Fomapan in plastic cartridge, how do I get the lid off?

[FotohuisR]

In principle yes but at a certain moment you are collecting dust around the entrance of the film so the risk of scratches are there. Metal cassettes I am using 3-4 times and then I am dumping them with the metal scrap recycling. The fact that a 135-36 film is about 1,6m and bulk is coming in 30,5m or 17m it is handy to have a few empty cassettes available. New in Foma’s program is also a set of 4 reloadable film just in a Black canister and only one in the cassette. So you can reload 4 times.

 

[Godfrey]

Older metal cassettes with re-usable snap ends have a little strip of felt that light seals the opening the film passes through. You are supposed to wash them, with the ends removed, and let them dry so that they don't collect dust which can scratch the film. More recent metal cassettes used crimped ends (cheaper to assembled by automated machine) and weren't designed to be reused, so the light seal felt wasn't designed to last for more than one roll of film's wear and tear.

I used to use plastic cassettes with a screw-down end cap. Those needed to be washed periodically to clean the light trap felt. Since my volume of 35mm film usage is far lower than it once was, I moved to buying individual factory loads a long time ago, no more reloading...

G

 

[FotohuisR]

My last bulk film was Retropan 320 soft and Kodak double-X from s/e. Concerning the actual film prices I don’t know what will be my next bulk film. When I have started to use Fomapan film in 1991 their FP100/400 135-36 was DM0,20 which is €0,10ct. It was 2 years after the Berlin Wall had been fallen. Crazy prices in Czechoslovakia in that time era. Also the Fomapan T200 and T800 was available. In 1998 I started as distributor for FOMA in the Netherlands. A huge step in quality control was then already done. My shop I have started in 1997 and I sold everything in Summer 2023. Darkroom I did already with my father since 1967. Looking now what a regular Kodak C41 film or worse an E6 slide film is costing it is in fact out of any normal price tag. So B&W will be the main film for me in the near future. For color I made the step already to a digital SLR by trading in my analogue EOS.

 

[FotohuisR]

Maybe this is a good cheap solution without too many lost empty cassettes.
https://fomaobchod.cz/en/news/blackwhitenegativefilms/fomapan100-135set.6xfilm35mm36onspool1cartrige[11023]?ItemIdx=0

 

[Coldkennels]

Maybe this is a good cheap solution without too many lost empty cassettes.
https://fomaobchod.cz/en/news/blackwhitenegativefilms/fomapan100-135set.6xfilm35mm36onspool1cartrige[11023]?ItemIdx=0

...if you can drop those "unloaded" rolls directly into dedicated cassettes like FILCAs, this would be an amazing kit. There's a lot of early cameras that don't play nice with modern cassettes and this is quite a nice way to get around that (assuming you have the correct dedicated cassettes, that is).

 

[Joao]

...if you can drop those "unloaded" rolls directly into dedicated cassettes like FILCAs, this would be an amazing kit. There's a lot of early cameras that don't play nice with modern cassettes and this is quite a nice way to get around that (assuming you have the correct dedicated cassettes, that is).

I don't know specifically about FILCA cassetes, but the rolls of those Fomapan set are spooled around a plastic standard spool - if FILCA cassettes are compatible with modern plastic spools, you can use them.
Another point : with these pre-spooled rolls there is less blank film at the ends of the roll (when compared with the rolls I get when I use a bulk-loader device).
Regards
Joao