This is a piece of information I like to pass along. 1) For decades I have had trouble loading those plastic reels on small developing tanks (going back to the 1950's). Recently I came upon an Easyload reel. These have wonderfully wide flanges on each reel side which makes it a breeze to guide film into the reel. I now have 4 of these and have thrown my Paterson reels away. The Easyload reels fit the Paterson tanks.

These reels can be obtained through B&H in New York under the name "Ultra Reel" They can be seen at the Beseler homepage as well. I prefer the Paterson tanks to the Beseler tanks because the Paterson tanks take 500 ml per 120 film while the Beseler tanks require 590 ml. (Multiples of 500 translates to liters!)

2) I was under the impression that the Konica 750 Infrared film was a thing of the past. I checked the konica homepage today and there it was: www.konica.com . So those of us who liked the easy to use slow IR film seem to be back in business.

The film is produced once per year in the Spring, so you may have to wait until next April before a new supply arrives.

I hope you enjoy these reels and film as much as I do.

Best wishes Bruce Karnopp

-- Bruce Karnopp (karnopp@umich.edu), August 01, 2001

Answers

Maco 820 is an excellent alternative to Konica 750. The only problem is the need to use true IR filters (72A, 87 and 89) to get a strong wood effect. A red 25A gives almost no IR effect on Maco. I've found Maco easier to print with little or no fogging, which is a charactistic of Konica.

-- Gene Crumpler (nikonguy@att.net), August 02, 2001.