Why are (some) bulk loaders expensive?

ame01999 · Nov 8, 2024

I was choosing between the somewhat basic $50 option on Freestyle Photo and the $150 Arista "Bobinquick" model, and ended up going with the latter, as I'm a sucker for nice aesthetics, and I figured if I'm going to have it for a few decades, why not splurge a little and get something I'll love using? I noticed afterwards, while Googling video instructions, that other models of bulk loaders cost even more.

Well, my Bobinquick arrived, and I realized I'd overestimated the complexity of a bulk film loader! It's a basically a container for film, a container for a canister, some covers, some hidden gears inside, and two dials, almost all of it plastic. How the heck does this thing retail for $150?

(And incidentally, can anyone recommend the best quality reusable film cartridges? The plastic ones on B&W have only three stars; the plastic ones on Amazon do little better. Lomography sells some used metal cartridges, though.)

Mick Fagan · Nov 8, 2024

I would suggest that it is a numbers game, this is a low manufacturing number item. Then there are the handlers along the supply route, all of whom wish to make a bit of money as the item passes through their hands.

What you have purchased seems to be a direct copy of the German Kaiser bulk film loader that I bought in Germany around 45 years ago. Another version very popular and as far as I can tell identical unit in Germany, was the Hansa badged unit. I have both of these branded versions, and yes there are miniscule external differences between them which make no difference as to how each works.

In essence I think there was originally one manufacturing source for this type of film loader, this was in Europe; but I could be wrong.

It is well made and doesn't scratch film, I have five of them and at one time I had colour negative, colour transparency, and slow, medium and fast B&W film in the other three.

I've used all sorts of plastic and sometimes metal film cartridges. I suggest you purchase a minimum quantity of one or more types to check them out, then you can make a very informed decision of what works for you.

Marcelo Paniagua · Nov 8, 2024

ame01999 said:
. How the heck does this thing retail for $150?

Different factors. If demand is low, it implies that fewer pieces are made, which requires greater profit margins per piece to make it a viable product (you dont see them selling as pancakes).

There is also the gimmick factor (hey you got to admit it looks pretty cool!).

Basically they retail for $150 because people will buy them (similar to Leica I guess?).

MattKing · Nov 8, 2024

Considering how expensive a roll of bulk film can be now, a lot of the cost probably relates to quality control for a low volume, relatively expensive to ship product.
Light leaks or a tendency to scratch film seem to somehow weigh much more heavily than when a 30 meter roll of film was ~$20.00 or less.

cmacd123 · Nov 8, 2024

A Bobbinquick is a model that cme form AP Products. https://www.fotoimpex.com/films/ap-bobinquick-junior-film-loader-for-30m-bulk-film-rolls.html AP was traditionally located in Spain. the AP has a sprocket to count the actual number of frames loaded.

the Lloyd https://www.freestylephoto.com/63000-LegacyPro-Lloyd-35mm-Bulk-Film-Loader is a siple design where the film goes through a felt light trap I belive Freestyle had bought to tooking for that old timer, the design date back at least to the 1960s, and may be older than that. the film is measured by coulting the numbers of turns of the crank.

their used to be many more. the Alden 200 is my unit of choice but mine was purchased at least 40 years ago. you sometimes find them on E-bay, whild the listings today don't show any 200 versions thay do show some Alden 74 units (100 foot roll only, the 200takes 200 ft at a time.) the Aldens have a sproket to coulnt frames and a light trap that opens while the film is being transported.

Dennis S · Nov 8, 2024

A Lloyd's has less wastage of film as in a Watson you have a full 3-4" that gets to be exposed to light every time. I had something get imbedded in the felt in my Legacy Pro and it did a job of scratching length wise on every roll I did that time. Expensive lesson learnt.

ags2mikon · Nov 8, 2024

I had a bulk film loader many years ago that had a felt light trap that scratched film. It is now resting on the bottom of a land fill.

Dennis S · Nov 8, 2024

Thing was I didn't realize it until I started exposing the film (5222 I think) and was hoping it was on the first few but I was wrong about that also. After about 8-10 rolls I gave up and trashed the rest of the film.....

MattKing · Nov 8, 2024

FYI, if you find that your bulk loader is scratching film, you can take the remaining film out and put it in a new, non-scratching loader.
It is always a good idea to first load a short trial roll, expose and then develop it to check for problems like scratches.

mshchem · Nov 8, 2024

Also just clean the felt.

MattKing · Nov 8, 2024

mshchem said:
Also just clean the felt.

Post-It notes work well for this.

Don_ih · Nov 9, 2024

I almost never use the bulk loader to actually load film. I usually pull film out, cut it off, and spool it by hand. There's no waste that way, other than the fact I tend to shoot short rolls. Of course, you need a dark room (if not a darkroom) for that.

MattKing said:
Considering how expensive a roll of bulk film can be now

You mean like this?

ic-racer · Nov 9, 2024

Yes, the Alden 200 is nice, I got mine around 1975 and have loaded over a thosand rolls with it. I can't say I have ever seen anything better.

pentaxuser · Nov 9, 2024

Don_ih said:
I almost never use the bulk loader to actually load film. I usually pull film out, cut it off, and spool it by hand. There's no waste that way, other than the fact I tend to shoot short rolls. Of course, you need a dark room (if not a darkroom) for that.

You mean like this?
View attachment 383010

This is a gallows humour laugh and not a joyous one. If they are sold out then could this be because the demand is so great at such a cheap price?

pentaxuser

koraks · Nov 9, 2024

ame01999 said:
How the heck does this thing retail for $150?

Go and have some dies made (and corrected/bug-fixed) for casting those plastic parts. Then figure you're going to sell maybe a couple of thousand pieces over several years' time - if you're lucky.

It's correct that the plastic itself costs only a few cents. It's the other, invisible and (for you) intangible aspects that constitute the real cost. See also the other responses above; there's logistics costs, margins of several supply chain partners (i.e. people need to make a living), R&D costs, assembly labor costs, cost of capital, packaging costs (engineering, materials, manufacturing, labor), cost of customer support & after sales, organizational cost/overhead, taxes & duties throughout the supply chain - and probably some more I'm overlooking.

If you think about it, it's a damn miracle it only costs $150.

cmacd123 · Nov 9, 2024

Dennis S said:
A Lloyd's has less wastage of film as in a Watson you have a full 3-4" that gets to be exposed to light every time.

Being the sort ofperson who often worries about the risk of the last picture being fogged, I do tend to use my Loader as a "darkroom Loader."

I turn out the lights, attach the film to the spool and assemble the Cassette and then close the door. (and lock the Light trap) Then turn on the lights and wind the film using the sprocket driven knob on the Alden, to get the number of exposures I want. first roll I load a extra exposure or two.

with Lights off open the loader and pull an exposures worth of film out of the cassette, then attche the casette fr roll 2. the extra length makes sure I don't pull the film through the Light Trap. then close and lock the door, turn on the light and label the cassette I just loaded and cut the leader. then repeat the process, with a frames worth pulled out of the loaded second cassette.

the cassettes will show if their is any damage to the film at this point.

this way there is NO fogged film near the spool end.

when I was in High School, back in the days of Yore. I did use the schools Darkroom to load film, Some data sheet metioned that the rolls of film on TX 410 were 56 and a half inches. (might be 55 and a half) so I put two strips of Masking tape on the table, and an extra strip to hold the end of the film. Open the can and take the film out of the PAPER bag in the dark, attach the end to the extra Strip, and rolll out to the second strip of tape. Cut the film and put the roll back in the bag and can. attched the stripof film to the spool, and roll it up by hand. since this was before I was working my Allowance could only pay for a 50ft roll of Kodak or 17 meters of Ilford or Agfa. so it did not take all that long touse up the roll of Bulk.

TX 410 was a 27 ft roll with leaders and trailers already cut. I never saw one in the store, and they might not have even sold them in Canada. A TX402 was 50ft and like now a TX401 was 100.

MattKing · Nov 10, 2024

cmacd123 said:
TX 410 was a 27 ft roll with leaders and trailers already cut. I never saw one in the store, and they might not have even sold them in Canada. A TX402 was 50ft and like now a TX401 was 100.

And both were inexpensive, because there was a large commercial base using those long rolls in cameras that were designed for them - for things like identity photos, school portraits and the like.
The rolls we bought were just extra sales of a high volume product.
For Kodak, there is just one of those long roll production machines left, and it requires a lot of slow, manual labour to put out product.

koraks · Nov 10, 2024

cmacd123 said:
Being the sort ofperson who often worries about the risk of the last picture being fogged, I do tend to use my Loader as a "darkroom Loader."

Me too, but I work slightly differently:

cmacd123 said:
I turn out the lights, attach the film to the spool and assemble the Cassette and then close the door.

Instead, I leave only a short bit of film outside the main chamber, then with lights on tape that to the spool and assemble cassette. Then turn off the lights, open the light trap on the main chamber and do the actual loading.

As to the loading: yes, I do this in the dark with the loader open (I use teardrop style loaders with the big door at the top) because I find the counter mechanism is liable to jamming/jarring. I just count the rotations. 29 rotations is about 36 exposures. Then rotate the main chamber back so the light trap is closed, turn on lights, snip off leader and continue to next roll.

For me, this is an easy and quick process that turns out to be very reliable and I don't get wasted frames at the end of the roll this way.

cmacd123 · Nov 10, 2024

MattKing said:
For Kodak, there is just one of those long roll production machines left, and it requires a lot of slow, manual labour to put out product.

the curent machine does produce edge printing entirely different tnan what I used to buy in the 1970s, although that is not surprising considering the time that has past..

if you watch the behind the scenes videos on Kodak production, the edge print and frame numbers are exposed by the machines that winds the film is cartriges. the move film machines of course are not set up to do frame numbers. (and the ones which do KS perfs proably are only programed to just put a fixed IDevery 18 inches as found on Print film)

cmacd123 · Nov 10, 2024

I don'tknow where the 410 fit in, as it was basicaly 5 rolls of 36 exposures ready to be put into the users Cassettes. it would persumably had simalar edge print as the prepacked rolls.

MattKing · Nov 10, 2024

cmacd123 said:
the curent machine does produce edge printing entirely different tnan what I used to buy in the 1970s, although that is not surprising considering the time that has past..

if you watch the behind the scenes videos on Kodak production, the edge print and frame numbers are exposed by the machines that winds the film is cartriges. the move film machines of course are not set up to do frame numbers. (and the ones which do KS perfs proably are only programed to just put a fixed IDevery 18 inches as found on Print film)

And unfortunately, the input that goes into and the output that comes from the 100 foot/30 meter legacy line doesn't really fit with the rest of the production line.
It is a real outlier, and incredibly manual. Partly in a different building too.

Agulliver · Nov 11, 2024

The situation with Kodak's bulk film is rather sad. I remember one of my earlier posts here some years ago asking about why the price of Kodak bulk film was higher than other manufacturers and being *very* rudely put down. Thankfully those days are long gone, and we have genuine explanations as to why it's so expensive for Kodak to do bulk film. And clearly the market is so small that there's no realistic chance of them investing in a more modern/less labour intensive way to produce it.

Harman on the other hand, does still produce bulk film sufficiently "cheap" to make real savings on Ilford and Kentmere materials. I would assume the bulk rolls are very much a small part of their business....but their means of producing them is somewhat more efficient than Kodak's.

As for bulk loaders, again the market is very small for new ones. I got all four of mine second hand. The second hand market is still busy, though prices have gone up somewhat since I last bought one. While all the design work will have been done years ago, the tooling still needs to be kept in good condition because light cannot be allowed to leak into the devices. On the face of it they're quite simple but must be made to reasonable tolerances and I cannot imagine many are sold.

Don_ih · Nov 11, 2024

By B&H prices, you save about $2 a roll bulk rolling HP5+
Also by B&H prices, you save about $2 a roll bulk rolling Tmax 100.

cmacd123 · Nov 11, 2024

I recall that Simon Galley (who at the time was part of Ilford Ownership and Management) once posted that is bulk film does not represent a saving, it did not make any sense.

Sirius Glass · Nov 11, 2024

cmacd123 said:
I recall that Simon Galley (who at the time was part of Ilford Ownership and Management) once posted that is bulk film does not represent a saving, it did not make any sense.

When I bulk loaded film, it became at a loss for me when the photo processing labs stopped returning my 35mm cassettes.

Why are (some) bulk loaders expensive?

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