Bulk loading your own film
Ah, it’s a proper blast from the past, this one… Did you know you can actually load your own photographic film into 36mm canisters? It’s possible, it’s easy, and it actually saves you a mahoosive amount of money, because buying film in bulk is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying film by film.
Of course, this being film, it has to be done in your film developing room, in complete and utter darkness. It isn’t, however, much more difficult than unloading and threading the film into your developing tanks, so it’s worth a go… That is, if they still sell film in bulk. I haven’t actually stepped into a camera store for so long, that I wouldn’t know.
Either way, if you manage to find bulk loading film, then you can’t go much wrong by reading The Bulk Loading FAQ – it’s now here on Photocritic- it contains everything you need to know.
Good luck!
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Insights, suggestions and comments
I do this all the time at my school… Its actually quite a bit of fun (and saves a _lot_ of money).
They still sell bulk film at porters.com They have a lovely print catalog, too.
That Bulk Loading FAQ page is gone.
The bulk loading faq is on the ‘wayback machine’ archives. Here is the link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060127220729/http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/genie/bulk.html
Thanks,
Bob M.
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