72 Exposure Film?

[Benjamin]

Hello, so apparently Ilford used to make 72 exposure film for use with a motordrive, and in fact I have a stainless steel to take said film, I just wondered if this stuff was still available, and if not when was it discontinued?

From what I understand it was thinner than conventional 36exp film, presumably somewhat like 220 is.

Also, was it just Ilford that made such a product and what was it, HP4 or something? I can only imagine that if Ilford made it then surely Kodak's Tri-X would have been available at the same time but perhaps not.

Thanks to anyone who can shed any light on the topic.

 

[FPjohn]

Hello:

72 and 12 exposure lengths of HP5 were once available. We are left to spool our own from bulk rolls now.

yours
FPJ

 

[xayraa33]

Hello, so apparently Ilford used to make 72 exposure film for use with a motordrive, and in fact I have a stainless steel to take said film, I just wondered if this stuff was still available, and if not when was it discontinued?

From what I understand it was thinner than conventional 36exp film, presumably somewhat like 220 is.

Also, was it just Ilford that made such a product and what was it, HP4 or something? I can only imagine that if Ilford made it then surely Kodak's Tri-X would have been available at the same time but perhaps not.

Thanks to anyone who can shed any light on the topic.

I remember seeing HP 5 in the 72 exp. cassette.

 

[Benjamin]

Thanks for the replies. Who would want a 12 shot roll of 400 film? Strange..

Anyway, so can one just load 72 exp of HP5+ into an oversized cassette?

Please excuse my mild ignorance on the issue, I don't bulk load at present and this whole things is slightly before my time.

 

[capitalK]

Thanks for the replies. Who would want a 12 shot roll of 400 film? Strange..

Maybe not with B&W film, but many real estate agents would buy rolls of 8 and 12 exposure film so they could shoot a house in 12 shots and get it developed quickly.

A friend of mine has a freezer half full of 8 exposure rolls because his uncle/cousin/something switched to digital and gave him all his film.

 

[Trius]

I have rolled my own 12 exp. loads when doing film speed and dev tests.

72exp = too thin to be worth it. The only time I used it, as I recall, it was not very satisfying. Maybe it was me.

 

[raid]

I have one 72 exposure roll left.

 

[historicist]

I've never seen 12 exposure film in Europe but here in Japan it's fairly widely available still. I can kinda see the appeal, I prefer medium format because I get fewer shots per roll.

 

[Al Kaplan]

The film was on a very thin base. Nikor made large diameter reels that fit the bigger tanks they once made for a cage that held sheet film to 4x5, and later for big 220 reels. Then they introduced reels that held the 72 exposure roll and fit a standard tank. The wire coils were made out of thinner wire and closely spaced. With this flexible film it was a rare skill that you'd need to learn in order to load the reel without mistracking.

It was kind of neat though to load a 72 exposure roll in an Olympus Pen. You could easily squeeze 150 exposures out of one roll of film.

The other problem was keeping the film flat in the camera. It had too much room to curl slightly in the film channel.

Needless to say, labs hated the extra long rolls.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I actually have an old roll of that stuff that someone gave me like 12 yrs ago when I was in college, Ilford HP-5 Power Winder Film. Its still in the box, expired April, 1983. 26 yrs ago!

 

[Tom A]

The local Ilford rep gave me a bunch of this when it was introduced. It was on a very thin polyester base and as Al said, loading it on the Kinderman or Nikkor 72 exp. reel was somewhat like trying to wind up wet toilet paper!!!
Not only was the base thin - the emulsion was strange and it was difficult to get decent negs from it.
Unless you used a Focomat it was also difficult to have it stay flat in the enlarger!
I have used similar films today (Agfa 400S, a police camera film and currently Agfa Scopix X ray copy film) - very thin base and on the paterson reels they work fine - on stainless steel reels they buckle and jam. However, you can stuff almost 70 exposures into a regular IXMOO cassette and have the M2 filmcounter do two "laps"!
Kodak use to have SO 115 (per-cursor to Tech Pan on a similar base - like loading Saran Wrap on the reels!!). It was very good for aerial work with the 70 mm back as you could stick close to 25 ft of it in the cassettes and not have to switch backs that often.
When you processed it you simply run it in Kinderman tanks with 70mm reels and cut the film somewhere close to the middle (of course - you always ended up cutting a good shot this way). You also ended up with 2x15ft of very wet and flimsy film to dry!!!

 

[lewis44]

I've still got the Ilford tank and film loader set in boxes sitting in my study. Great Bookends.

 

[pinafore2]

Kodak color film used to be 12, 20 or 36 Exp. here in DK, around the 1960 - 1980.

 

[Spider67]

There were also 12 Exposure films in Austria at least up into the nineties.

 

[hydroquinone]

There were also 12 exposure BW ilford films at least till end of the 90's in France, I remember my mother used to work for some local news papers and it was the type of film which was given to the journalist for small reportages.

 

[Mark Wood]

Kodak color film used to be 12, 20 or 36 Exp. here in DK, around the 1960 - 1980.

It was the same here in the UK where it's interesting that it seems to be largely forgotten that 24 exp films are a relatively recent introduction! 20 exp was normal until the early 1980s for all manufacturers.

I remember the contemporary reports of the Ilford 72 exp Autowinder film commenting on how the thin base made it hard to handle, so I avoided it. It couldn't have been on sale for very long. What Ilford did make into the early 1980s though was the "935 Refill" which was a precut 36 exp length of film that you could reload into used Ilford cassettes (before they followed Kodak's lead and started crimping the ends on!). Now that was useful!

 

[Benjamin]

Interesting stuff, thank you all dearly for the replies. I was just going through my box of developing stuff the other day and was asking my dad about the stainless steel Ilford tank when he mentioned that it was made to take 72 exposure films.

My guess was that it was somewhat similar to 220 film, with a thin back though I didn't know that the emulsion was different.

It's also interesting what Tom A was saying about getting close to 70 exp. into an IXMOO cassette. I'm suprised that this wouldn't cause any jamming though I can't say that I've ever taken the baseplate off to see how much film was on the take up spool!

Still, in spite of the problems, I would much rather buy 72 exposure film than 24!

 

[Benjamin]

You also ended up with 2x15ft of very wet and flimsy film to dry!!!

Now where did I put that step ladder?🙄

 

[Trius]

Tom: Yes! Now I remember the real problem -- almost impossible to get proprer exposures, at least for me. There's a reason camera manufacturers made 250-exposure backs for standard base film. I think my mind was blocking out the bad memory; darkroom drama denial syndrome!

 

[btgc]

72exp film would be just proper length for holidays!