Bulk loading 35mm film, a 101 — Start to finish

I’ve been asked many times over the past years, “You bulk roll your own film? Is it hard? How much is it? Wow! can I do it too?”

Let’s get a bulk loader

So here we go, you’ll first need a 35mm bulk loader of some sort.

I was lucky to find 2 of mine at thrift stores locally here for close to nothing, 5 dollars?

I own a Watson Model 66B (this is what this guide is using specifically), a Watson Model 100, and a Alden 74 bulk loaders. These classic type of bulk loaders are relatively easy to use, and never have given me any issues. Of course, as with all old items it’s best to check and make sure they work, and have all the pieces needed (like doors, screws and the film counter works.) There are modern alternatives too, like the Arista film loader at Freestylephoto.biz (This is where I get my bulk film if i’m not finding it on forums, or eBay or whatever.) But like I said, my trusty old ones haven’t given me grief yet.

Let me show you the basic workings of the bulk loader, before we start proceeding.

Here we see the bulk loader disassembled, to it’s literal pieces. Cap with a slit for opening and closing, knob for tightening cap onto the loader.

Inside the bulk loader is a slit where we’ll be sliding the film in complete darkness through.

Through this top slot where the film and its sprockets will run across to be counted. I will call this the “Safe Area” as it’s the area where if it’s open, the chamber which contains the bulk roll should be sealed from light. The little metal lever there stops the cover from being open, and the chamber being open at the same time. Only one or the other. Very simple in use.

This will all make more sense once you see film in it.

Film cassette options

There are a few different methods to getting / using film cassette.

If you’re doing alot of developing at home, you’ll probably have 35mm cassettes lying around, hopefully with tabs sticking out. If not, you can purchase specific bulk loading canisters from any photography site really. I’ve used Kalt bulk loading cassettes with some success, I find them actually a bit too fiddly for me. They tend to fall apart and cause havoc. I’ve lost a few rolls this way.

Options:

• Arista plastic bulk loading cassette — $5.99 pack of 5
• Arista metal bulk loading cassette — $5.49 pack of 5
• Adorama plastic film cassette — $4.99 pack of 4
• Ultrafine heavy duty metal DX400 coded film cassettes — $14.99 pack of 10

There are a few other retailers out there selling cassettes. I remember using plastic ones with as much success and even better sometimes than the metal ones. You may notice the last one has DX codes, you can actually recode already used canisters with DIY’s or what I just do is manually override the DX code in my camera.

My method of reusing cassettes

For me the cheapest and most reliable way of bulk loading film is using empty cassettes which have just a tab showing. I used to be able to get TONS of these from developing labs, or quick labs like Target, Walmart, Sams Club but as we all know these have all folded up and send their film developing out now or just don’t do it.

I tend to do a lot of home developing so I get canisters that can be re-used. I don’t pry the tops off and ruin it, so i’m able to just tape new film to the protruding tab.

Some people do this already, but will dispose of the canister after one use.

Sure that is fully acceptable and if you want to have absolutely no risk what so ever of scratching your negatives due to the felt becoming dirty after one roll? Fine, be my guest. That is great you can do that.

Me? I tend to push it. I’ll load the same canister 3–4–5 even 6 times sometimes without any issues what so ever. It’s a matter of how you care for it I guess. I rarely have scratches on my negatives and if they show it’s usually do to me dropping them on the floor… So with some practice you can utilize what you have to go very very far.

My method of using these cassettes is taking a piece of scotch tape, preferably the length of the width of the 35mm tab and taping it half way.

This leaves enough space to comfortably hold your bulk roll onto the film tab in this canister.

Now, I too have become worried at times when i’m cranking the rewind away that i’ll break the tab of tape between bulk and film. YES this DOES happen if you crank the snot out of your film rewind. OR this can ALSO happen if you keep cranking after you know the roll is done or close to it. I haven’t had this happen too often myself, but if you are mindful of when your camera is out of film, or when you rewind you don’t try a rapid wind with so much initial torque it rips the tape out, then it’ll be fine.

I’ve used this method with Hasselblad X-Pan, Contax Aria, both have motors which rewind the film and haven’t snapped the tab/tape once.

Handy Tip: If you decide to rewind the film without engaging rewind disengagement or wind too fast, or advance when the film is out, well this is where it’ll likely break first. All is not lost though, if you go find a dark area or have a changing bag near by, just go into the pitch black area and pop the bottom cover off, or side, and pull the film out and roll and put into a black film container. That’ll atleast save your roll and let you continue to shoot. Yes this has happened to me.

Getting the film ready

Load the film into the bulk loader

The next step I highly suggest you go into a room that is PITCH BLACK or put all the stuff into a changing bag if you have one. I can’t emphasize enough, that you will be loading the bulk film into your loader now. If you mess this up, it isn’t a single roll of 24 or 36 but 100′ or 50′.

Here i’ve taken an sample one out, in this case, it’s a empty Fujfilm roll holder from the previous load. You should do this in pitch back darkness though.

You must do these steps in complete darkness, as film is sensitive given to it at this stage.

1. In complete darkness, open bulk film canister and remove bag containing bulk roll film
2. Remove bulk roll of film and hold by the perimeter tightly, as to not let the film unravel by itself.
3. Remove tape which is used to keep the roll film together, and put somewhere else.
4. Continue to hold the roll film together so it doesn’t unravel.
5. Feed the end of the roll film into the bulk loader so that the film goes into the slot I mentioned above from inside the chamber. You’ll simply have to feel it, and feed it through the slot, atleast 1–2 inches in so it doesn’t retract when you position the rest of the roll film into the chamber and over the spindle.
6. Place roll film while still holding the outside, over the spindle.
7. Let go of the roll, and grab the cover of the camber, which has a slot in the middle of it, allowing film to pass freely in and out unless locked. Be sure to position the slit where the film can flow freely through, then you’ll lock it later.
8. Once the cover is back on, screw the knob back onto the spindle to keep the whole assembly light sealed again.
9. Now you can close the chamber, creating a light tight seal, you’ll have to feel this, but if you observe before you take it all apart, you can see that your bulk loader will have “OPEN” and “CLOSE”. Simply turn the chamber to the “CLOSE” Position. I will show you pics further down of this.
10. Once you know the film chamber is closed off with the film end in the slit, and through where you can access safely in daylight, go ahead and close the flap over the safe area and turn the light on.

Handy tip: with empty containers, you can use for multiple things, storing pins, badges, change?, erasers, I use one of mine to denote a “TO DEVELOP” bin.

Operating bulk loader in day light

Now is a good time to show you the little lever that most bulk loader share, it determines whether or not it’s safe to open the safe area to load film.

This is the loader in the “safe to open and do your business” position. Note the film chamber cover has a slot just right for the lever to swing up and open? Yes that’s what saves your investment.

Now we’ll open the flap to reveal the film we just loaded into the safe zone, in complete darkness.

Presto, here it is! the film. Now we must have some cassette to load this film onto, and feed it in.

Load some film!

Now that you’ve loaded the film in darkness and can operate the loader in daylight, you can now load a roll.

Be sure to cut the bulk film to a nice straight even cut. This will make sure you have an even tape surface for the cassette to mate up to.

In my case; tape the roll to the film lead. If you’re using other bulk cassette, tape the bulk roll lead to the internal of the cassette. Some cassettes actually have a locking groove in there which is nice.

You may hand wind it up to take up the film slack, place it into the loader (pull grey button that is spring loaded to fit inside the little well) and make sure it engages like so.

Then you close the flap for the safe zone, set the counter to 0, and rotate the locking metal piece to keep the safe zone light tight.

Presto. With the metal arm down, you can now rotate the chamber cover with the slit inside, from CLOSE to OPEN to open the chamber and let the film flow freely into the cassette. If you don’t do this, you’ll get ridiculous resistance and probably scratch the film.

Crank away now, you can either listen for the clicks, or watch the dial. Be sure you pay attention to how much you’re cranking vs. the clicks, You don’t want to overfill the cassette.

Once that’s complete, you’ll want to turn the chamber cover back to CLOSE, pull the silver lever up to hold the chamber in place and allow the safe zone to be safe again.

Remove the cassette by however the loader holds it, for this Watson it’s spring loaded.

What I do then is just pull the cassette out and snip it in the middle.

And now you’ve completed one roll, to start another repeat process! You just bulk loaded some film, and it probably feels good to know you just saved half of what a regular price roll is.

For 36 frames i’ll go to 41 clicks or frames. It’s just dependent on how many frames you’d like. I’ve gotten as much as 46 shots on a roll before, but the cassette was jammed full and it could risk damaging the film transport.

Where to get this bulk film? and how much does it save?

Where to buy
There are actually quite a few places to get bulk film these days, i’m going to highlight the ones that are readily available.

• Freestylephoto.biz — is my go to for 100′ bulk roll films. They offer fantastic prices, and some interesting products you wouldn’t ordinarily hear.
  – They carry Ilford, Kodak, Arista EDU, Fomapan, Kentmere, and such and very good prices.
• ORWO USA — They sell the 400 ISO equivalent N74 Plus and an 100 ISO equivalent too, I love using this film it is actually a cinematic film used in movies. Where better than to buy direct?
• Ultrafine Online — Ultrafine has been around a few years now, and offer some good 400 and 100 film. They are labelled “Ultrafine extreme” which is odd but the performance of the film is good. Couple it with a slower developer to ease the grain. They also sell other brands like Kodak, Ilford, etc.
• Film Photography Project — Stocks all sorts of bulk film at really good prices. They also sell individual rolls to try first of course.
• Reel Good Film — For the explorative types and is pretty popular these days is using cinema color film, which cross-processed in C-41 chemicals to give a interesting and pleasing result, you can try these guys. By phone you can order end-rolls of Kodak Vision 500T or whatever else they have in stock.
• eBay or Online forums are always a good source to find bulk film. You can get some well-stored hard to find films like Fujifilm Neopan 400.

Cost breakdown

Cost to purchase bulk roll of 100′ of 400 ISO Ilford HP5+ from Freestylephoto.biz as an example.

I can bulk roll 18–19 rolls of 36 exposures from a 100′ canister. Each 100′ canister costs $64.99 + $8.99 shipping, totals $73.98 to my door.

You add in the canisters you can get free some local photo labs, or ones you have lying around, and a bulk loader $~9 dollars.

The cost of 18 rolls of HP5+ 400 ISO in 36 exposure cassettes costs $100.62 + $14.99 shipping

Already there, that’s a savings of $41.63, which I could put toward another bulk roll of film of my choice, and with the bulk loader being reusable, the next round will cost less.

The cost savings are easy, and if you enjoy shooting 35mm film bulk loading is just one way to keep your costs down without taking the fun away. Savings don’t stop there, check out the Developing at home, C-41 and Black and White film to save on processing costs.

Updated November 25, 2o15 to reflect prices, and where to buy.