Why Bulk Load Your Film?

StoneNYC · Feb 10, 2014

SchwinnParamount said:
You rarely shoot film because you don't own a Canon F-1...

I'll bring mine when I make it out to your backyard this year. I'll come alone if my squeeze doesn't want to come. She uses 6x4.5cm, go figure.

I think you misunderstand, I'm always shooting film, I'm just not shooting 35mm, I have a Canon 1V it doesn't get much better than that, but still I just don't shoot in such a tiny format these days, mostly I'm shooting 4x5.

And because I mostly shooting large-format these days, everything that I do chicle down in my habits, so I shoot a lot less than I used to, I'm going to that problem that I used to laugh that with other people used to comment that 12 pictures were hard to get through and they couldn't get through with 36 frame role in a month, it's true it's hard to get through that many frames because the pictures I'm taking are more thoughtful and less bank bang shoot shoot, i've got about six rolls of double X left, and another 6 to 10 rolls of dreamy neopan400. Once that is gone sure I'll pick up a 400 foot thing of double X, my priorities for purchasing film are in the large-format genre so I'm stocked up pretty well for 35mm and decently stocked up for 120. Certainly have enough in color, but I am running low on black and white in 120, that said I'm not shooting enough to stuck up just yet.

StoneNYC · Feb 10, 2014

Xmas said:
Hi Stone

Im still getting sales resistance
I only have a medium sized dark bag if you keep the bottom half of can flat and have a 100 spool you can do it easy.

It will be nice in 4x5...

Sales Resistance? Lol

I just don't need to yet.

Xmas · Feb 10, 2014

It will be the same emulsion in 35mm as 4x5 so you might like to hone up the dev time and temp.

I use ID 68 (close to Microphen) so can't help much as both powders like you don't use.

StoneNYC · Feb 10, 2014

Xmas said:
It will be the same emulsion in 35mm as 4x5 so you might like to hone up the dev time and temp.

I use ID 68 (close to Microphen) so can't help much as both powders like you don't use.

I already know my times etc for Double-X, I'm just saying that I don't use it much. So I haven't needed to restock.

ChristopherCoy · Mar 5, 2021

sub'd for later reading.

Down Under · Mar 5, 2021

Ah, another Lazarus thread revived. A good one. Less but still somewhat relevant after seven years.

Those few 'remainers' ('remainders'?) of us who still bulk load here in Australia, do so for cost. So expensive has film become down here, a 100-foot can of Tri-X will set you back a kidney. If you can get it.

Every year sees fewer bulk films available to us. I used Efke and later Rollei 100 and 400 for a long time and Vanbar in Melbourne kept it in bulk cans at affordable prices, but no more. I do wish I'd bought up big for the freezer, but I didn't. My bad.

Overseas ordering is still possible but our glorious leaders impose sales tax (10% now, in the future who knows?) on everything we order from across the big bathtub. Also packing and postage costs from the US and UK are so high, it's no longer a good deal to order unless one coughs up thousands (at 30%-60% exchange rates) for a super big lot. Which then languishes in the fridge or freezer until used. So not really the way.

Since 2014 my film shooting has dropped by about three-quarters and I now use only B&W film. Ilford XP2 costs A$150+ for a 20 roll can but thanks to a few forward thinking experimenters who've played with this versatile film, I can process it in standard 'monochrome' chemistry and not C41, which would up my costs even more without any significant improvement in image quality. So a win-win for me. For now.

Last year I (perhaps unwisely) decided to pare down my film and paper stocks and also sold (at a small loss) two-thirds of my darkroom including a beaut old Leitz Focomat 1c I'd held on to for 20+ years - and used at most 20 times. I kept some 120 stocks which with my usual shooting parsimony may last me for two more years - after which I'll probably sell my Rollei TLRs and my lot of 1950s German folding cameras. And say farewell to film for this lifetime.

Just about everyone save a few diehards have gone or are going this same way now, so at least I'm in distinguished (if no longer select) company.

Bronson Dugnutt · Mar 5, 2021

12 exposure rolls

Horatio · Mar 5, 2021

I’m bulk rolling, but waited too long last year to stock up on Ultrafine Extreme at $38, so my savings were less than they could have been. It seems every brand went up $10 or more overnight last fall. I like the flexibility of choosing how many exposures I want. The only downside is my automatic film loading cameras waste a couple of frames at the start of a roll. I’m reusing regular film cassettes, so the film ($50) and loader ($28) were my only out of pocket expenses. I’m still trying to figure out how many actual exposures I can count on. There’s about six inches of wasted film per roll, more than I expected. I have a Watson loader. I think the Lloyd brand wastes less.

Donald Qualls · Mar 5, 2021

Yep, two and, IMO, only two reasons to bulk load: cost and tailored roll length. I shoot cheap film anyway, when I can, but when i can get 17 or so rolls of 35mm for $51 (for .EDU Ultra 100 or 400) instead of paying $4.50 a roll, I'm saving about 30% -- and I can load anything from ten or so frames (handy for my Olympus Pen EES-2, as ten becomes 20, maybe 22 or even 24 since the camera is also narrow enough to save a frame on loading) to about forty-five, though I don't have a developing reel that will take more than forty at all reliably. Now if I had 35mm steel reels for my Nikor, with the same wire as the regular ones, those would hold fifty.

That said, I currently have two bulk loaders in operation, one with .EDU Ultra 400, my main B&W film for 35mm, and the other with ORWO NB21, a super-fine grain ISO 12 cine duplicating film. I've got at least two more still packed away somewhere, one of those has .EDU Ultra 100 and the other might still have some more of the 400. I've got one additional loader (a really antique genuine Watson brand) that's got about 1/3 to 1/2 a bulk roll of mystery film inside; I need load up a short cassette with that and see if I can figure what it is (holding out hope for the edge markings). If the film inside is no good (unlikely) that one will get XP2 Super.

Sirius Glass · Mar 6, 2021

Donald Qualls · Mar 7, 2021

Pardon me for not looking above the top of my screen before replying. All the replies I could see were same day.

ChristopherCoy · Mar 7, 2021

Donald Qualls said:
Pardon me for not looking above the top of my screen before replying. All the replies I could see were same day.

Yeah, I kinda dug this one up and ran. I wanted it to be at the top of my "my posts" so that I could quickly find it.

Donald Qualls · Mar 7, 2021

Hmmm. You do know you can individually bookmark thread pages, right? Even individual posts (check the URL field at the top of your browser window).

ChristopherCoy · Mar 7, 2021

I know I can "watch thread", but that only leaves is way down the list somewhere in my watched threads list. And I know that I can bookmark the page in my browser, but that would junk up my bookmarks bar. Doing it this way subscribes me to the thread, and places it at the top of my watched threads list.

MattKing · Mar 7, 2021

You can also Bookmark a post, which will get you there as well, and allow you to add an explanatory note as well. The link is at the bottom right beside the Quote link.

Sirius Glass · Mar 7, 2021

Kodak always priced bulk film to make it not worth bulk loading. I would shoot 100 feet of Ektachome every summer in Europe. Decades later they continued doing the same thing with Tri-X. Bulk loading may work for other film manufacturers.

Donald Qualls · Mar 7, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
Kodak always priced bulk film to make it not worth bulk loading. I would shoot 100 feet of Ektachome every summer in Europe. Decades later they continued doing the same thing with Tri-X. Bulk loading may work for other film manufacturers.

When there's no financial advantage to bulk loading, you turn to the other stuff: ability to load short or extra-long rolls when needed, compactness for long-trip travel (a 100' can of film, a bulk loader with another 100' already inside, and half a dozen cassettes take up a lot less space than thirty-five loaded cassettes; one presumes that you'll want to process your film as you go anyway, so the equipment and chemicals for that will be the same), ability to ensure many rolls in succession are from the same emulsion batch (harder to do with loose cassettes than with bulk rolls), and perhaps having a camera that needs a non-standard supply, like a Rapid system camera (spoolless cassette-to-cassette driven by sprockets) or Tessina (a very slimmed-down version of the 135 cassette for a wrist-strap TLR).

But I never knew that about Kodak -- the only experience I had with bulk loading before getting back into photography and processing my own film around 2003 (away since college, early 1980s) was using film bulk loaded for me by the high school yearbook staff or my summer camp photography instructor. In both cases, that was Tri-X, 1960s to early 1970s vintage, and there were no other brands readily available in the American Northwest to compare (I recall seeing GAF branded color film about then, but don't recall seeing another brand of black and white until college, when I encountered -- but didn't use -- Ilford).

Sirius Glass · Mar 7, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
Kodak always priced bulk film to make it not worth bulk loading. I would shoot 100 feet of Ektachome every summer in Europe. Decades later they continued doing the same thing with Tri-X. Bulk loading may work for other film manufacturers.

Donald Qualls said:
When there's no financial advantage to bulk loading, you turn to the other stuff: ability to load short or extra-long rolls when needed, compactness for long-trip travel (a 100' can of film, a bulk loader with another 100' already inside, and half a dozen cassettes take up a lot less space than thirty-five loaded cassettes; one presumes that you'll want to process your film as you go anyway, so the equipment and chemicals for that will be the same), ability to ensure many rolls in succession are from the same emulsion batch (harder to do with loose cassettes than with bulk rolls), and perhaps having a camera that needs a non-standard supply, like a Rapid system camera (spoolless cassette-to-cassette driven by sprockets) or Tessina (a very slimmed-down version of the 135 cassette for a wrist-strap TLR).

But I never knew that about Kodak -- the only experience I had with bulk loading before getting back into photography and processing my own film around 2003 (away since college, early 1980s) was using film bulk loaded for me by the high school yearbook staff or my summer camp photography instructor. In both cases, that was Tri-X, 1960s to early 1970s vintage, and there were no other brands readily available in the American Northwest to compare (I recall seeing GAF branded color film about then, but don't recall seeing another brand of black and white until college, when I encountered -- but didn't use -- Ilford).

I was shooting rolls of 36 exposures in Europe. My goal was to lower the cost with bulk loading. When that did not work out for me.

MattKing · Mar 7, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
Kodak always priced bulk film to make it not worth bulk loading.

Not true.
Many years ago (1970s?), Kodak's bulk load prices on Tri-X were competitive, because their volumes were high, which kept the unit cost competitive.
The only volume related benefits that remain now are related to the factory load cassettes - the bulk load materials are now essentially made up by hand.
And that costs a lot.
I'd bet if you went to Eastman Kodak and negotiated for several thousand feet of 5222 on 100 foot cores, as long as you were willing to accept no frame numbers, you could negotiate a decent deal.
You might be able to get a similar deal on an even larger order on Tri-X or T-Max on 100 foot cores, with edge printing, but the size of that order would have to be huge!

Donald Qualls · Mar 7, 2021

It would probably be cheaper to come up with a 3D printed variant of a Watson loader that can accept a 400 foot camera spool -- even if you don't own a printer yourself, you should be able to get the parts printed for $50-$70, assemble them, and not have to buy anything special. Four hundred foot camera rolls are the minimum sale unit for all the cine films Kodak still produces. That would also open up some ORWO stocks, of course -- and the same loader would happily handle the 100 foot rolls we're used to seeing for bulk loaders.

Why Bulk Load Your Film?

StoneNYC

StoneNYC

Xmas

StoneNYC

ChristopherCoy

Down Under

Bronson Dugnutt

Horatio

Donald Qualls

Sirius Glass

Donald Qualls

ChristopherCoy

Donald Qualls

ChristopherCoy

MattKing

Moderator

Sirius Glass

Donald Qualls

Sirius Glass

MattKing

Moderator

Donald Qualls

Why Bulk Load Your Film?

Moderator

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency