Question About Loading Bulk 35mm Film

chuckroast · Feb 4, 2024

I normally shoot MF & LF but have some occasion to use 35mm. I prefer shorter rolls to throwing out half-used commercially packaged film, so I decided to use more bulk loaded film

I just did some negatives from a brand new 100' roll of Fomapan 200 and they have some horizontal stripes about 6mm from top of frame visible in the exposures with a lot of blank sky. They look like marks made by the manufacturing equipment, because they are so consistently and evenly spaced. There is also some sort of marking on some of the film edges outside the frame.

Other packaged films, including factory Fomapan 200-24 do not have this taken in the same camera (a Leica M2).

I loaded another dozen exposures from the bulk loader, shot and developed them and ... they seem to not have the problem.

So, it could be the cassette or the film itself. Is it a best practice to discard the first few feet of a new bulk roll - i.e., Is it common to see defects in the first few feet from the process of rolling up the bulk and packaging it?

Don_ih · Feb 4, 2024

chuckroast said:
Is it a best practice to discard the first few feet of a new bulk roll - i.e., Is it common to see defects in the first few feet from the process of rolling up the bulk and packaging it?

No, not at all. It's not common to find defects in bulk film at all.

You should show your horizontal stripes. If they are thin and parallel to the sprocket-edge of the film, there may be some bit of grit in your cassettte velvet that is scratching the film. Or is it the other kind of stripe - an exposed stripe?

lamerko · Feb 4, 2024

One of the reasons I stopped using a bulk loader is the problems I had with scratching the length of the film. I started manually winding film on cassettes - no more problems

Bill Burk · Feb 4, 2024

There is a light trap that you have to “open” once the door is shut (Watson for example). The cassettes you use need to be clean. I like to vacuum them if they are “used” but if I am not sure I’d crack open another Kodak Snap-Cap box or two. The going price for those is high, so I prefer a few re-uses. But scratches can come through the loader, the felt, the camera back etc.

MattKing · Feb 4, 2024

This is said with tongue firmly in cheek, and with some reference to some of your earlier posts!
I would highly recommend against not listening to something like J.S. Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor".
Something like his "Air on the G String" from his Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 is a better choice.
Somewhat less flippantly, it is important to pay close attention to the process of loading the cassettes as well as how the bulk loader is functioning.
Most of that soon becomes quite automatic, once you are familiar with it.

Sirius Glass · Feb 4, 2024

I always used the light trap. I never has scratched film problems nor light leak problems. I enjoyed bulk loading film for many years. I also loaded the 100' rolls in a large changing bag in a dark room, not a darkroom, for safety.

Don_ih · Feb 4, 2024

MattKing said:
"Air on the G String"

Matt, I never expected such vulgarity!

MattKing · Feb 4, 2024

Don_ih said:
Matt, I never expected such vulgarity!

Oh, the horror!

Chuck1 · Feb 4, 2024

Seems more appropriate to loading reels

Ivo Stunga · Feb 5, 2024

I load my bulk film by hand, inserting and removing my film via top of the can, avoiding anything that can cause uniform scratching on my side.
Unfortunately, it's not rare to encounter scratches in Foma film - my experience at least.

Have dealt with that in store bulk-loaded Fomapan 200, my own rolled R 100 too. Store does decent job with other films, so it's up to the softness of Foma and their manufacturing process I guess.

koraks · Feb 5, 2024

@chuckroast could you post and example of the defect, please? A picture of the actual problem generally contains some clues about its possible causes.

chuckroast · Feb 5, 2024

Don_ih said:
No, not at all. It's not common to find defects in bulk film at all.

You should show your horizontal stripes. If they are thin and parallel to the sprocket-edge of the film, there may be some bit of grit in your cassettte velvet that is scratching the film. Or is it the other kind of stripe - an exposed stripe?

When I get a moment I will scan and post here.

These do not appear to be scratches. They are parallel to the film edge and might indicate a light light at that location on that cassette. I did shoot another dozen images from the same bulk batch without seeing the problem and the camera is known to work with factory loaded film, so it certainly seems to be implicating the cassette.

chuckroast · Feb 5, 2024

MattKing said:
This is said with tongue firmly in cheek, and with some reference to some of your earlier posts!
I would highly recommend against not listening to something like J.S. Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor".
Something like his "Air on the G String" from his Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 is a better choice.
Somewhat less flippantly, it is important to pay close attention to the process of loading the cassettes as well as how the bulk loader is functioning.
Most of that soon becomes quite automatic, once you are familiar with it.

How do you feel about Das Reingold as background music? It's very ... energizing ...

Don_ih · Feb 5, 2024

chuckroast said:
might indicate a light light

A light leak will rarely be uniform and consistent (assuming your example is). A line of consistent density parallel to the film edge really shouldn't be a light leak from a cassette.

brancaleone · Feb 5, 2024

Hi,
I tried FOMA 200 in either 135 and 120 format and often had issues due to emulsion's flaws. Unfortunately, it is a quite common finding with FOMA's films, especially the 200ISO which seems to be much prone to theese problems.
I have a bulk roll of FOMA 200 still in one loader (Computrol), that has not felts, and it has a long longitudinal thin scratch that shows in the prints. See the picture below, right across the shoulder of Beatrice. Also with 120 format I had problems with tiny spots that also appear in the prints.... they can be seen enlarging the pics below
Therefore, I believe that the issue raised by the OP might be related to the inconsitent quality between batches of film. If not already suggested, to exlude problems with the bulk loader, you might load a cartridge by hand a check the resulsts.
Ciao!

Don_ih · Feb 5, 2024

brancaleone said:
See the picture below, right across the shoulder of Beatrice.

That's an exceptional picture - a real shame about the scratch.

brancaleone · Feb 5, 2024

Don_ih said:
That's an exceptional picture - a real shame about the scratch.

Thank you @Don_ih
Every time I watch the print I swear at FOMA! Maybe time has come for me to learn spotting and retouching....

MattKing · Feb 5, 2024

chuckroast said:
How do you feel about Das Reingold as background music? It's very ... energizing ...

Anything that features the God of battle is probably not quite "Zen" enough for the task at hand

MattKing · Feb 5, 2024

brancaleone said:
Thank you @Don_ih
Every time I watch the print I swear at FOMA! Maybe time has come for me to learn spotting and retouching....

Speaking of Zen - it is always a good time to pick up those skills.

Ivo Stunga · Feb 5, 2024

Or choose a better product that's just a tad more expensive, but a ton more reliable - like Kentmere.

I'm kind of sad to say negative stuff about Foma quality, but I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Price sometimes does reflect quality and I hope Foma can solve these problems that exist for far too long.

Nitroplait · Feb 6, 2024

brancaleone said:
Maybe time has come for me to learn spotting and retouching....

Highly recommended - it will save you many instances of frustration and reprinting just because you notice a dust speck or three on an otherwise perfect print the next day.
It quickly becomes a second nature an is often both faster and cheaper than reprinting.

koraks · Feb 6, 2024

brancaleone said:
Maybe time has come for me to learn spotting and retouching....

As @Nitroplait says, it's very useful. But sadly, the kind of line/stripe you've got in that marvelous portrait is very difficult to remove. Low-density marks (such as dust etc) are far easier to patch up. Getting rid of a high-density line is far more difficult. One approach is to apply farmer's reducer or (better) highly dilute rehalogenating bleach (ferricyanide +bromide) with a small brush, followed by fixing. If you take the bleaching too far, you can at least redevelop the spot and try again after a thorough wash. With farmer's reducer, there's no going back and you'd have to add dye if you take it too far.

Don_ih · Feb 6, 2024

And the fact is, sometimes damage that would take a massive amount of patience and skill to fix using spotting techniques would take a second to do digitally, so that may be the best option in those cases. Spotting something as regular as a line would be very difficult to do and get an unnoticeable result.

brancaleone · Feb 6, 2024

Thank you all for your advice.
I will for sure try out spotting since I recently started printing on fiber base paper and, given the efforts, I agree that is better retouching then reprinting. A little different with RC paper where I often reprinted in case of dust spots..
I also understand that it will be very difficult to intervene on a dark scratch as in the case of the picture of my daughter. Anyway, there are plenty of other my prints that need spotting...
@Don_ih , yes for sure digitally must be easy to fix that scratch. I literally suck at photoshop, I will have to ask somene to do that for me!

Don_ih · Feb 6, 2024

brancaleone said:
digitally must be easy to fix that scratch

I'd like to say it took a few seconds but, when you zoom in on the photo, there are 4 or 5 scratch lines through it - above the very prominent one. But:

I use ACDSee, though, not Photoshop (or I use Affinity photo).

Question About Loading Bulk 35mm Film

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