Spooling 400ft rolls down to 100ft rolls

jon lawrence · February 18, 2008

I recently brought 2000ft of expired kodak 7250 16mm reversal (for only £10) and I've found a handful of labs that will process the stock. The problem is a don't want to shoot and then pay for the processing for 400ft of film in case it doesn't work so I was wondering how I would go about spooling down the 400ft on to 4 100ft rolls.

I'm guessing I would have to go into a darkroom, spool 100ft on to a reel, splice it, then spool it onto another 100ft reel so it's the right way round? Work this work?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Simon Miya · February 18, 2008

Why not just shoot 100 feet and then save the rest as a shortend? You don't need to shoot the whole roll to send the exposed portion to the lab.

You can test the film without shooting at all, however. Talk to your lab about sending them a sample for a snip test.

Freya Black · February 18, 2008

I recently brought 2000ft of expired kodak 7250 16mm reversal (for only £10) and I've found a handful of labs that will process the stock. The problem is a don't want to shoot and then pay for the processing for 400ft of film in case it doesn't work so I was wondering how I would go about spooling down the 400ft on to 4 100ft rolls.
I'm guessing I would have to go into a darkroom, spool 100ft on to a reel, splice it, then spool it onto another 100ft reel so it's the right way round? Work this work?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Yes you just spool it down to a reel cut off the rest, and then you spool it back onto another reel so it is the right way round. Theres no need to splice anything tho? The film will probably come on a 400ft core so you might want to use a split sppol to save yourself getting it in a mess and to make it easier.

If you have a 400ft reel and 4 daylight sppols you could even spool the cores down onto the 400ft reel and then back again onto each 100ft spool..

7250 is a VNF process film I think in which case you could try home processing it. VNF is very similar to E6 and a lot of people have had success processing it in an E6 kit.

Hope that helps.

love

Freya

jon lawrence · February 18, 2008

Why not just shoot 100 feet and then save the rest as a shortend? You don't need to shoot the whole roll to send the exposed portion to the lab.

At the moment I only have access to cameras that can hold 100ft loads.

When I said splice I meant cut (sorry). What is a split spool and how does it work?

Thanks so much for the replies, Jon.

Freya Black · February 18, 2008

Why not just shoot 100 feet and then save the rest as a shortend? You don't need to shoot the whole roll to send the exposed portion to the lab.

At the moment I only have access to cameras that can hold 100ft loads.

When I said splice I meant cut (sorry). What is a split spool and how does it work?

Thanks so much for the replies, Jon.

A split spool is like a 400ft sppol except you can twist the 2 halves and you end up with 2 seperate wheels! You can then put the core in the middle, twist the 2 wheels back together, and you then have a sppol with al the film already on it! Now the film is on a spool it's harder for it to come apart and go everywhere!

I hope that makes sense. It's a bit like a visual joke, hard to explain in words! :)

love

Freya

James Steven Beverly · February 19, 2008

Why don't you do a clip test? :rolleyes:

jon lawrence · February 19, 2008

Why don't you do a clip test? :rolleyes:

How would I go about do a clip test? I feel I may be a little out of my depth here.

Thanks, Jon

Dominic Case · February 20, 2008

How would I go about do a clip test?

Send one of your rolls to the lab, and ask them to remove 5 feet and process it. (No exposure.) The result will show them and you whether the film has build up a lot of age fog. (In the case of reversal the unexposed film should of course be black, and if it is aged, it will be a very thin black, showing on the screen as grey.)

There is usually a charge for this, and it may well cost you as much as processing a hundred foot roll (check with your lab first) - but if the film turns out to be no good, it saves you wasting your time shooting with it, and if it's OK you will be able to shoot with much greater confidence.

What many people call a "clip test" we call a "dip test". May just have stemmed from misreading someone's handwriting years ago (cl - d), or it may date back to when you would test a roll of film by gettng a bucket of developer (b/w) from the lab and dipping a short strip in it to develop it.

Freya Black · February 20, 2008

Send one of your rolls to the lab, and ask them to remove 5 feet and process it. (No exposure.) The result will show them and you whether the film has build up a lot of age fog. (In the case of reversal the unexposed film should of course be black, and if it is aged, it will be a very thin black, showing on the screen as grey.)

There is usually a charge for this, and it may well cost you as much as processing a hundred foot roll (check with your lab first) - but if the film turns out to be no good, it saves you wasting your time shooting with it, and if it's OK you will be able to shoot with much greater confidence.

What many people call a "clip test" we call a "dip test". May just have stemmed from misreading someone's handwriting years ago (cl - d), or it may date back to when you would test a roll of film by gettng a bucket of developer (b/w) from the lab and dipping a short strip in it to develop it.

I think the film will fail a clip test. It was discontinued some time ago and is 400ASA. I'd be inclined to just home process it, or shoot a 100foot roll of something that you won't mind if it goes a bit funny. As Dominic says a clip test may be nearly as much as 100foot and if you actually shoot 100foot you will genuinely know what it will look like if you shoot it, and you will have 100foot of something to play with as a bonus.

Clip tests aren't really worth doing on anything this old and nasty. However you might still be able to have fun and get intresting effects if you process this, and you can even project it after you have shot it without the expense of telecine or a workprint!

Could be lots of fun! :)

love

Freya

jon lawrence · February 20, 2008

Thanks for all you help. I think things got a little off topic (probably my fault) as my original concern was actually getting the film onto 100ft rolls so I could shoot any kind of test. I'll figure out how to use a split spool and then shoot 100ft to see what the results are.

I'll keep the clip/dip test idea in the back of my mind as I'm sure it'll come in handy at some point.

Again, thanks for all your help.

-Jon

Jim Carlile · February 26, 2008

Definitely use a split reel to hold the core while you're spooling off the film. Any other way will lead to instant madness. If you do it all in a changing bag it won't be a problem. Wear some absorbent gloves or your sweaty hands will stick to the film, guaranteed.