It's time for the annual Film Buying Event -- I'm down to 5 rolls.

Unfortunately, I'm struggling with the fact that economics is against me right now. I'm considering getting Keynes, Marx, Smith, et al. back on my side by bulk loading.

I had been using TMX and D3200 and was going to go with TX and TMZ for the next year. I figured out that TX is much cheaper to self-load: the break even point is 45 rolls if you get 3 uses from a film cartridge. TMX and HP5+ have similar costs.

TMZ, though, costs 58% more to bulk load not including the equipment! Since most of the time I want big grain & EI 800 when I use 35mm, I was wondering about the viability of TX or HP5+ as EI 800 films for everyday use. Is there any soup (preferably as a liquid concentrate) which makes EI 800 palatable for these films? (My previous work with them made them out to be about EI 250 in Rodinal 1:50 when metered in-camera.)

(I'd be most likely to try Rodinal (1:25 + 25g/l sodium sulfite) or HC-110, if left to my own devices. And I could live with some loss of shadow detail: I print the shadows down fairly often to assure a full black. De gustibus...)

Assuming EI 800 is possible from TX or HP5+, what bulk equipment is recommended? Right now I'm thinking Watson loader and screw-top plastic cartridges...

-- John O'Connell (boywonderiloveyou@hotmail.com), September 17, 2001

Answers

STOP! I'd like to discourage you from pursuing this bulk-loading idea any farther. The economies you speak of are false, especially if you are reusing cartridges. You will get light leaks from the cartridge sides and scratches from the cartridge felt at the worst possible times, ruining only your most wonderful photos.

Unless your luck is a whale of a lot better than mine, save yourself some genuine heartache and buy pre-loaded film. Buy in bulk, look for specials, do whatever you have to do, but avoid subjecting your film to twice as much handling and potential for scratching.

As for developers, sorry, my recommendations would all be powders: D- 76, XTOL, and Microphen. And, yes, all of them will take you to EI 800 with those films, but with significant loss of shadow detail, in my experience.

-- Brian Hinther (brianh@onewest.net), September 17, 2001.

I bulk load and have no problems with scratches. I will agree, however, that it is very easy to scratch your film unless you are careful.

My practice is to avoid getting any grit on the film cassette by putting the reloaded film in a snap-top film cannister immediately after loading. I keep an empty cannister in my camera bag, and when I finish shooting a roll, it goes directly into a cannister. Also, I use the plastic screw-top cassettes (B&H-$0.45/), and I have never had a light leak.

I should point out to you, I am meticulous about keeping everything clean. If you do the same, I don't think you'll have any trouble with scratches.

As for developers, you should check out Edwal FG7. It's an excellent developer, but seems to have fallen from favor of late, and I don't know why. It yields nice tight grain, very good tonality and excellent sharpness. Another liquid concentrate that is worth a look is Ilford Ilfosol S. Both these developers employ phenidone and thus provide a real speed increase of +/- 1/2 stop. Another developer that might suit you well is FX-2 or TFX-2. You can buy them from Photographer's Formulary in liquid form. TFX-2 is PH's proprietary modification of the original FX-2 formula. I've used both and don't find any significant difference. FX-2 is very simple to make, so you could save considerable money by buying the chemicals from PH and making your own stock solutions.

Finally, if you decide to forego bulk loading, you can get a great deal on Fuji SS100 film from B&H; they sell it for $1.99 a roll. It's an excellent conventional type film, similar in properties to FP4+. The also often have Fuji Neopan 400 for $2.49 a roll; it's considerably better than TX and about equal to HP5+, and it pushes very nicely to 800.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), September 17, 2001.

Unlike Brian, I highly recommend bulk loading your own film. As long as you're reasonably careful you should have no problems. I've been bulk loading Tri-X using a Watson loader and Kodak snap-cap cassettes. I replace the cassettes after 20 loading cycles -- a magic number I picked out of thin air. I always shoot a test roll through a cassette before I commit it to, ahem, serious work. I keep the Watson loader in a resealable freezer bag and the cassettes in plastic canisters from preloaded film.

I don't have an opinion on bulk loading other films since I like the results I get with Tri-X and D-76. The only other developer I've tried is XTOL with Delta 3200 (EI 1600/1+1/13'30"/24C). I'm indebted to John Hicks for that development data (though John does 1+1/15'/74F).

-- Bong Munoz (bong@techie.com), September 17, 2001.

I'm going to take a middle of the road view here. I bulk load TMX, FP4+, and HP5, using a couple of second hand Watsons and a nearly identical Alden-74. I've also used Lloyds and have nothing against them. If you can find a photo flea market, bulk loaders are usually cheap and easy to find- I don't think I paid more then $5 for any of 'em. Most of the easily available metal cassettes are junk, and the plastic ones are only a little better. Ah, for the days of the original Kodak snap-cap with it's soft and perfect velvet. Anyway, in spite of extreme attention to cleanliness, I've had scratch problems. Testing individual cassettes before doing anything serious is an excellent idea. No amount of visual inspection revealed my bad cassette, but bad it was. And it only takes one in the mix to drive you completely crazy. Now that my cassettes are proven, and with only reasonable attention to cleanliness, the results are scratch free. So, you can certainly bulk load with no problems once you get a system down. OTOH, if there is a scratch, it will be on the best frame of the roll. Also, if you bulk load in room light, the best frame will be on the exposed tail of the film- the last frame or two, because you forgot to stop before the end! Caveat emptor.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), September 18, 2001.

I don't understand those who say its not economical, unless they know of places that sell pre-packaged stuff at great prices (in which case they should let us all in on the deal!).

Using a conservative 47 inches per 24 exposure roll, I come up with a little over 25 rolls out of a 100' of film (38mm per frame and 140mm at each end, obviously you will do better with 36 exp rolls). Using current B&H prices for bulk film we have the following:

Delta 100 @ $36.95/100' = $1.48/roll Delta 400 @ $39.50/100' = $1.58/roll TMAX 100 @ $24.95/100' = $1.00/roll TMAX 400 @ $24.95/100' = $1.00/roll TMAX 3200 @ $89.95/100' = $3.59/roll

And B&H pricing for pre-packaged film: Delta 100 $2.59/roll Delta 400 $2.79/roll TMAX 100 $1.89/roll (import) TMAX 400 $1.99/roll (import) TMAX 3200 $3.19/roll (import)

TMAX 3200 seems to be an exception. Even recalculating for 36 exp rolls (65' a roll) the results are similar (I'll leave the math as an exercise for the reader).

Ignoring the "scratch" factor, it seems obviously cheaper to use bulk film.

-- Derry Bryson (derry_bryson@yahoo.com), September 18, 2001.

The economics become dramatic when you load a speciality film like Tech Pan. The film cost is about $2.50 for a 36 exposure roll, compared to $6+ for a prepackaged roll. Keep every thing very clean and protected from dust and you should have no problems. I keep my loader in a sealed freezer bag inside a tight box in a drawer. Same for the empty cassettes. Also the being able to roll any length of film is a money saver.

As to the last frames, I use the exposure counter on my motor drive to stop the film before I hit the exposed end.

-- Gene Crumpler (hassieguy@att.net), September 18, 2001.

Another tip for anyone interested in bulk-loading: if you use a camera from the "Golden Days" of mechanical cameras (Leica M, Alpa SLR, Canon RF, etc.), these manufacturers all made bulk-loading cassettes that have no felt trap to scratch film. They are designed to open inside the camera and to give the film a free path. You can sometimes find these cassettes at flea markets or in the junk drawer at older camera shops. Unfortunately, they usually don't work with newer camera models. I have a dozen of the Leica N-cassettes that work well with all Leica M models to about mid-way through the production of the M6's, when they eliminated the internal key that opens the cassette in the camera when you close the base. That tells you how rare bulk-loading has become these days. The cassettes were all well-used when I got them, from a NY area newspaper photo department, but there's really nothing to wear out. They are made from black-painted brass, so they will probably last forever.

-- Tim Nelson (timothy.nelson@yale.edu), September 19, 2001.

Another way to cut both cost and the risk of scratching is not to use reloadable cassettes at all. Rather, get once-used cassettes from the waste box at a local one hour lab. They will have a small piece of film sticking out; tape the end of your film to that piece, wind your film into the cassette with a bulk loader, and throw the cassette out after one use (after all, it was free, and there are plenty more where it came from).

-- John Lehman (al7jj@yahoo.com), September 19, 2001.

Re the metal feltless cassettes. Nikon made one as well. It was usable with all the rangefinder models and the F & F2. I don't know if it was compatible with the F3 or newer models.

-- Robert Orofino (minotaur1949@iopener.net), September 19, 2001.

For a speed increasing developer I suggest you forget Rodinal and HC- 110. Check out Ilford DD-X.

-- Tim Brown (brownt@flash.net), September 21, 2001.

I find that I never use the reloader anymore, too much trouble. Just wait until dark and go into a closet and roll it onto your cassette from the bulk roll, stop when the film you are winding is almost flush with the ends of the spool, close the cassette and turn the lights back on. If you need to be more precise about how much film you are winding on the spool cut a string the length that you want the film to be, I seem to recall that '52 inches is about 36 exp. but you could measure a page of your negatives and add a few inches. Pull the film off of the bulk reel the length of your measured string. I never have had a problem with scratches or light leaks and I use the black metal cassettes.

-- Carl Harrison (dukespeed@hotmail.com), September 23, 2001.

If you really need to avoid scratches - stay away from one hour labs!

-- cb (8fps@gmx.de), September 26, 2001.

To echo Ted, somewhat, I think you might like Edwal FG-7. I underexposed HP5 Plus by one stop (EI 800), and developed normally for EI 400, and got a very nice 8x10 print, although with slightly higher contrast printing. Extending the development time slightly would seem likely to yield good results for EI 800. I believe Edwal FG-7 and TG-7 are now handled by Brandess Kalt (of Acufine and Diafine fame)and no longer by Falcon Safety Products. BTW, TG-7 is a very nice liquid concentrate which has given me great results with T-Max 3200 at 1600 and 3200. Good Luck! Dave

-- David Lynch (dwlynch@attglobal.net), October 16, 2001.

I've been bulk loading HP5+ and shooting it at 800 for several years. Haven't had much in the way of scratches, and never had a canister open up when I didn't want it to. I use Kodak Snap Caps, and blow them out with air before each loading. I tend to put a bulk roll in the Watson loader and load up all 17 (I think it is) 36 exposure rolls at once, putting them in Ilford green top plastic canisters that I've saved from commercially purchased rolls. I mark the caps of the reloaded film canisters with an "R" (using a Sharpie) to easily identify reloads. I've found that they work fine in all of my manual wind cameras and motorized Nikons, but sometimes the little point and shoots don't have enough muscle to wind a particular cassette. I keep some commercial rolls around for those cameras.

For processing I've used Ilfotec HC at 1:31 with good results, using the Ilford recommended times for starters and adjusting a bit from there. It's an easy to mix concentrate (like HC-110, I'm told) and the stock solution seems to keep well. Results of my kids' participation in theater productions and indoor horse shows are just fine at 800. I've tried a lot of other film/developer combinations in side by side tests, and haven't found any that were materially better for these purposes (for me and my equipment and my technique - your mileage may vary.)

-- Kip Babington (cbabing3@swbell.net), October 18, 2001.