I have recently moved up from 4/5 to 8/10 and do alot of long exposure work at night. On occasion I have had the film pop epecially after a really long exposure rendering parts of the neg unsharp. To prevent this I use small pieces of double sided tape to tack the non emulsion side of the film to the holder which seems to work well but makes unloading a little tricky.
Does anyone have any other suggestions...
Thank you.
Presuming you're loading the sheets properly (be sure the leading edge is under the lip at the darkslide end of the holder), a couple pieces of double sided tape is as good a solution as any. Some people use a tacky spray adhesive for this.
If you're particularly industrious you could design your own vacuum filmholder for long exposures that uses a bulb or small blower to create the vacuum. I recall that there was an astrophotographer who put up a web page describing how to do this and there is a link to the page somewhere on this forum that you might turn up with the search engine.
Hey, that was me over on APUG. I've tried the bulb idea and it's a bit lacking - you have to contantly be squeezing it and the force isn't constant. An electric motor is far better.
When photographing at night it is necessary to wait for the film to pop prior to making the exposure. No vacuum holder needed.
Cover the camera with your dark cloth, remove the dark slide and wait 2 or 3 minutes before making the exposure. The film will pop during this time and you will not have a double image.
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