Topic: Bulk film, am I missing something?

[Nigel]

My stepfather found his old bulk film loader in his loft and asked me if I wanted it, so I thought I'd do the maths. I've been through this about three times to make sure I'm not about to make a fool of myself. 

I estimated a standard 36exp film with the leader etc must be about 40exposures long.
So allowing 3mm between frames 39mm x 40 frames = 1560mm
A bulk roll of Tri-X (from Silverprint) is 30.5m @ £81.14.
On that basis I'd get 19.55 rolls, let's say 19 rolls, at £4.27 / each.

A standard roll of Tri-X is £3.91, so what's the point? Plus I'd still need to buy the reloadable cassettes!

Or have I made an embarrassing howler?

[Andrea.]

Not sure you'd only get 19 rolls from each 30m. Some films are actually barely 36 exposures long anyway. More like 21 per roll - my negs have only 1mm between frames.
And it depends on the film you get . I have some 90m rolls of Polypan-f bought at about £25 each works out at less than 50p a roll.

There's some rolls of HP5 on the auction at the mo going for about £33 including postage - that's just over £1.50 per roll. Worth it I think.

Than there's foma @ around 33 euros for 30.5m, Orwo n74 @£49 etc.
Even at Silverprint's price for HP5 - £59 - it's got to be worth it.

[astrobeck]

Very interesting!
I have a bulk loader that my Dad gave to me with a box full of darkroom stuff several years ago but I've never used it because I always manage to buy film pretty cheap online, plus I don't have a lot of re-loadable cassettes.

At my first newspaper job, we had a bulk loader in the photo lab (back in the good old days when newspaper labs were still wet and not digital like now) and loaded T-max 400 in short spurts of about 20 shots per cassette because that was about how many shots we used on a daily assignment.

So now I'm curious- who all bulk loads here and why do you do so?
Just curious.

[Francois]

So allowing 3mm between frames 39mm x 40 frames = 1560mm

Actually, the inter frame spacing is more like 2mm on my Nikon.
And the leader doesn't need to be that long. The Fuji roll I have on my desk has a 40mm leader.

So, I calculate ((36mm + 2mm) x 36) + 40 mm = 1408mm per roll.

The bulk roll you have an eye on is 30.5 m = 30500 mm
30500 mm / 1408 mm = 21.6 rolls.

£81.14 / 21.6 rolls = £3.75 per roll

For that price, you're right to say it isn't much of a deal. But keep the loader. You're bound to find other emulsions at a much lower price. With the demise of Kodak, I think there might be speculation on their films; in particular with the Tri-X which is a bit of a cult emulsion.

Actually, I did bulk load one time. Thing is I found a bulk loader at a garage sale for dirt cheap and there was still some film inside

[Windy]

Don't buy reloadable cassettes either. Save old film cassettes and load new film into these. When developing leave about a cm of film sticking out of the old cassette and stick the the film to be loaded to this 'leader' with masking tape and then load into the old cassette.

I generally use cheaper film and bulk load. Films such as polypan-f as mentioned supplied by Andrea and fomapan (even at £44/100ft at ag-photographic it works out at ~£2.20/roll)

You can also make smaller rolls for olympus om10's that jam after 20 frames.

ps. I note 'A' mentions £25 for a bulk roll of ppf but charges me £27.50 - even with a 10% markup it's still cheap  

[Nick Moys]

Nigel
Firstcall Photographic currently have 30m bulk rolls of Tri-X for £56.99, which should help the maths.
Nick

[Andrea.]

Don't buy reloadable cassettes either. Save old film cassettes and load new film into these. When developing leave about a cm of film sticking out of the old cassette and stick the the film to be loaded to this 'leader' with masking tape and then load into the old cassette.

I generally use cheaper film and bulk load. Films such as polypan-f as mentioned supplied by Andrea and fomapan (even at £44/100ft at ag-photographic it works out at ~£2.20/roll)

You can also make smaller rolls for olympus om10's that jam after 20 frames.

ps. I note 'A' mentions £25 for a bulk roll of ppf but charges me £27.50 - even with a 10% markup it's still cheap  

Actually, now I think of it, the roll was £28 a can :-)

[Randy B]

I looked into it at one point too and decided it wasnt really worth it.  From my math the savings were pretty small (for tri x) considering the extra time and effort to do the bulk loading and the expense for the loader itself since i dont have one. 

Bulk loading is probably a good idea if you shoot a ton of film and need to get the most bang for buck as you possibly can though. Also theres some great bargains on expired rolls on auction sites, and some cool discontinued films that are tough to find pre rolled if youre into that sort of thing.

[Nigel]

Thanks everyone, so I was a little conservative regarding the number of rolls I can get from a roll, but the savings as great as I thought. I do like my Tri-X and I've been using it on and off for nearly 30 years! 

To some degree this comes back to the possibility that Kodak might stop making film, which I think is highly unlikely in the short term. But if they did my small fridge wouldn't hold too many rolls, however it would hold a hell of a lot of film in bulk rolls!  Just thinking that's all!

[Late Developer]

Hi Nigel.

There's another variable you haven't factored in and that's the "cost" of your time doing all this cutting and loading. I have only ever had one go at leading from bulk (many years ago when the chap I was doing weddings for used to "roll his own" as it were.) It seemed like a right faff for not a lot of cost saving - though I suppose if you do it for years, the savings will accrue over time. Personally, I don't think I could be bothered and I'd rather spend the time out shooting.

Conversely, I suspect there is a more significant saving to be had by home processing film - which I intend to start doing shortly.

[Wensleydale Blue]

Nigel

I made more or less the same calculation as you a few months back.  I bought a job lot of some out of date B&W film, some of it home bulk loaded Tri-X but some factory loaded including some 10 year old Forte Pan 400 film which I've been looking out for for a while - grain the size of gold balls reputedly.  However, also included was an old film loader.  I did similar calculations, was very suprised that so few films now come in large rolls, few of which I use on a regular basis, and only Tri-X would appear to allow me to break even, and even then I'd only be saving a couple of quid per roll.  Presumably without the demand its become an expensive to produce for niche market.

[Francois]

Loading does take some time. The best way is to take an afternoon or an evening and do a bulk job. When I did mine, I did all the remaining film on the spool which ended up being about a dozen rolls of what was at the time some mystery film.

By accident, I miscounted the number of turns of the crank and ended up with rolls of 30 exposures instead of 24. Pure genius in a way. They're a bit longer than a roll of 24 yet not as long as a roll of 36 which seems to last forever. And best of all, they divide perfectly into strips of 5 frames for my printfile sleeves!

[johann]

I planned to bulk roll. I was considering to start a project, end of 2011, consisting of using only one camera with one lens and one film for a year, as an experiment in constraints to improve my photography.
In planning for this, I bought online five fresh rolls of tri-x for a reasonable price. I had calculated that it would last me for the year wasting a roll or two per week.
Film being not cheap in Switzerland (where I live) my math showed that it is a viable solution for me. Especially now that Kodak might raise prices/go down.
I find also that throwing away less canisters and small plastic containers is kind of a good thing.