Roll Your Own?

[Richard Pippin]

With the ever increasing price of film these days, I'm considering rolling my own 35mm film. Recently acquired a very slightly used Watson film rolling machine and have checked prices on 35mm black and white film, however the choices out there for 35mm film canisters seems a bit lacking. Any recommendations for where to acquire good quality film canisters would be great appreciated.

 

[Tel]

Got mine from Freestyle. I've used both the plastic and metal ones and come to prefer the plastic. The metal ones use a snap-on cap that seems to snap off occasionally. The plastic ones have a threaded cap that gives a more secure fi, in my experience. I've also found it important not to swap spools. I used to save them from regular commercial canisters but I found that the reloaded film was occasionally jamming and refusing to wind on. The flange tolerances, I found, were different so the commercial spools were rubbing against the inside of the reloadable canister and binding, That's about the worst that I've experienced with reloaded 35--everything else is positive. Except that Kodak stopped selling Portra in 100-foot rolls...

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Get a Nikon F2 - the camera takes cassettes with a rotating light trap. Closing the latch on the camera opens the light trap on the cassette. Can't be beat, you just have to get an F2 to use them (which is a good idea in any case). Unfortunately they won't work with any other Nikon as the cassette opening mechanism interferes with motor drives that rewind the film. Bummer.

Leica made similar cassettes (well, actually, Nikon aped Leica). The most recent version worked on the M2-M5. There were also cassettes for the screw-mount models.

 

[Tel]

@Tel when did you order plastic cassettes from Freestyle? I prefer them as well, but the latest batch I got about 6 months ago and the quality was atrocious - they were shedding bits and pieces of their light seals like crazy, I figured the debris may damage a camera shutter. So I settled on the combination of these and these. They're about the same, a bit annoying to deal with snap caps, as you said, but at least they're well-made.

That's bad news! I bought two large boxes of them about 7 or 8 years ago and I'm still using them.
I just looked at the B&H site and they appear to be selling the same ones. Lots of bad reviews citing poorly cemented light seal felt. Must be the same supplier as Freestyle.

 

[gone]

You should contact Freestyle on those canisters Gregg, I'm sure they'll make it good. They're the most honest and professional photo supply company I have ever dealt with. Best of all, you can pick up the phone and have a pleasant chat w/ enthusiastic and knowledgeable people. Try that w/ the Nu Yawk folks! I stopped buying from the big N.Y. photo supply companies many years ago, and it's probably added 10 years to my life not having to deal w/ those people.

 

[narsuitus]

Any recommendations for where to acquire good quality film canisters would be great appreciated.

You can find Nikon AM-1 film cassettes on eBay and if you do not have an F2, you can find them on eBay also.

I would take one-hundred feet of 35mm film and roll my own. One-hundred feet would usually give me about 19 rolls of 36-exposure film.


Nikon AM-1 Film Cassettes by Narsuitus, on Flickr

 

[ciniframe]

The savings sure are not as good as they used to be. Twenty rolls of HP5 36exp. are $140. A bulk roll is $90, or 64% of the price, with all the problems associated with load your own already mentioned. Back in the day, early 70's I shot Tri-X and only from bulk. I would buy a roll and used Kodak Snap Caps empty cartridges. Never used a loader, just spooled out 5 feet and rolled it up. Would usually load the entire bulk roll in one sitting. Had two Olympus Pen F half frame cameras to feed. If memory serves I saved at least 60% over factory loads.

 

[dynachrome]

I never liked the Kodak Snap Caps. If I looked at them cross-eyed, they would pop open. Years ago my favorite cartridges were the Agfa or Ilford ones with the thick felt. They were easy to open but stayed closed when you finished loading. The black plastic "screw cap" cartridges weren't too bad if you used a little tape to keep them from opening up. Some special purpose films were only sold in long rolls but those are long discontinued. I also like to load the whole bulk roll in one sitting.

 

[Pioneer]

The savings sure are not as good as they used to be. Twenty rolls of HP5 36exp. are $140. A bulk roll is $90, or 64% of the price, with all the problems associated with load your own already mentioned. Back in the day, early 70's I shot Tri-X and only from bulk. I would buy a roll and used Kodak Snap Caps empty cartridges. Never used a loader, just spooled out 5 feet and rolled it up. Would usually load the entire bulk roll in one sitting. Had two Olympus Pen F half frame cameras to feed. If memory serves I saved at least 60% over factory loads.

That is almost funny. You are still saving $50 by rolling your own HP5+. It certainly isn't as much as it used to be but that still is not bad for a very small amount of manual labor.

Leica, Zeiss and Nikon metal cassettes are obviously the best way to go if you own one of the cameras that will accept them . But they are also a lot more finicky about which manual loaders they will work in. Some will load them but won't close the cassette inside the loader. The solution is to open the loader. cut the film and then close the cassette by hand in a changing bag or in a darkroom.

Of course you can easily do it by hand without a loader. Go in the darkroom, pull about 6 feet of film off the spool (about the spread of your arms), tape the end to the film spool and then roll it up. Once it is rolled up on the spool you can insert it into the cassette shell and, voila, a roll of film. I'm pretty sure this is the way most of the old timers loaded film back in the early days of Leica screw mount and Zeiss Contax rangefinders. Remember to use your cotton gloves or you can end up with fingerprints on your film.

The metal or plastic general use cassettes are much easier to load but may have other problems in use. It isn't the perfect way to save money but once you get things sorted out it is very nice and you can save money. Just like everything else in manual photography, practice makes perfect.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

I remember the FSU cassettes were rather nice. Film in the Workers' Paradise was sold in foil wrapped 36 exposure loads and the photographer loaded them into the cassettes that came with the camera.

 

[ciniframe]

That is almost funny. You are still saving $50 by rolling your own HP5+. It certainly isn't as much as it used to be but that still is not bad for a very small amount of manual labor.

Leica, Zeiss and Nikon metal cassettes are obviously the best way to go if you own one of the cameras that will accept them . But they are also a lot more finicky about which manual loaders they will work in. Some will load them but won't close the cassette inside the loader. The solution is to open the loader. cut the film and then close the cassette by hand in a changing bag or in a darkroom.

Of course you can easily do it by hand without a loader. Go in the darkroom, pull about 6 feet of film off the spool (about the spread of your arms), tape the end to the film spool and then roll it up. Once it is rolled up on the spool you can insert it into the cassette shell and, voila, a roll of film. I'm pretty sure this is the way most of the old timers loaded film back in the early days of Leica screw mount and Zeiss Contax rangefinders. Remember to use your cotton gloves or you can end up with fingerprints on your film.

The metal or plastic general use cassettes are much easier to load but may have other problems in use. It isn't the perfect way to save money but once you get things sorted out it is very nice and you can save money. Just like everything else in manual photography, practice makes perfect.

Not funny, just risk vs benefit equation. I already have a bunch of metal cartridges bought 20 years ago from Freestyle but if starting out it is not so simple. As stated some of the new plastic cartridges are junk. And the metal ones I have have to be handled carefully as the ends have become looser. (Although they always had a tendency to pop off if dropped.) For my situation today, not shooting even 1/10 what I used to, just buying factory loads makes more sense. Certainly if the OP is shooting a lot of film and is careful of dust or other problems of reloading, then yes, every savings adds up. But you have to shoot quite a bit to amortize the cost of film and cartridges over time. Also, you are right about us old timers, we just loaded by hand sitting in the darkroom. Some loaders waste quite a bit of film in leaders. We were cheap old guys and squeezed out every frame, and with me that was half frame. I’m 71 now but up to perhaps 15 years ago all of my B&W film was from bulk. Didn’t even even consider factory loads unless I wanted to try out some new film.
Also it didn’t bother me to waste a few frames if I was in a hurry to see something I had just shot, I’d snip off the exposed frames in the darkroom, load them onto a reel and reload the rest of the cartridge.
Now days the only thing I load myself is 16mm Minolta cartridges and Minox cartridges. You can still buy preloaded Minox but they are very expensive and I can reload for a dollar a roll for 30 exposure rolls.

 

[Pioneer]

Not funny, just risk vs benefit equation. I already have a bunch of metal cartridges bought 20 years ago from Freestyle but if starting out it is not so simple. As stated some of the new plastic cartridges are junk. And the metal ones I have have to be handled carefully as the ends have become looser. (Although they always had a tendency to pop off if dropped.) For my situation today, not shooting even 1/10 what I used to, just buying factory loads makes more sense. Certainly if the OP is shooting a lot of film and is careful of dust or other problems of reloading, then yes, every savings adds up. But you have to shoot quite a bit to amortize the cost of film and cartridges over time. Also, you are right about us old timers, we just loaded by hand sitting in the darkroom. Some loaders waste quite a bit of film in leaders. We were cheap old guys and squeezed out every frame, and with me that was half frame. I’m 71 now but up to perhaps 15 years ago all of my B&W film was from bulk. Didn’t even even consider factory loads unless I wanted to try out some new film.
Also it didn’t bother me to waste a few frames if I was in a hurry to see something I had just shot, I’d snip off the exposed frames in the darkroom, load them onto a reel and reload the rest of the cartridge.
Now days the only thing I load myself is 16mm Minolta cartridges and Minox cartridges. You can still buy preloaded Minox but they are very expensive and I can reload for a dollar a roll for 30 exposure rolls.

Obviously your response was based on your personal situation and I can understand it. It certainly is not as convenient to load your own and at this point in your hobby it no longer makes sense for you. It is true that the savings are not fully realized if you are not shooting very much 35mm film.

I was just trying to give the OP a sense of some of the benefits, as well as a few of the cons, around loading your own film. I do believe it is a useful addition to your skill set if you are still learning and want to keep your costs low.

I'm retired, and though I am not using as much 35mm film as I used to, I still find the savings attractive. The additional money stretches the film budget just a little further. There are lots of other benefits as well.

 

[alanrockwood]

Another source of cartridges is used cartridges from commercial 35mm rolls. If you can find a local company that still processes film in house you might be able to talk them into giving you a bunch of them. I have done that in the past. I have about three or four gallons of those old cartridges.

Then you tape your new film to the stub of film from the used cartridges and use your loader to wind the new film into the cartridge.

There will be DX coding on the cartridges, some of which may match the ISO you want and some of which won't match. For the ones that don't match you can just tape over the DX code and set the iso manually on your camera, or there are also ways to alter the DX coding on the cartridges to match the iso you want. I won't go into that topic in more detail here. If you are lucky your camera will be too old to even worry about the DX coding on the cartridges.

One thing you might have to do from time to time is to clean the felts on your cartridges. Sticky tape can come to your rescue there. I think there are probably posts you can find to show you how to do that. For those of you who have the Lloyd-type bulk loader you can use the same trick to clean the felts of those loaders. I actually prefer the Lloyds loaders to the other types, like the Watson or Alden bulk loaders, but that's a topic for another discussion.

 

[rknewcomb]

Old Gregg,
Just asking, why or how are these cassettes awesome?
Thanks,
Robert

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

The Soviet cassettes had marvelous deep pile velvet for the light trap. Not the thin measly affair designed to trap grit as were available in the decadent West. Though nominally a snap cap, the cap had a generous rim to it that fit very well with the rest of the cassette - not something that would snap off at awkward times.

Soviet cassettes were designed to be used over and over again. The Kodak 'snap caps' seemed to be designed for one-time use and then disposal. It seemed that using them over again more than once, maybe, was asking for trouble.

The Soviet cassettes worked better than the Kievs, Zorkis and Feds they were designed for.

I wonder if the Soviets ever had rotating light trap cassettes in the form of the Leica and Nikon styles.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

You can find Nikon AM-1 film cassettes on eBay and if you do not have an F2, you can find them on eBay also.

I would take one-hundred feet of 35mm film and roll my own. One-hundred feet would usually give me about 19 rolls of 36-exposure film.


Nikon AM-1 Film Cassettes by Narsuitus, on Flickr

AM-1 cassettes are notoriously hard to find on ebay, though the Nikon cassettes for “not F2” are fairly common. I am always looking. There is only one AM-1 cassette on there today, which is one more than I have seen for a while, and it’s $77. Rare to find them under $50 a pop, which kind of blunts the advantage of saving $1.50 a roll by bulk loading. I don’t get camera envy any longer, but am very jealous of your $1,500+ stash of AM-1 cassettes there

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

AM-1 cassettes ... $77. Rare to find them under $50 a pop

Goood Gawwd! I think I bought a box of 10 for $50 "back in the day."

 

[131802]

I know they're not universally popular, but kodak snap caps have served me well, and they're nearly always available on ebay.

 

[narsuitus]

Back in the 1960s, I saw a Leica film cassette in a camera store selling for an astronomical price. Since I had the opportunity to buy Nikon film cassettes for Nikon F and F2 SLRs for a reasonable price, I started buying them. Glad I did because the Nikon cassettes are approaching astronomical prices.

At the time, in addition to the cost savings of rolling my own, the absence of felt light traps ...
1. Allowed the film to move faster and smoother as the motor drive pulled the film out of the cassette.

2. Were less likely to scratch the film (especially the thin emulsion films) as it was pulled out of the cassette.

3. Did not shed fuzz from the felt light traps strips that were found in less expensive and less durable film cassettes.

The reloadable Nikon F film cassette seen in the center of the image only works in the Nikon F.

The eight reloadable AM-1 film cassettes seen in the image only work in the Nikon F2.

Nikon also made a reloadable film cassette that worked only in its rangefinder cameras.

Nikon Film Cassettes by Narsuitus, on Flickr

 

[Huss]

The savings on rolling your own also depends on the film stock you use. I got 19 rolls of 36 out of 100 ft.
I love Kodak Trix.. But it is now $110/100ft Which is $5.79 per roll just for the film, not including the one time purchase of bulk film loader and cassettes.
Boxed 36 exp TriX is $6.99 (B&H prices).
So you save about $1.20 per roll not including incidentals etc

For me, that is not enough if I was starting afresh. Or actually even now. As the savings are not great enough vs the knowledge of getting a perfectly rolled roll of film in a new cassette.
I'd happily pay $12 more to get 10 factory fresh rolls of TriX .

Your results may vary.

 

[Huss]

good point Gregg. Some of my cameras allow 38-39 exp per 36 exp roll. The auto loading ones (AF slrs, P&S) do not which is a bummer.

I see paying an extra $1.20 a roll as insurance. But I totally get how others may not feel the same way.
The other thing is I really like some of the cheaper films like Kentmere. Love the results. And they are cheap. But they also are much cheaper @100ft than TriX! Almost half the price.
Still the extra $1-ish with these too are worth it as insurance.

 

[alanrockwood]

@Huss it's actually even worse because you're not getting 19 of the same 36exp rolls from a 100ft roll. Stock 36exp cassettes regularly allow for 38 exposures, but if I bulk-load 19 cassettes, it's more like 34 reliable exposures per roll, because some of the "tail" will be fogged. Also depends on the type of a bulk loader, in my case it's the Watson/Alden drop-shaped type. If the goal is to get the same 37-38 reliable exposures per roll, I think 18 is a more accurate number.

You can reduce the number of fogged frames when using the Watson/Alden type of bulk loader by doing certain parts of the process in a darkened room.

Also, I think there is less film lost to fogging when using the Lloyd type of loader because there is less film sticking out past the light trap. That's one reason why I prefer the Lloyd type loader. On the other hand because the light trap of the Lloyd loader is felt that does not open up when loading cartridges it is more prone to scratching film. That can be avoided by keeping the felts clean.

 

[Pitotshock]

I roll my own with plastic and metal cassettes just for the fun of it. The savings per roll isn't really there anymore, but the fun and risk still is. I don't use a bulk loader, I just load the cassettes by hand in the darkroom, with a little winding machine I built and measuring the length on the workbench between two pieces of tape on the bench. Only takes a couple of minutes per cassette. My Nikon F100 bodies work great with the longer rolls, but I have shortened the roll length to get 36 exposures so it fits my proof sheets better. The one thing I like to do is add a bit of scotch tape on both the top and bottom caps as insurance that they don't pop off inadvertently during use. I find them very easy to deal with when developing time comes and has the added benefit of no waste.