Thoughts on: Bulk Film

I’ve been asked twice recently “What is bulk film?” I thought I would write a post.

If you are newish to film photography I should start by offering a brief explanation:

What is bulk Film? Most bulk film is black and white 35mm film. Exactly the same stuff that can be purchased in 24’s or 36’s. It’s just a continuous length, usually 17 meters or more often 30.5 meters. Traditionally it was 100 feet, hence the odd length. It is just a length of film, no cassettes, boxes, pots or labels. The user can (in total darkness) divide it up as wished, and use as wished. There are pro and con’s – an that is the point of this post.

Above is my bulk loader. It takes 100ft (30.5m) of film. That will give me about 17 rolls of 36 exp. In there at the moment is Ilford Delta 100. The main reason for “rolling your own” is a cost saving, especially if you get through quite a bit of the same film stock. If I look at Analogue Wonderland for example, a 30.5 meter length of FP4 is, as I write, £128. That should give 17 36 exposure films. They sell a regular FP4 36 exposure for £9:50, £161:50 (a saving of £33:50 – £1:97 a roll). Ok – that’s not an insignificant amount of money, especially if you get through a lot of film. BUT… if you take into account the cost of the bulk loaded and re-loadable cassettes, it all becomes a bit like solar panels in that it takes a time before the real savings kicks in. However I think the “hidden savings” are even better. What do I mean by that?

These days when you buy a length of Ilford film it comes in a light tight, black bag inside a cardboard box. Both useful, but ultimately easily recycled. Put another way, it’s 17 boxes, 17 plastic pots, 17 cassettes, with 17 plastic cores, and an outer plastic wrapping (on a block of 10) that you are NOT buying or consuming and then dumping. Further more buy re-using your last 17, they get a second use, rather than be single use plastic. As I develop my own B/W film, any film cassettes that I buy get used at least once more. It saves you money, and it saves waste.

My bulk loader above, once it’s closed and ready to load film, clicks with every turn for every exposure. 40 clicks gives me a 36 exp film with a bit for a leader. But who said you have to use 36? I recently decided to load up a 18 exp roll for use in my half frame Olympus EE3, yup a 36 for half frame. I knew I wouldn’t need 72! IF I’m testing a camera I can load up a 8 or a 10. If I want to photograph something with a few shots and develop it quickly I can load any length I want. At the other end of the scale there are magazines for certain cameras that take 50ft runs, so you can shoot for longer without stopping.. loading it onto a Paterson reel? I wish you luck! 🙂

So…. here is my personal Pro’s/Cons list:

Pro’s

• Saves you money
• Offers flexibility of film length choice for different projects
• Saves waste, and can turn single use plastic into 2, 3 or more use plastic

Cons:

• You always loose the LAST frame, don’t make your last image of the roll, your best!
• You still need a darkroom or changing (dark) bag to get the film into the loader!
• It takes a little time to do, not much, but a bit, and it does take a couple of bulk rolls to regain the cost of the loader itself (buy one on Epray for cheap!!) or better still – don’t! ……

I have a “spare” bulk loader that I never use. I purchased it at a time when I used loads of film and they were cheap. My thinking was rather like medium format camera backs – HP5 in one, FP4 in the other. In reality I never use it. Mostly I just get myself set up and roll away! So if anyone in the UK would like one, (sorry I’m limiting it to the UK due to postage) you can have it, for free, to get you started! Just contact me in the comments!

Up-date: It’s found a new home and heading north!!! 🙂