loading onto reel directly from film can?

[jimbobuk]

I didn't seem to get a lot of people interested when i explained what gizmos I use for my reel loading so far..

I brought a gadget for £10 or so from novadarkroom in the UK that basically takes the film on its spool and drops it into a cylinder with a slot to take the film out of it.. next to this there is another cylinder which takes the reel you are loading on to.. with 35mm its extremely easy, I had problems the other day doing my 1st roll of medium format as the patterson reel just didn't agree with me or my fingers in the changing bag. The beauty for me is the film isn't going everywhere.. better than that it holds it at all stages of the process and once you've started it on the reel you can literally almost let go and just wind the two sides of the reel to complete the process with everything being supported and held in the right places relative to each other.

Its called the easyloader i think, and I really like using mine so far. Unlike the keeping it in the film can suggestion the film doesn't touch anything else, infact the beauty is you are handling it all much less throughout the entire process. I have no qualms at all in recommending it for newbies like myself but think it would make everyones life easier as it's just a great idea that works very very well.

 

[RayPA]

i think that's my longest post title yet!

read here, i think, about loading onto a reel diretly from the film can, not taking the film out of the can first.

does anyone here do that?

at first i thought it was a good idea as the film would not be free to go all over the place if mishandled.
but then i got to thinking that the film would go through the felt trap again on it's way out of the can.
this might lead to an extra scratch or 2 eh?

experienced user comments welcomed.

joe

I do this almost exclusively now. When I finish a roll of film I go into the changing bag with it, open it, pull the leader out, close it back up, take it out of the bag, cut the leader square, and set it aside until I get enough rolls for a processing session (it takes about 30 seconds to do). This way I also know for sure if a roll is exposed or not.

Then when I go to load the reals, I just load directly from the cannister, through the felt (again). No problems. I use the cannister to gauge where and how to cut the film squrely from the spool. I also don't end up with a bunch of loose cannister pieces floating around inside of the changing bag.

🙂