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View Full Version : Just Curious: How did Film Packs and Adapters work?



bartf
15-Jul-2007, 19:26
I'm just curious and couldn't find anything via a web search.

So, exactly how did film packs work?

For some reason I got it into my head that they resembled polaroid film packs, but I can't figure out how you'd keep the exposed sheet from light.

How did they work?

Greg Lockrey
15-Jul-2007, 20:24
I'm just curious and couldn't find anything via a web search.

So, exactly how did film packs work?

For some reason I got it into my head that they resembled polaroid film packs, but I can't figure out how you'd keep the exposed sheet from light.

How did they work?

If memory serves me right, it's been quite awhile since there were film packs, the film rolled back into the holder as you pulled the leader sheet. Once you pulled the leader, the next sheet of film was ready to be exposed and a new leader was started. Similar to polaroid but the film went into the holder instead of out.

Glenn Thoreson
16-Jul-2007, 10:59
Greg is correct. You pulled out the light proof sheet after installing the pack in the adapter. This allowed the first sheet to be exposed, if you remebered to pull the dark slide. To expose the next sheet, you pulled the paper tab and tore it off, etc. The film was vey thin, like roll film, so it could be doubled back to get it to the back of the pack. 12 or 16 sheets, depending on vintage. To develop the film, you removed the pack from the adapter, in the dark, and opened it and removed the film. Because the film was so thin, special tanks were made for pack film, or you could use trays. I still have one pack of 2X3 Tri-X from 1973 or something. It might be time to use it, before it gets old.

David A. Goldfarb
16-Jul-2007, 11:15
While they would be a convenient method for carrying a lot of 4x5" film compactly, I tried a couple of them in 2x3" and would easily prefer rollfilm. As you shoot, those paper leaders accumulate in your pockets, and then when unloading it's hard to get the little bit of leader that's still attached to the film all off, so fragments of paper float off in the developer. The film is on rollfilm base, so it's not stiff like regular sheet film. I processed it in trays, but there were curved hangers for it for use with hangers and tanks (it falls out of normal hangers), and it could be developed in the Nikor stainless steel tank, but I didn't want to adjust my reel for a couple of film packs, since it was set perfectly for 4x5" sheets.

Donald Qualls
16-Jul-2007, 17:26
One other point -- it was possible to "rob the pack", removing only exposed sheets for immediate processing while leaving the unexposed sheets in place for later use. When they worked well, film packs were comparable in operating speed to a Grafmatic and held more film (not to mention giving the ability to reload in the field; just take one pack out and load another into the adapter, then back to banging away).

As I've heard it, film packs were finally discontinued, at least by Kodak, when the two sisters who'd been final-loading them for decades (wrapping the machine-collated stacks of film and leaders around the pivot bar at the bottom end of the pack and getting it all neatly closed up, without fingerprints, in total darkness) retired in the early 1980s. Personally, I'd love to see 'em come back, but they'd probably cost so much as to be uncompetitive with sheet film if they still required even a single hand operation during assembly...

JOSEPH ANDERSON
17-Jul-2007, 18:21
Bart, I have some in my fefrigerater. They have been there for years.Royal X Pan,
Super XX Vers A Pan, Plus X and Tri X I keep saying I'm going to expose some just to see if they hold an image. I doubt it, but you never know. Just like sheet film you could change film speed whenever you pleased. As Donald said "rob the pack" And shoot the
others at a new speed. If you took careful notes,each one of the paper leaders were numbered similar to Polaroid. But you risk mixing them up in the dark. "rob the pack was best. For processing I used the Yankee cut & pack film agitank. It came with four
stainless steel pins that you push through holes in the corners of the groves holding
the film. This film is so thin and floppy,without the pins it would slip out of the groves and stick together. I too would like to see the packs come back. But.I think that's
another one of my pipe dreams.

Joe A

JOSEPH ANDERSON
17-Jul-2007, 18:31
Bart, I have some in my fefrigerater. They have been there for years.Royal X Pan,
Super XX Vers A Pan, Plus X and Tri X I keep saying I'm going to expose some just to see if they hold an image. I doubt it, but you never know. Just like sheet film you could change film speed whenever you pleased. As Donald said "rob the pack" And shoot the
others at a new speed. If you took careful notes,each one of the paper leaders were numbered similar to Polaroid. But you risk mixing them up in the dark. "rob the pack was best. For processing I used the Yankee cut & pack film agitank. It came with four
stainless steel pins that you push through holes in the corners of the groves holding
the film. This film is so thin and floppy,without the pins it would slip out of the groves and stick together. I too would like to see the packs come back. But.I think that's
another one of my pipe dreams.

Joe A

bartf
17-Jul-2007, 21:50
I feel cheated that I will most likely never get to 'rob the pack'...

Bill_1856
18-Jul-2007, 00:02
[QUOTE=As I've heard it, film packs were finally discontinued, at least by Kodak, when the two sisters who'd been final-loading them for decades (wrapping the machine-collated stacks of film and leaders around the pivot bar at the bottom end of the pack and getting it all neatly closed up, without fingerprints, in total darkness) retired in the early 1980s. ...[/QUOTE]

I've heard that story too, but I doubt it because Polaroid Pack film is essentially put together the same way, so unless these ladies went to work for Dr. Land it is something that can be automated.

Greg Lockrey
18-Jul-2007, 00:58
I've heard that story too, but I doubt it because Polaroid Pack film is essentially put together the same way, so unless these ladies went to work for Dr. Land it is something that can be automated.

Oh your'e no fun Bill. :) Urban ledgends are what make life fun.

Donald Qualls
21-Jul-2007, 04:04
I've heard that story too, but I doubt it because Polaroid Pack film is essentially put together the same way, so unless these ladies went to work for Dr. Land it is something that can be automated.

Well, the "rest of the story" is that by then, around 1982, the sales of pack film had dropped off to the point it wasn't economical for Kodak to have machinery built to automate film pack, er, packing. Polaroid had always done it that way.

I agree, it *should* be pretty simple -- in the dark, machinery sticks each negative to the tab/backing, collates tab/negative sets in numeric order (probably from different strip lines -- so each machine has a roll of tabs numbered, say, "12", and you have sixteen tab-sticking machines to make sixteen exposure film packs, plus one with the "dark slide" tab), staples the backing at a corner that's pre-notched to make it pull out predictably, then bends the stack over a bar, slides it off the end of the bar, and stuffs the ends into the pack on each side of the pack's pivot bar, finally latching the film end to the inside of the pack. I'd expect the packs to be blow-molded plastic these days, rather than metal (lighter, FAR cheaper, and they wouldn't take a permanent bend if dropped), but the pivot bar would probably still have to be metal, or at least a metal tube over a plastic post, for stiffness. They *should* be a good bit cheaper to put together than Polaroid packs, because there's no print, chemical pod, or need to interleave things with the double-tab system that Polaroid requires.

Given I can buy 3x4 Polaroid for just over $1 per exposure, I'd think 4x5 pack film could be made competitive with major brand 4x5 sheet film -- *if* there were a market. With modern adhesives (easier to cleanly remove the film from the backing -- heck, a masking tape paster like the one in 120 would be just about perfect), materials (very thin, completely opaque tab material like that used for 120 backing, blow-molded black plastic pack box), and equipment (computer controlled, IR machine vision systems to ensure the parts are all going together properly in the dark, IR night vision inespection), the only thing really preventing it is the capital cost of setting up a new film cutting/packaging line in days when film has been seen as waning.

Ilford might be the ideal company to approach about this, or find out who rolls the 120 for companies like Freestyle, that rebrand film (assuming it's not the original manufacturer -- I think not, because .EDU Ultra uses a different spool from Foma branded 120) -- heck, I'd *love* to be able to shoot pack film in my Speed Graphic; I could carry enough film and advance rapidly enough to use it as a real press camera. One *could* even package color that way, though I don't know if there are enough who do their own C-41 to make that practical.

An alternative might be to produce a roll film back to fit International slide-lock camera backs, that uses 4 inch wide film and has a rapid advance with a longish roll. If you have capacity for, say, twenty feet of film, that'd be about 48 exposures, equivalent to three packs of film on a roll a couple inches in diameter. Packed with paper cap and tail like 220, you could load and unload in daylight, even...

Greg Lockrey
21-Jul-2007, 06:28
An alternative might be to produce a roll film back to fit International slide-lock camera backs, that uses 4 inch wide film and has a rapid advance with a longish roll. If you have capacity for, say, twenty feet of film, that'd be about 48 exposures, equivalent to three packs of film on a roll a couple inches in diameter. Packed with paper cap and tail like 220, you could load and unload in daylight, even...

Or a roll just the same length as a 35mm of 36 or about 50" or so to give you 10 shots. Never understood why there wasn't one either when you have long roll arial cameras.

David A. Goldfarb
21-Jul-2007, 06:55
I've seen a rollfilm holder for my 5x7" Press Graflex, which used 5" rolls with a paper backing like 120 and had a red window for frame numbers, so it's been done.

Donald Qualls
22-Jul-2007, 11:50
Yep, there was a standard roll format that fit a Graflex-made roll holder for 4x5 cameras, too -- 5" wide, paper backed, with spools constructed similar to 122, 124, etc. -- wooden core, with metal ends. Kodak made at least one 4x5 roll camera with 4" wide film around the turn of the 20th century, and sold film in that format for quite a while. Those formats, however, were all obsolete before WWII, AFAIK -- it was actually faster to use double-sided film holders and cut film, than it was to look down at the camera back and advance to the next barely-visible number in a red window (and the red window was virtually impossible to use in bad light, when you might get fine photographs with flash -- not really a problem in 1910 because flash wasn't used often outside studios in flash powder days, but a real issue by the 1930s).

What I actually had in mind was a roll carrier with an automatic film advance, either a clicking counter like the one in my Adapt-a-Roll (count three clicks for 6x6 or four for 6x9), or a lever wind or self-stopping advance like the ones in later versions of Graphic roll backs or my Super Ikonta B. Mechanically, it'd be dead simple to build one by copying the mechanism used in the Adapt-a-Roll -- a cam on a friction roller, pushrod actuated pawl on a ratchet wheel, and external counter scale separate from the advance knob -- for which any patents must have expired decades ago. One could even add a cam to the counter shaft to make such a unit self-stopping...