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(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov: Leningrad 80s >> ART>>
Reconstructing E-E KOZLOV's photo archive from the 1980s
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Chapter 5. Loading the film cartridge In the West, film cartridges were sold inside little plastic canisters (black or white) to protect the film emulsion against moisture condensation and other environmental impacts. In contrast, Soviet 35 mm films were sold in small cardboard boxes containing the filmstrips rolled up to a simple roll wrapped in black light-proof paper, that is, without a cartridge and without a canister.
Rolls were sold in two different types, either wound up on a central spool or without a spool. The price of a spool was 5 kopek; accordingly, 64 ASA films without a spool cost 35 kopek, and the price for the same film type with a spool was 40 kopek.
I calculated that the “best before” date printed on the box recommended to shoot them within two years after production. But since stockpiling was important in countries with no market economy, huge amounts of old Svema and Tasma films past their expiration dates are still available from private sellers, and chat rooms share information about how they might be processed properly today. In order to get the films ready for shooting, Soviet films had to be loaded into reusable cartridges or cassettes – a process that, for obvious reasons, had to be carried out in a dark room.
Soviet reusable cartridges consist of four different parts – the spool, the shell and two lids to keep the mechanism in place. The shell is the piece that looks like a little tub when it’s closed, but it actually has a vertical opening protected from light by synthetic velvet on either side. The film goes into the shell, and the end piece of the film, the leader or tongue, goes through the vertical opening. After that, the shell is closed with the lids at the top and bottom.
If you bought the film with a spool, it saved you some time, because otherwise, when buying a film without a spool, it first had to be wound on the spool before it could be placed into the shell. The spool has a slotted column to insert the free end of the film which is cut off smaller symmetrically, forming a rounded cusp. There is not standard name for this end piece. I will call it “cusp” to distinguish it from the other end piece, the asymmetrically trimmed leader (tongue). Once the cusp is fixed to the spool, the film is wound up tightly clockwise, the side with the emulsion showing towards the spool. Accordingly, when shooting, the emulsion side of the film faces towards the lens. You wind the film up to a last piece of about 10 centimetres – the other free end with the leader. It can now be put into the shell as the described above.
Once the cartridge has been closed with the lids at the top and bottom, the film is light protected, and the film cartridge can be loaded into the camera outside a darkroom.
The business of inserting the “loose” end of the film – the leader or tongue – into to the take-up spool is a bit tricky, because the take-up spool has to be removed from the camera first. At least that is what the manual recommends. To explain what needs to be done, I will quote from the FED-2 manual which, luckily, is available in English, too. The manual uses the term “magazine” Instead of “cartridge”. 1. Open the camera and take the take-up spool out of it. 2. Having pulled not more than 10 cm of the loose end of the film out of the magazine, fasten it on the take-up spool under the spring so that the first perforated opening of the film should be a little farther than the lug of the spring and pull the film backwards – the lug of the spring will get in the opening and hold the film. Set the lower edge of the film at right angle to the spool axis, close to the flange. 3. Put the magazine into the camera so that the groove of the magazine block should mount onto the pin fixing the magazine in the camera and the magazine recess should be turned towards the camera back. Mount the take-up spool simultaneously onto the hub and set the film so that the sprocket teeth should go into the film perforations. In order to do it, turn the head of the take-up spool in the direction of the forward take-up, holding the winding head of the shutter. 4. Close the camera. When the lock in the cover is turned, the magazine opens automatically and lets the film pass freely without scratching the film. (pp. 14-16 from the FED-2 English manual, 1962. The pdf manual can be retrieved here external link >>) Otherwise said, after inserting the “loose” end of the film – the leader or tongue – into to the take-up spool, you close the camera and start shooting the film.
Actually, with some training, you manage to insert the film into the take-up spool without removing it from the camera. This is how Evgenij Kozlov used to load his camera. The side with the take-up spool is where the shooting starts. When you turn the shutter winding head to take a new picture, you are winding the film around the take-up spool while simultaneously turning the sprocket drive wheel, a cylinder provided with little teeth that the helps pulling the film out from the cartridge. It sometimes happens that, when getting to the last film frames, the cusp flips out from the cartridge, becoming part of the last exposure. On the other hand, when the cusp is fixed to the spool too firmly, the celluloid may tear apart close to the cusp when winding the film. Examples of both types are in Kozlov’s archive.
Obviously, when the films flips out from the cartridge or tears apart, it is impossible to rewind it into the cartridge, which is the normal way to take it out from the camera. In this case it can be taken out directly from the camera in a dark room, together with the removable take-up. On the road, a daylight changing back – a back that keeps the light out, with two sleeves attached to it – serves as a transportable dark room. Kozlov always carried one in his rucksack. You put the camera into the bag, unwind the film from the take-up spool, roll it up and put it back into a black paper box. It goes without saying that with this kind of manipulation, the risk of causing scratches on the film emulsion of quite high. Although producing films without cartridges might be justified by a lower price, the product looks rather archaic, given the fact that Kodak released the first preloaded 35mm cassettes in 1934. In fact, things may get complicate when you are on the road and plan to shoot more than one film, which Kozlov often did. You then either take along a number of pre-loaded cartridges or load each film into a cartridge on the spot, inside a changing back – by touch, through a piece of textile. Perhaps Kozlov sometimes brought along two cameras, the FED and the Lomo, each loaded with a film. He says that he doesn’t remember, but doesn’t exclude this possibility altogether. Even so, loading the FED-2 was much more comfortable than loading the FED-1 / Leica which only opened at the bottom. Therefore, with a Leica, loading the film outside the camera couldn't be avoided. It also required trimming the film with scissors or with the help of a special template to make it approximately 10 cms long, twice the size of a normal film leader. On the other hand, once you get accustomed to it, it may become part of a natural process.
Besides, the film transportation mechanics of the FED-2 isn’t quite symmetric with regard to the upper and lower edges of the film. A film frame should display a regular distance of about half a millimetre towards the upper and lower film perforation, or at least it should keep a distance to both perforations. When you look at the negative strips in Kozlov’s archive, you notice that in many films, the images slightly touch the lower perforation – or even overlap with the sprocket holes. When overlapping, a print of the picture displays a sprocket holes pattern at the lower border, which is actually quite decorative. As far as I can gather from chat discussions, this asymmetry seems to be a problem proper to the camera model. I assume that the take-up spool isn’t entirely in the correct position (perhaps because it is removable), and because of that, the sprocket drive wheel transports the film slightly out of alignment. Since the camera fixes the picture on the film rotated by 180 degrees, this means that the film is actually too close to the bottom of the camera. As a result, each time the shutter opens, the perforation at the top is exposed to light; it thus becomes part of the image. In Valentin Kozlov’s archive, this effect is a recurrent feature, and in Evgenij Kozlov’s archive, it can also be found quite frequently, although there are many “symmetric” films, too.
© Hannelore Fobo / text / pictures / lay-out © (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov / artwork Uploaded 3 May 2021 |
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