How to Bulk Load 35mm Film

Bulk loading film saves money, frees you up to use any (reasonable) film length in your camera, helps upcycle 35mm cartridges, and even simplifies home film development¹.

With the right tools, you can roll your own cinema film or stage photography experiments that wouldn’t be possible with store-bought film rolls.

In this guide, I’ll cover all the tools, techniques, and tips for bulk-rolling your film.

In this guide: Calculating bulk film footage. Is bulk loading film worth it? Tools for bulk loading. How to load the bulk loader tool. How to bulk load your film. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

¹ — This guide instructs to use frosted tape to fasten film to the cartridge, which is easy to tear inside the dark bag, instead of cutting with scissors. This makes loading film onto development reels a little easier.

Calculating bulk film footage.

How many rolls can you get from a bulk pack? This depends on the size of the leader, the number of exposures you expect to load in each cartridge, how much film gets burned at the connection to the cartridge, and the size of your bulk roll.

Assuming that you’d be using a standard 100’/30m bulk roll for 36 exposures in each of your cartridges, your yield will be about 19 rolls.

However, one of the advantages of bulk-rolling film is deciding how many frames you like per roll/cartridge (you can load more than 40 if your film is thin enough or as little as three if you don’t mind most of your film being spent as a leader).

This is especially helpful if you shoot half-frame cameras and develop at home since 72+ frames is often too many. It is also useful if you want to stage an experiment, like the one comparing a variety of organic developers, which needed a whole bunch of 12exp. rolls.

For those uses, you may like to use the Bulk Roll Calculator app, which will give you a much more precise answer.

Is bulk loading film worth it?

Not always.

You’d think that saving the manufacturer money on film cartridges and the effort it takes to load them would entice them to heavily discount bulk rolls. Often that is the case, but as it says above, not always.

For example, Freestyle Photo is currently selling Kodak Tri-X 100’ bulk rolls for $190, which converts to about $10 per roll. That same store is selling Tri-X packaged by Kodak for $10 per roll. Don’t forget that factory-packaged film does not have the last frame partially exposed and it comes in a fresh metal cartridge with DX code. You’d be losing money and time with this operation.

Mostly, yes.

Tri-X is an extreme example of bulk film pricing that exists because some people still find it worth their time (for various reasons, as described above). However, most film is discounted significantly when sold in bulk. For example, Freestyle Photo sells Kentmere 400 for $78, which converts to about $4.11 per roll — this is almost half the price of a single 36exp. roll at the same store ($7.19).

The economics can improve even further if you buy 400’ rolls or short ends from motion picture studios.

✪ Note: Film rolls longer than 100’/30m will need a special bulk loader tool.

Tools for bulk loading.

You don’t need many expensive tools; just a bulk film loader tool, your bulk film roll, a changing bag, scissors, and frosted tape.

If you develop your own film at home and save your 35mm cartridges (as I recommend in my home development guides), you don’t need anything else. I strongly recommend that you use only metal cartridges for bulk-loading.

If you don’t have any spent film cartridges and don’t develop film at home, ask your friends or your local lab first. You may need just one as you don’t have to load the entire 100’ roll all at once. You can also find people selling empty cartridges on online marketplaces. But if all fails, you can buy some new reloadable cartridges.

How to load the bulk loader tool.

Before you can start loading your bulk roll into film cartridges, you’ll need to transfer it into your daylight loader tool.

Inside your bulk roll box, you’ll typically find a metal canister, sealed with tape. Inside the canister, there would be a black plastic bag, and inside of that bag is the film. To avoid ruining your film, you should unpack it in a dark bag, starting with the metal canister (you can start pealing the tape that seals it in daylight and finish pealing it in the dark/changing bag).

It’s best to open your empty bulk loader and familiarize yourself with its internals before proceeding to load it. Mine (above) has a white indented arrow that I could feel to identify which way the roll should be placed inside the tool. Yours may look a little different, which is why it’s a good idea to open it up, see what’s inside, and practice the motions needed to open and close it.

Once ready, begin by placing your bulk loader tool inside the dark bag and your bulk roll canister. You should have your bulk loader open and its cover detached (including the door for the film cartridge chamber).