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Loading Film
This video demonstrates how to load film using a 200′ magazine and a daylight spool. Even if you already know how to load your camera, the video has a few personal tips and tricks to make sure your camera will run smoothly and prevent lost loops.
FYI, there are various magazines for the ACL with slightly different gearing. The magazine used in this video is an older French mag with gearing that actually looks more like an English mag. One thing that this video doesn’t really cover is the 400′ English mag, which is significantly different from all the other mag designs. This mag has an additional arm with a gear on the take-up side that helps pull the film through. The take-up arm can sometimes cause problems when the take-up film path has too much slack, causing the film not to wind around the take-up spool correctly. I am not an expert with this particular mag, but from my experience they work better if you keep the tension fairly tight in the film path.
Please feel free to post your tips and tricks in the comments.
6 responses to “Loading Film”
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You are correct in recommending tight tension on the takeup path of the English 400′ mag. If there is any slack the takeup mechanism can’t take it out, the takeup is not overrunning it runs at 24fps. This takeup arm doesn’t just help, it is the only way the exposed roll is rotated to takeup film. Slippage of the arm’s rubber wheels as they contact the film edge will result in the takeup being loose and may lead to a jam. We ran thousands of feet of everything from ECO to Vision through these mags without any problems with this. But after 25 years or so it was obvious that the rubber wheels had dried out and needed to be replaced. Optical-Electro House had some custom made and the mags are good for another couple of decades.
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Cool demo. I’ve got an ACL 1.5 and it’s cool little camera. Sad to say I’ve shot much with it for a while.
Thanks,
Scott
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Xavier December 7th, 2009 at 13:58
Is it possible to load a 200′ roll that is NOT on a daylight spool using these mags? Any ideas on how to get the 2″ core adapter for these mags?
Much appreciated.
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Hey Xavier, you can load A-minima loads, or just wind your own 200′ spools. The only thing about the A-minima is that the plastic core doesn’t have the slit in it so you can’t easily use them as a take-up core, so you have to order a bag of spare cores – they’re cheap on eBay.
As for the core adapter plates – those are unfortunately difficult to come by. I would probably call a tech or repair shop. The few that I own came with the mags, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the adapter plate for sale on eBay by themselves. You may be able to use a core adapter for another camera, though? I haven’t tried but surely it isn’t such a custom part because the 100″ spools and 400″ cores are standard sizes. Be sure to post back if you find out!
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Xavier December 8th, 2009 at 19:33
So that’s it, load an A-minima load on the feed side and use a core on the takeup side? Still, i’d need an adapter for the core on the takeup side. Any clues on where I could find 200′ day light spools?
Much appreciated!
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Hey Xavier, you can order 200′ spools from here – http://www.philiprigby.co.uk/pages/browsecat-detail.php?detail=165 – be sure to post back if you try it. i’ve always wanted to try shooting 200′ spools – having 6 minutes of film in the small mags would be awesome.
don’t forget you would probably need some empty 400′ canisters to put the film in after you shoot it as well.
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Wade Ramsey September 19th, 2009 at 15:42