Exposing Eastman (Double-X) 5222 in the Leica

Thanks for your help, I'll give the coffee filters a try. Another cheap solution.

BTW while at the one-hour lab today, I picked up some used 35mm cartridges they were going to throw out, with just a bit of film leader sticking out from each. So I bulk-loaded them, using scotch magic tape to attach Ilford Pan-F to the exposed leader and then ran the Watson bulk loader as usual. After "finessing" the leader and cranking the original leader and tape back into each film cartridge, the loader was closed up, and ran through 36 exposures without any issues. So that is a "no-cost" way to get good decent film cartridges. It really does work!
 
hey Tom, how do you use/load those casettes? and where do you get them? what do they usually cost? I only shoot bulk and can really get that many reuses out of the yellow Kalt reloadable casettes.
 
Tuulikki made a small Y-tube showing how to load the IXMOO's. Go to the signature of this post and you will find them.
The IXMOO's are usually picked up at swap-meet, in trades etc. Good friends have also donated lots of them to me when they went digital!
The price varies, depending on the optimism of the seller. There is a guy in Germany that I see every two years at the swap-meet at PhotoKina. He has 1 cassette and he is asking 25 Euros for it. So far no takers! Usually they go for between $5-8 without the plastic container and $10-12 with it. Sounds
expensive, but you never have to replace them! The biggest source of these have been hospitals and research institutions who used Reprovit copying systems. They are all going digital and this stuff gets dumped (unfortunately litterally "dumped: - I know of one case where the Reprovit, the Md camera and 100's of IXMOO's were thrown into a landfill!).
Check with your local dealers and ask them to keep an eye open for IXMOO's. If they know that there is a buyer, they tend to be more interested in taking them in as trades.
It takes a while to get the hang of loading them, so try with "junk" film first until you got the motions done pat!
You need 16-20 of them to do a full 100ft can of film - or 72-75 for a 400ft cans.
 
Just souped todays 5 rolls of XX. I decided to try Rodinal 1:100 for 20 minutes. Did not work very well - way too thin! Shadows blocked up solidly. I will call it ART and try to scan them tomorrow! Would work if you like black truly black! Back to MQ type developers instead. Hope of decent weather so I will see if I can do another batch in the next couple of days.
 
Tom-
Thanks again for all your film/developer tests! I just finished reading about combing Vit C. and Rodinal developers in an effort to overcome the shortcomings of each, so many options.

I just loaded 5 rolls of Double-X, and hope to get them shot while on a press-check in LA. Maybe the weather will be a little better there than here in the NW. They'll be souped in Xtol when I get home.
 
I just got done sleeving my two rolls that went through the Tmax developer. Everything came out pretty much OK, except some of the frames where I started ~400 ASA and bracketed down. Of course my 5222 is outdated, and a little fogged, so it's not really the best test... I at least know that the rest of the 100' is worth using though!

Now when I was doing test rolls and had access to the wet darkroom at school we'd do a roll of bracketed shots of a model holding a grey card in different light. Then print the contact sheet so the film base was just slightly lighter than true black, and pick the best frames in each bracket to establish our EI.

What's the best test when scanning negatives? Even my crappy old Epson flatbed can pull a surprising amount of image out of really ugly negatives.
 
I've been out yesterday, this morning, and this afternoon with M2, shooting XX at 1/250@f8 with hazy sun, and the 85mmf1.9 Jupiter-9 lens from Fedka. It's very much like the 85mm Zeiss Contax Sonnar (similar Bokeh).

My short-term goal is to get another five XX rolls run together , in my new Honeywell Nikkor tank. The coffee filter trick from Al worked out just great, the MQ developer is now clear, with no suspended crap I can see. But it's obviously a sulphite-saturated solution. Anybody know about Microdol-X with this XX film?

I'm going to hit some more one-hour minilabs and procure more 35mm cartridges with C-41 (1-inch of film sticking out). That will free up an -awful- lot of Snap-Caps to load more XX.
 
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What I really should be doing is writing a book about all the stuff that was just considered such "common knowledge" years ago that nobody ever bothered to write it down back in the old days. Before soda bottles came along plastic bleach jugs were free. I don't know where I learned the coffee filter trick but it was a long time ago! Plastic measuring cups are a fraction of the price of beakers at the photo shop. Same goes for funnels! Clothes pins instead of "film clips", the list goes on...

Plastic measuring cups from the dollar store aren't always exactly accurate. They're OK for mixing stock solution, but for a 1:1 dilution I measure the developer in one cup, pour it into another larger one, then measure the water in the same cup I used for the developer.
 
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Just finished "taggin" and downloading about 30 shots on Flickr, done with XX and Rodinal 1:100/20 min. Very dense shadows - it looks about 3/4 of a stop underdeveloped. This was yesterdays "take" of 5 rolls of XX. It was shot "meter less", but as it was contrasty light (SUN!) that probably pushed contrast a bit more.

Al, I have been using the coffefilter trick for years. Standard Melitta filter holder will fit nicely on a 2000 ml Paterson "jug". I tend to do it every 15-20 rolls and usually dump the chemistry after 50-60 rolls to avoid build up of bromide in the "soup".
 
Loading from big bulk rolls

Loading from big bulk rolls

After Tom got me inspired to find some IXMOO cassettes and try free-hand loading, I discovered the Leica AFLOO gadget, and bought one for a good price from KEH. I've mounted it on a board I can put on the bench in the darkroom (er - bathroom!). I couldn't justify the prices that the genuine Leica template fetches, so I made my own for cutting the "V" on the end of the film, for inserting into the clip in the spool.

In the dark its a bit of a fiddle, but I can manage a 400 foot roll without dropping it (yet!), and I just keep winding until the film is level with the edges of the spool, which gives me between 30 and 35 exposures depending on how tight it is wound on.

Yes, I know, I have a serious weakness for good gadgets! 😀

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Hi Chris!

I was looking at the AFLOO when I was shopping last with KEH. Do you know if it will work with a regular film cartridge? I can't use the IMXOO's. Thanks!

-Dan
 
I've been looking for some IXMOOs, as they will work in my M4-P. Now I'm going to have to ad the AFLOO to my list.

Should these be very difficult to find?

(I've got 400' of XX on its way)
 
I long ago learned to load cassettes by hand in the dark because it's faster than using a loader. With Leica cassettes bend the last inch of film back hard enough to crease it. Then when you get the thing assembled slowly turn the spool in the "rewind" direction and the end will pop through the slot, easy to grab. You can leave the creased part as part of your leader. It makes it easier for the M4 tulip to grab and doesn't cause a problem with older cameras.

Also, after I've been in the darkroom for about ten minutes I can see a bit of light coming in around the air conditioner and door even though the edges of the openings are painted black. It's enough light so I can barely see where the tray of cassettes and the bulk roll are on the counter but it doesn't fog the film. It's handy if a spool rolls away. Until I dicovered just how sensitive my eyes were I used to keep them closed when loading. Your eyes might be able to do it too.
 
Chris, the AFLOO is cute and works reasonably well. What you can do is attach a L-shaped bracket on your board and put a dowel on it. This allows you to have the reel of film "hanging" and reduces twisting of the film.
I used to have a set-up like that and I added a feature to it. The reel of film was about 6 feet away and I made a small folding clamp at 5feet 5 inches that would hold the film down. I would pull out the film and stick it on the cassette spool, clamp the other end and cut it. Now I had 37 expousres in a strip. The next load was simple, just lift the clamp, pull out another strip, clamp down and cut. Very quick and you consistently got 37-38 frames. My current darkroom does not accomodate that type of system, though I am thinking of making a wall mounted, hinged strip of metal that can handle the 400 ft reel and and use it as a cutting template.
 
tomasis said:
I guess that one has to work hard to find cheap ixmoo, afloo hmmm damn even 20-30 ones cost multum
Click to expand...

In Sweden it should be easy to find IXMOO's as they were used by hospitals, newspapers etc. Check with the Leica stores and even the camera flea markets.
Tom
 
I wish I were in Sweden - they don't seem to be very easy to find IXMOOs here in the states- at least not in the NW.

Although there seem to be quite a few AFLOOs around.
Do any of you know if the AFLOO will accept a regular reloadable film spool?
 
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Nokton48 said:
Hi Chris!

I was looking at the AFLOO when I was shopping last with KEH. Do you know if it will work with a regular film cartridge? I can't use the IMXOO's. Thanks!

-Dan
Click to expand...

Dan - yes it will work with regular cartridges too, although the spools don't fit quite as well and I sometimes get a bit of slippage when winding.
 
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