Trick to retrieve film leader

Those stainless steel ones do the job just fine - I'll never remember how to use them without the instruction sheet though
 
I have been doing this for years. If you are worried about germs and so on, just wet your (clean, scrubbed) fingers and then wet the film leader used as retriever, bypassing the fetish film licking scene :) . Every other method I tried was not consistently so successful, or needed a lot of more tries in comparison. Of course, best practice is *not* to rewind the full film into the cartridge, by careful hand-touch/ear combination, or use a camera that can be set to leave the leader out when automatically rewinding.
I am surprised to see this posted as a novel method, as I thought it was ancient wisdom. But anyways, it does work indeed.
 
Why you need to retrieve it anyway?
No idea why you need to leak on film. Taste is different. I hope it is C-19 free.


If canister is not re-usable I just pop it open with same scissors which are in use to cut film before loading into the reel. I do it in the dark, btw.
 
blumoon said:
I use this:
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That blumoon looks like the old Kalt apparatus that I use and prefer. The instructions in the photo look to have been originally hammered out on someone's electric typewriter. I remember when these film extractors hung on a peg board display at the camera shop, along with other such niceties like bulb shutter releases and cheaply made lens brushes.
 
From the roll I retrieved with lick..
First roll I've developed in decades!

Developed with cinestill D96 monobath.
Arista 400, Nikon F3 Ltd, CV 40 SL2

 
madNbad said:
Huss, did you use a tank or a Lab Box?
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Just a simple dev tank from freestyle photo. Was going to use a changing bag but realized that one of my closets is light tight so just loaded it in there.
Super easy.
Just did a roll of 120 last night too! Will scan that later today.
 
First trick I learned was to lick the leader.


The trick is then to yank it out very very quickly, it's like magic.
 
These days I just break open the cannister at the film opening. I use a changing tent, and I don't use re-usable cannisters.
 
znapper said:
First trick I learned was to lick the leader.


The trick is then to yank it out very very quickly, it's like magic.
Click to expand...

Aaaaannnd I just did it again today. Finished a roll of film on a lunch walk, wound it all the way back in because I was thinking of a meeting I had to join..
:eek:

But, the trick worked again! First time, like a charm. Exactly as you describe.
This time I used a roll of unused Lomo 800 to retrieve the leader on a roll of Ilford Pan F 50.
Lick it. Shove it in. Turn the spool on the roll of the wound in film as if you are still rewinding it till it catches. Yank it out.
 
I just tried this for the first time in my life and it took less than 30 seconds to do.

It works dry. You don't have to lick it.

I just inserted a dry leader and unspooled the roll whose leader I was trying to retrieve until the "lost" leader jammed in the rubber light seal on top of the inserted leader (be sure the narrow ends match up). Once it jammed, I pulled out the inserted leader slowly and the friction made the other leader come out with it.
 
Very cool! This is great info for peeps that don’t have a film retrieving tool. You don’t need one, just another roll of film!
 
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