this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2025
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Photography

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What thick BnW film for easy manual development ? (testing.crazypeople.online)
submitted 3 days ago by m33@lemmy.zip to c/photography@lemmy.ml
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Hello there

I just developed two black and white film rolls. That was a painful experience, because of my bad choice of film:

👿 The Lucky SHD400 is too thin, curling on itself like crazy, slipping on the reel.

🫤 The Lomography earl grey 100 is a bit thicker, better catch on reel’s sides and locking ball.

I wish next rolls will be easier to feed on the reel, any advices ?

Until now nothing beats the Kikipan 320. But it’s not produced anymore.

Asking AI seems only to praise most expensive films, not sure if it is true or biased.

Also I tired asking on the mastodon and associated platform first with not much luck.

Hopefully lemmy is better suited for that kind of open question ?

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[–] cr1cket@sopuli.xyz 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Plastic reels just have a tendency to jam. In the end it's basic physics. You push a thin and flexible material down into a spiral. At some point the resistance will win.

If you keep your plastic reels clean and dry(!) and use films with a decently thick base, it usually still works fine though. Once you use a a film with a more flimsy base, this will turn into a problem.

The make of the film material is basically zero problem with metal reels though, because you wind the film onto them. No pushing of flexible material involved. Metal reels also just work fine if you get sweaty hands inside your changing bag because it's summer and everything is hot.

I mostly use metal reels nowadays. Because the handling is absolutely predicatable and they're also easier to clean and dry. Sometimes i still use the plastic reels, because i have them, but only with films like Ilford. Because they are thick enough to not jam up everything.

[–] m33@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Many people seems to praise metal reels like you do, I will buy one at some point but I can’t imagine loading a soft or curly film without the help of a ball bearing …?

Like what prevents it to slip backwards ? How to avoid touching the negative surface with my hands…

(I wear vinyl gloves in the dark chamber to avoid sweat and figerprints)

[–] cr1cket@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 days ago

You hold the film on the edges and let it slip through while winding it on the reel. There's a bunch of videos that show the process. It's pretty straight forward.

As with everything: pratice first until you can literally do it blindly.

I don't wear any gloves. I start with clean hands and whatever tiny fingerprint-fragment might get onto anything, will be dissolved multiple times by the chemicals anyway :-)

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Many people seems to praise metal reels like you do, I will buy one at some point but I can’t imagine loading a soft or curly film without the help of a ball bearing …?

Like what prevents it to slip backwards ? How to avoid touching the negative surface with my hands…

Think about a metal tape measure. Its a long piece of floppy metal, but can stand nearly straight when held horizontally for many feet (or CM). Its because the metal is curved. When loading the film you do the same them. You hold the film at the edges and squeeze it a bit so it has that same curve as a tape measure. The metal reel is slightly narrower than 35mm film so the film goes in easy when curved, but when it gets to the binding point in the reel it expands out becoming wider, where it gets "caught" by the edge of the wire reel.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Its been a looooong time since I developed my own film (which was also black and white), but from my experience, the plastic reels were always worse than the metal reels. I always used something like this and it worked very well. Little difficulty getting it on the reels in the pitch black dark.

I had to practice in daylight a couple of times with prior with developed (or scrap) film, but once I got the technique it was very easy to replicate in the dark.

[–] roflo1@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago

Funny. I actually prefer the plastic reels. I feel like the metal ball bearings (not present in the only metallic reel I ever owned) do all of the hard work for me.

Maybe it’s just what I got used to?

[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I’ve always developed my own medium format Ilford HP5 with little to no issues.

Honestly, getting film on those plastic spools can be tricky regardless of the film. There are a few tricks people suggest that might help (e.g. lubricating the ball bearings with pencil graphite, and using an old scrap of film as a lead-in to get you started) but loading them is something you just have to get better at over time.

[–] Unusable3151@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Agreed. I struggled with thinner films at first, but got used to doing it. Just keep practicing, OP!

[–] m33@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago

Yes I must insist, because I’ve bought a few rolls of those cheap films, I won’t waste them.

Like @MurrayL said I will try a few tricks to make it easier, I already prime the reel on daylight. But it get messy when the film slips out of the reel in the dark.

[–] hyacin@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm not sure if they're thick, but I've done a couple flavours of Ilford, and a LOT of Flic Film UltraPan 400 as I bought a HUGE bulk reel and loader to make my own rolls. Neither seemed abnormally difficult? Just the roughly expected amount of difficult at first, as I had never done any of this before! Once I got the hang of it though it was pretty smooth sailing.

[–] m33@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

With a total of 4 films developed at home, with bergger one monobath, I haven’t mastered anything yet.

But those last two rolls were almost impossible to load. I will get back on this thread to tell you guys if they were damaged or scratched, I hope not.

[–] hyacin@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 hours ago

iirc - I learned the whole thing from Analog Resurgence' video on the subject - he recommended something for practice... I can't remember if it was, the ends of rolls, or, like, already developed strips (seems kinda dangerous so probably not) ... or ... maybe it was in the bulk loader video he had the suggestion and I adapted it to practice the development rolling process too or something ...

I feel like I can remember sitting on the couch with my hands under a blanket or something (I'm sure it wasn't real film so no concerns about spoiling) and just doing it over and over without being able to see ...

I really wish I could remember, but it was a couple years ago now. I guess the long and the short of it though was that practice did indeed make, well, 'better', lol. Honestly not sure how much luck I'd have if I tried today as it has been so long, but at the time I was banging out at least 1-2 rolls per week for a good 3-5 months and got pretty ok at it.

Helped of course doing the bulk rolls, because I could literally just spool up a 12 shot roll or whatever, go for a five minute walk and shoot the whole thing with no remorse of waste (as I may have with 24 or 36 shots) and then do my thing!