Digital BW, The Print

mfaphoto@... wrote:

>     I have been doing photography since 1966 and have been teaching it since the early 70's. I have used just about every tank and film reel on the market for every size of film.  My opinion is that any plastic film reel with moving parts has a tendency to push the film out of the grooves. You might be able to minimize this by turning the reel halves little by little instead of full moves back and forth. However, much is dependent on the film curl and how dry it is in your area. If the film has a tight curl and the atmosphereis dry, the film has a tendency to stay tightly curled and jump out of the grooves. One plastic tank, and probably the cheapest one, is the Star-D. It holds one roll at a time and is about 4 inches tall. The reel is adjustable for 35mm up to 120. Anyway, that was the first reel that I used for 120 and it seems to be the best. The key is that the grooves are bigger and therefore the film does not jump out easily. I have tried Paterson and Jobo reels and o
>thers with various degrees of success. 
>
There are some tricks with the plastic reels to should almost eliminate 
this problem. First make sure they are dry. Use a hair dried on them for 
about 30 seconds to minimize any mosture. Next when you cut the film off 
the spool, cut the corners of the film at a 45 degree angle so there is 
no edge to catch. This cut shoud be small - no more than 1/4 of an inch. 
It is the 90 degree edges that catch the supports between the grooves. 
Using those two simple "tricks" I have pretty much eliminated this problem.

Truman