Originally posted by Jonathan Mac How did you load the 135 film in the camera? I've seen some special kits to do this but they're rare and hence expensive.
The low-tech way is to put a regular 35mm canister in the camera at the usual place, center it with a bit of foam rubber top and bottom and attach the end of the film to the 120 take-up spool with a piece of tape. Some cut the leader to have a square end, but I don't bother with that. The red window at the back should be closed and also taped over with some black electrical tape.
The high tech way is to purchase ready-made spacers or a sprocket kit, but they are expensive for what you get.
My way was to cut the ends off a spare 120 spool so that I could use these as spacers to center the canister in the camera (in relation to the frame equidistant from top and bottom). The top spacer must be shorter than the bottom one in order to center the canister correctly. In addition, I glued two small hardwood pegs to the spacers that fit inside the 35mm spool. These keep the whole assembly together.
I have taken some photos that explain it all much better. This is what my spacers look like:
Pull the leader across to the take-up spool and attach with a piece of tape:
There is no frame counter on an old folder camera, and you obviously cannot use the window on the back, as the film does not have any backing paper with numbers. I marked the rewind wheel with a felt-top pen and count the revolutions. I advanced the film two full turns for each frame, but obviously this will gradually advance the film more as take-up spool holds more film. I have since found a
35mm Film Advance Guide for Sprocket Hole Photography that tells me the number of turns to use starting with just under two turns and ending with just one turn as the take-up spool is filled up. With this method it should be possible to get 24 frames on a 35 mm film in a 6x6 camera.
I got only 13 frames on my first try:
I can see that a modern canister fits better than an old Ilford one, so light leaks and hopefully also scratches should not be a problem next time.
---------- Post added 09-03-2014 at 03:14 AM ----------
Originally posted by baro-nite Certainly a distinctive look, and somehow especially striking with the cattle!
Yes, it's a gimmick, I know. But sometimes it fuels the imagination to try something new.
On the one with the cattle I used a harder grade filter during printing (Multigrade RC paper - filter grade 4). Most of the others are grade 3 or in some cases grade 2. Grade 4 gives a more punchy result.
Last edited by LaHo; 09-03-2014 at 03:33 AM.
Reason: spelling