I shot a couple of rolls of HP5 this weekend using an M6 .72 TTL. The film was wound so tightly that I could barely get them on the Patterson reels. Has anyone had this problem, and do you know a remedy? Thanks.

-- Steve Wiley (wiley@accesshub.net), August 03, 2001

Answers

What do ypu mean? Wound so tight on what? Once you take it out of the film canister it's all you can do to keep it from unwinding all over the darkroom!!!!

-- jeff Schraeder (jeff@engineperformance.com), August 03, 2001.

I am a little confused as well. You could not pull it out of the cannister? Perhaps you could elaborate.

Cheers,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@powersurfr.com), August 03, 2001.

Ordinarily even if the film is tightly compressed in rewinding, the minute the cassette comes off the rewind fork you can hear it slack off. I guess if it didn't (can't imagine it not, though)a few turns of the cassette spool in the opposite direction would loosen it up.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), August 04, 2001.

Um, did you have the rewind lever on the front flipped all the way while rewinding?

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), August 04, 2001.

I think I know what Steve means. When the film is on the take up spool in the camera there is constant tension on it and it 'sets' quite tightly. It does not do this in the cannister because it is not under tension. This 'set' remains noticeable for about 1/2 day, then it will loosen. When you try and walk the film onto a Paterson reel, the film wants to turn onto the reel tighter than the reel will let it, and will eventually tighten and be difficult to load. There are a number of cures. 1) don't try an process film right out of the camera - wait a day or so and this problem will go away. 2) if you must process right after shooting, switch to stainless reels - they don't have this problem. 3) at times I've found (I too use Paterson) that I need the film processed immediately and have found that half way onto the reel it has tightened to much to get the last half on - the only cure was to cut the film and put the rest on another reel, loosing a frame (OUCH).

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), August 04, 2001.

Question: Don't RF Leicas wind the film with the emulsion 'out' on the take-up spool as you shoot? This should work counter to the natural emulsion-in curl of the film (and was in fact Barnack's intention, to improve film flatness behind the lens by exerting tension on the film). Film fresh out of a Leica or any older camera that winds inside-out should have LESS curl than, say, film out of an R8 or G2 or F5 that winds emulsion-side in.

But clearly something is going on, since Steve and Bob both encounter it.

My first tank (30 years ago) was a Paterson and I always had occasional problems especially (as Bob says) the last half of the roll. And that was with film out of old Canon SLRs, Minoltas, etc. Once I learned to load a steel reel (sort of like learning to load an M4/M6), I never used the Paterson again.

Also, if the Paterson reel has ANY residual moisture on it from previous use (which can hang around in the crannies of the film tracks for a couple of days) the moisture makes the film emulsion sticky and REALLY jams things up.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), August 05, 2001.

Thanks to Bob and Andy for clarifying the question before I had a chance to do so. I'm sure the problem is mainly due to the orientation of the film on the take-up spool. I've never had this problem with Tri-X, though, and I'm wondering if the HP5 film base is thinner. There were three days between rewinding and processing. I've always found Patterson reels superior to metal reels and this is maybe the second time I've had a problem in fifteen years of use, but this was so extreme, I did consider reaching for metal reels. I found that loading the end of the roll first was easier, being that the curl was worse on the leader side.

-- Steve Wiley (wiley@accesshub.net), August 05, 2001.