I thought I would follow up with a little bit of what I've learned after using the perforating rig on two rolls and running them through the Kodak Instamatic 500.
First, there is a little bit of room in the rig, so the film can slip down maybe a mm or two and the holes end up being up on the edge of the film. That makes them too high for the shutter reset pin to engage. Here is a pic of the shutter reset pin in the camera.
And here is one of the film I perforated.
The two strips on the bottom are the first roll I did and after I only got 5 shots for 12 perforations, I was more careful about lining up the second roll with the top edge of the perforating jig. That one did much better and I got 10 shots on that one. The ones that missed were still up at the top edge. I attribute this to the 'wiggle room' I mentioned before and also to the fact that the holes are hard to find in the cardboard in the dark. Also the paper hole punch is a little difficult to manage in the dark because I have to get the cardboard and the film into the punch where it is designed for only a piece of paper to go.
The next steps are to cut a new jig out of 1/16 inch acrylic and possibly purchase a hollow leather hole punch to make the holes in the film. That would be simpler because I would just have to get the end of the punch into the existing hole in the jig and turn with a little pressure to punch out the film.
One last issue is frame spacing. I used an old roll of 126 film to position the holes in the jig, but the holes in the film are oblong, so I just aimed for the center. That made the images on the film come out right next to each other without any spacing between. I will adjust the distance between the holes and see if that problem doesn't go away. Stay tuned.
Here are a few shots I took with this film. It is Konica brand color negative film which I shot at its box speed of 160. It came out with a purple cast, which is not the end of the world, but I might lower the speed and see what it does. Also, my C-41 chemistry is WAAAY past the manufacturer's recommended roll count, so I will mix up a new batch.
Great stuff - see you've just been looking at a website so you must still be at it. Greetings from Australia. I purchased for not much a Rollei SL26 (126) camera. Very frustrating that you could not get film. I tried the "Fakmatic" solution but that did not work (the sensing pin is too big for the 35mm sprocket holes). Anyway I was just turning my mind to punching holes in 35mm film when Ebay allowed me to purchase 14 126 film cartridges of Verichrome Pan 125 (20 exposures) for about $100US. I just ran the first one through the camera and darkroom tonight (PMK developer). Apart from some troubles getting the film out of the cartridge (I'll do better next time) I was really pleased with the negatives and the 46-year-old film. People loved using the Rollei SL26's and I have enough for about a year now. I might keep the cartridges and backing paper and perforate my own film.
ReplyDeleteLeon Bren
lbren@iinet.net.au