Loading film onto developing reels

VirtualAdept

VirtualAdept

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Mads
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Dear god, how fiddly is this?
I had my first go at developing at home (dont get excited, I'm ashamed to say I used caffenol... cost of chemicals this month is prohibitive), but knowing that would be the case, I didn't use a film with any important shots on it.

I had a practice at loading a few nights ago with a ruined film I acquired from a friend and, even looking at it, I found it really tough. Two or three botched attempts at getting the film onto the reel and the end needed trimming again as it had warped.
I'll admit at being really daunted at this point since I'd be doing it all blind on a film that I actually wanted to succeed with.

Anyway, fast forward to yesterday evening and I got all my bits and pieces, a very dark room and a makeshift changing bag. My wife sat in to keep me company and calm if I started messing up.
Ten minutes of rustling later and the film was on the reel, albeit slightly away from the two little tabs to guide it in... no idea how that happened.

Now, I dont really have a question, I just wanted to share what I found to be a really satisfying experience with others who would understand.
 
When I do mine I dont wind the film completley back into the canister so I can then trim and thread the end of the film onto the spool in daylight then wind it onto the spool in the dark, I find getting it started is always the trickiest bit.
 
It does get easier with practice, honest. But some reels are easier than others to use, I favour the Jobo reels they don't have the annoying ball bearings that Patterson reels do and have a recess in the outside of the reel so you can just feed the film round with your fingers rather than trying to ratchet it round.

I'm assuming your dev'ing 35mm film, wait til you try 120 film that's even more fun:lol:
 
with 35mm it's much easier if you can rewind the film "leader out" - there's a custom setting on my EOS-3 and it's great. Then you can trim the leader like this...



outside of the changing bag. Load the first couple of inches into the spiral, then put the film and spiral into the bag as a single unit. Zip up, velcro flap over, and get your mits in the elasticated holes.

If the spiral is thoroughly dry, then it's usually a matter of 20-30 seconds of shuffling and robert's the slightly suspect bloke that hangs around your auntie. If you're not sure how dry the spiral is, give it a blast with 'er indoors hairdryer to make sure.
 
I'm dying to try 120, but I dont have a reel for it... or a camera :D

Very nearly bought a voightlander something or other in an antique shop last week, but the two lenses were miles from working properly.

I've got, I think, a patterson twin reel (35mm) tank with two reels that was given to me along with some other kit I'm never likely to use... the ball bearings did annoy me a few times on my practice runs
 
Never tried starting it outside the bag, I usually pinch the film between thumb and forefinger and pull it into the reel then wind it with the ratcheting mechanism.

I find 35mm a lot easier to wind onto a reel straight from the canister so I always try and keep the leader out.

I also actually find 120 easier than 35mm because there's less length. (I was using Tri-X though which is quite thick I think so stays flat.)
 
Think I'll add that to the list of reasons I want an EOS3. I was using an AE-1, so there was no chance of doing that really.
I wonder if my EOS5 has that option...
 
when winding back by hand you can usually feel when the film comes off the take up spool and stop before its right in the canister.

I was really cocky, shot my first film then went straight into the dark room to load it without actually practicing with the spool (jobo). wound on a treat and all worked brilliantly. second film was a complete 'mare I gave up after about 15 minutes and just stuffed it all into the dev tank, put the lid on and had another go the following morning, that time it went on alright. Some films are easier than others, I find Kodak stuff good (devd a T-max 100 tonight and that just fed onto the spool out of the canister, must have taken no more than 30sec from lights out to lid on tank) the Adox films seem much trickier though IME.
 
I found spooling 120 easier than 35mm - the headache of the wider width of 120 is certainly lessened by having less roll length in total. Always struggled with 35mm, and everyone makes it look so easy... :(
 
I am terrible at it too, especially when my hands get all sweaty inside the bag. My dad is much better (and more experienced!) at it and he generally loads the reels. My god, that makes me sound like a kid, I am 33 with a family of my own!

The Contax G2 also has a custom function to leave the leader out too, I really do need to set it!
 
menthel said:
My dad is much better (and more experienced!) at it and he generally loads the reels. My god, that makes me sound like a kid, I am 33 with a family of my own!
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:lol::lol::lol:

The only reason why you might not want to do the leader out trick is because it runs the whole length of the film over the felt trap, which may have become dirty since leaving the camera.
 
freecom2 said:
:lol::lol::lol:

The only reason why you might not want to do the leader out trick is because it runs the whole length of the film over the felt trap, which may have become dirty since leaving the camera.
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I generally stick my films straight back into the little film pot thingies, so hopefully that would be minimised. That is if my son hasn't stolen it to stick things into and then shake!
 
My own experience - 8 rolls of 35mm; 6 rolls of 120; Jobo DuoReel; Changing Bag - is that 35mm is much, much, much easier than 120!

As already mentioned 35mm is even easier if you can do the initial attachment to the reel in normal light, so I really need to get proficient with not re-winding all the way into the canister or get a retriever tool.

It took me longer to load the 120 onto the reel that it did to develop them; the film either collapsed out of the track or jammed up. I had to start over several times.

Having since watched several more Youtube vids on the subject, I intend to practice my "spooling" technique several more times before my next attempt.

I will also try completely removing the film from the paper backing before starting to spool onto the reel and I may try the option of reinforcing the initial edge by folding back the tape which attached it to the paper, though I'm worried that this might be too thick for the tracks on the Jobo reel.

Paul
 
paterson reels open out to 120
 
I'll have another look in a couple of days (I'm on nights atm)
 
After 500 odd rolls of 120, could I hellas load 35mm, that's why I've only done 3...:lol:

I do remember though a few years ago, posting boiling rage posts at a forum not unlike this one after early 120 loading failures.
You do think you'll never do it.
You can't imagine why anyone would try to do it.
And even if you did do it, could you even be arsed to do it again.
All I can say is, one minute it was mission impossible, and the next they were practically loading themselves.

Actually, I got the boiling rage a few months ago and I wanted to come here and spit fire and brimstone, but I let it go.
And the reason for the boiling rage ??

3 rolls of kodachrome ruined because I couldn't get the leaders out...

I ate 35mm
 
A good quality changing bag can take away the stress and keeps sweaty palms from likely to happen. Most folks use ebay to source changing bag probably have been my customers :D
 
I tried a number of different reels, and found the metal spiral that's loaded manually from the middle outwards to be easier than the 'shuffle backwards and forwards' type. Doesn't matter if the reel is wet either.
 
if you are having trouble with paterson reels, get yourself a reel from AP, the reels have much more forgiving take up flanges so you can load much easier. i believe AG photographic and Firstcall photographic stock them :)
 
The main problem i have is that i don't know when to stop winding - i figure it can't be exposed all the way up to where it joins the spool, but there's a point where you can feel an increased resistance, almost like it starts to overlap. Thing is when i've tried to cut it before then i've ended up with half a last frame. Hmm...
 
Somehow I find fuji films a bit curly and a lot more frustrating on my plastic paterson reels - still seem to shoot more colour on Fuji, though. Working through a batch of Rollei Retro at the moment, which goes on like a dream!

As to rewinding on an AE-1, it's got a couple of tricks up it's sleeve. The film rewind button has a white dot on it, so you can see it spinning as you rewind. As soon as that stops spinning, the film's rewound with the leader out. I'm fairly sure it counts down the exposures on the top too as you rewind, but I may be wrong.
 
offline said:
...I'm fairly sure it counts down the exposures on the top too as you rewind, but I may be wrong.
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I know for a fact that the A-1 does count down the exposures as you rewind, vaguely remember the AE1p doing so as well, but it is 25+ years ago since I had mine nicked :(
 
Yep, I'm resurrecting this thread. I had a bash at putting film onto the reels by leaving out/retrieving the leader, getting it started on the reel then going dark. It didn't go well, both films gnarled up and had areas where it was in contact with itself, and in the end I got frustrated and dev'd it anyway. 20 minutes too short, too.

Last night I utilised the windowless toilets at work to load two more, this time using the 'proper' method of removing the reels from the canister etc, and it was easy as pie. The one thing I did differently to the first time I tried rolling one onto a reel was retrieved and trimmed the leader first, before going dark... It made the process of fitting it into the reel so much easier.
 
Worst part of film photography IMO
 
VirtualAdept said:
Yep, I'm resurrecting this thread. I had a bash at putting film onto the reels by leaving out/retrieving the leader, getting it started on the reel then going dark. It didn't go well, both films gnarled up and had areas where it was in contact with itself, and in the end I got frustrated and dev'd it anyway. 20 minutes too short, too.

Last night I utilised the windowless toilets at work to load two more, this time using the 'proper' method of removing the reels from the canister etc, and it was easy as pie. The one thing I did differently to the first time I tried rolling one onto a reel was retrieved and trimmed the leader first, before going dark... It made the process of fitting it into the reel so much easier.
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I have a lot of sympathy for anyone with this problem, Mads, as I really struggled with this when I began processing my own 35mm film at the start of this year :|.

Mark's tip about trimming the leader was one of the ones that got me onto the right track, but the one factor which really clinched it for me was this - you have to make sure that the end of the leader is either straight, or curling slightly towards the centre of the reel :naughty:.

The problem that you described of the film jamming and touching against itself seems to be caused when the end of the film is curling out towards the outside of the reel and then gets itself tucked into the outer groove again as the new layer of film is forced onto the reel. It also adds tremendously to the amount of friction when pushing the film around the grooves in the reel (increasing the chances of the film buckling or the sprocket holes tearing :().

So, what I discovered was that by just trimmng off a bit more of the leader than the absolute minimum possible and then simply curling the end of the film around the spindle that the spiral reel fits onto (until the slight downward curve stays in the film), the film slides on much more easily :). It doesn't even matter whether you've pulled all of the film out of the canister, or whether you wind it from the canister onto the reel - as long as the cut end of the film is not fouling the outer edge of the groove that it's in, everything should go like clockwork :thumbs:.

That said, even I fluff it up from time and when I do so, I simply take the whole mess (film, reel, spindle and all), put them inside the developing tank (without any checmicals in, of course ;)), put the lid on tight, put the lights back on and ... leave it for another day when I have more patience :lol:!

As others have said, this part of the process really does get easier with practise - it's really not the 'black art' that it may at first appear to be :D.

Good luck!
 
This is why I never got into self devving. It would take longer than the entire dev process just to load the flipping film on the reel.

Is there a good reason why you can't wear night vision goggles to assist the loading process so you could actually see what on earth you were doing?
 
srichards said:
This is why I never got into self devving. It would take longer than the entire dev process just to load the flipping film on the reel.

Is there a good reason why you can't wear night vision goggles to assist the loading process so you could actually see what on earth you were doing?
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:D I suppose that you could, if you had a pair.

Actually, I'm tempted to say that loading a roll of film in the dark is a bit like having sex in the dark for the first time :lol:, but we're a family forum here, so I won't :shake:.

Let's just say that it is humanly possible ;).
 
A little tip concerning medium format film, do not try to push the film into the reel. It is far easier to PULL it into the spool. Please do not feed the backing paper into the spool by mistake.
 
srichards said:
This is why I never got into self devving. It would take longer than the entire dev process just to load the flipping film on the reel.
Click to expand...

With the right reel (clean reels with wide flanges is best) and a bit of practice with test rolls, it really isn't an issue. Loading the first few involved an alarming amount of swearing (the beeper would've run out of batteries, frankly), but tricks like cutting 45 degree angles off the leading end of the film all help out, and you get the knack of it after a while.
 
freecom2 said:
With the right reel (clean reels with wide flanges is best) and a bit of practice with test rolls, it really isn't an issue. Loading the first few involved an alarming amount of swearing (the beeper would've run out of batteries, frankly), but tricks like cutting 45 degree angles off the leading end of the film all help out, and you get the knack of it after a while.
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I cant say how much that particular tip has helped me since I first stumbled on it.
My Mrs thinks it's hilarious, the times ive been a pitch black room and she can hear me shouting 'well, why the hell have you done that?! The notches arent even on this side' and the like
 
VirtualAdept said:
I cant say how much that particular tip has helped me since I first stumbled on it.
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The wide flanges or the 45 degree cut? The latter actually made the difference between getting it on the reel and not... I tried to miss it out once and ended up getting nowhere, I swear by it now! :thumbs:
 
Aye, the 45 degree cut. It's made loading so much easier.
 
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