can get a significantly longer length of film in the canister. I think it would be reasonable to assume that the camera will keep advancing as long as the film can physically fit in a regular canister. I think it will crap out if the takeup spool gets filled or if it senses the force to pull the film is too high (end of roll). I can’t be certain of this, however, since I didn’t actually test beyond 51 shots.

xonefs · Aug 24, 2023

Sharktooth said:
This is an interesting challenge. I’ve got an F5, and I also have a roll of exposed film that was inside an old bulk loader I purchased a while ago.

Here’s some things I experimented with:

1) I took 12 feet of film and wound it onto a core spool. The film was larger in diameter than the spool flanges, and when I tried to put it in the camera it wouldn’t fit. This was without the canister.

2) For the next test, I used 9 feet of film on the core spool. The film was still larger than the spool flange diameter, but this time it just barely fit in the camera without the canister. When I pulled the leader forward, and closed the back, I would almost always get an Err message on the screen. It obviously didn’t like something, and wouldn’t advance the film. I tried this several times and kept running into the same problem. I finally took a regular test roll in a canister, and that roll started fine. After that roll got to frame 5, I turned the camera off, and swapped in the long roll without the canister. This time it started winding. I discovered that the counter will count up to 39, but it will continue to advance the film after that. I didn’t keep track of have many additional shots I was able to take, but eventually I got the END signal showing up in the display. At that point I opened the back, but noticed that there was still a lot of film that hadn’t been advanced yet. I puzzled about this for a bit, and then realized that the take-up spool had filled up, and there simply wasn’t any way more film could be advanced.

3) I cut the film length down to just over 7 feet, and the film diameter was about the same as the spool core flange diameter. When I put this in the camera I was able to get 51 shots, but the counter stops counting at 39. I still had problems loading the film on just the spool core. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes I got the Err message when trying to advance the film. I put the film in a film canister and it seemed to fit O.K.. When I loaded the film in the canister I didn’t have any problems getting the camera to advance the film. I’m guessing that when the film is loose on the spool without a canister, it doesn’t seat properly on the sprockets.

My final take is that it would be a nightmare to try and load film in the camera without the canister. I was doing this in daylight, and it almost never worked properly. Trying to do this in a changing bag would be next to impossible.

I ran just over 7 feet of film in the canister, which gave me 51 shots. I could probably get a little bit more film in the canister before it bound up, but it probably wouldn’t be much more. I don’t know what type of film it was, but it was something of normal thickness. The camera did advance the film its full length, so the takeup spool can handle about 7 feet of film.

The film you’re using is thinner, so I’d expect you can get a significantly longer length of film in the canister. I think it would be reasonable to assume that the camera will keep advancing as long as the film can physically fit in a regular canister. I think it will crap out if the takeup spool gets filled or if it senses the force to pull the film is too high (end of roll). I can’t be certain of this, however, since I didn’t actually test beyond 51 shots.

Thank you for testing this!

Yeah that's kind of what I am thinking. I guess I will experiment with how much I can load in one canister. It sounds like I may be able to get 70+ shots on a roll which would be pretty good.

I ordered some new midwest metal canisters to try.

I will need to do some more exposure and development tests to dial it as well.

mshchem · Aug 24, 2023

Sharktooth said:
This is an interesting challenge. I’ve got an F5, and I also have a roll of exposed film that was inside an old bulk loader I purchased a while ago.

Here’s some things I experimented with:

1) I took 12 feet of film and wound it onto a core spool. The film was larger in diameter than the spool flanges, and when I tried to put it in the camera it wouldn’t fit. This was without the canister.

2) For the next test, I used 9 feet of film on the core spool. The film was still larger than the spool flange diameter, but this time it just barely fit in the camera without the canister. When I pulled the leader forward, and closed the back, I would almost always get an Err message on the screen. It obviously didn’t like something, and wouldn’t advance the film. I tried this several times and kept running into the same problem. I finally took a regular test roll in a canister, and that roll started fine. After that roll got to frame 5, I turned the camera off, and swapped in the long roll without the canister. This time it started winding. I discovered that the counter will count up to 39, but it will continue to advance the film after that. I didn’t keep track of have many additional shots I was able to take, but eventually I got the END signal showing up in the display. At that point I opened the back, but noticed that there was still a lot of film that hadn’t been advanced yet. I puzzled about this for a bit, and then realized that the take-up spool had filled up, and there simply wasn’t any way more film could be advanced.

3) I cut the film length down to just over 7 feet, and the film diameter was about the same as the spool core flange diameter. When I put this in the camera I was able to get 51 shots, but the counter stops counting at 39. I still had problems loading the film on just the spool core. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes I got the Err message when trying to advance the film. I put the film in a film canister and it seemed to fit O.K.. When I loaded the film in the canister I didn’t have any problems getting the camera to advance the film. I’m guessing that when the film is loose on the spool without a canister, it doesn’t seat properly on the sprockets.

My final take is that it would be a nightmare to try and load film in the camera without the canister. I was doing this in daylight, and it almost never worked properly. Trying to do this in a changing bag would be next to impossible.

I ran just over 7 feet of film in the canister, which gave me 51 shots. I could probably get a little bit more film in the canister before it bound up, but it probably wouldn’t be much more. I don’t know what type of film it was, but it was something of normal thickness. The camera did advance the film its full length, so the takeup spool can handle about 7 feet of film.

The film you’re using is thinner, so I’d expect you can get a significantly longer length of film in the canister. I think it would be reasonable to assume that the camera will keep advancing as long as the film can physically fit in a regular canister. I think it will crap out if the takeup spool gets filled or if it senses the force to pull the film is too high (end of roll). I can’t be certain of this, however, since I didn’t actually test beyond 51 shots.

Good work. Makes sense F5 holds the cassette firmly. NASA had custom zillion dollar Hasselblad film backs. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of this project.

Nikon F5 shot counter- will it go up to 50 shots with an overloaded roll of thin film?

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