I really enjoy watching people shooting film & experimenting with expired film. The creativity of the photographers I look up to is astounding. I’m often left in awe at the way their ideas come to life, especially when the chemistry misbehaves in unexpected ways.
So, when I received a couple of rolls of 20-year expired Fujifilm Neopan 400 (cheers, Ray!), I knew I had to run at least one roll through my RB67. Little did I know, this would become a miniature Hero’s Journey.
The Setup
It all begins with the logistics: shooting 35mm film in a camera designed for 120 film.
At first glance, film naming conventions don’t really make sense. They seem sequential – 110, 120, 135 – but that doesn’t tell you anything about their actual size.
For the record:
110 = 16mm
135 = 35mm
120 = 60mm
Delivery methods vary too. 110 film comes in a sealed cartridge. 135 (aka standard 35mm) lives in a canister. 120 comes on a spool with protective backing paper.
So how do you shoot a 35mm roll, made for a canister, in a medium format camera that expects a 60mm-wide spool?
First Challenge: The Adapter
There are two options:
Respooling: Remove the 35mm film from its canister and wind it onto a 120 spool using leftover backing paper.
Adaptation via 3D printing: This route is a little more modern (and more fun).
Thankfully, others have tackled this before me. I found a set of 3D printer files online for an adapter that converts a 35mm canister to the same dimensions as a 120 spool. Perfect, except I don’t own a 3D printer.
Enter: my brother.
He’d recently bought a printer but hadn’t set it up in his new factory space. I offered to help. What followed was a three-hour side quest involving a trip to Knox to buy new shelving, rearranging a storeroom, assembling racks, and clearing enough space to finally fire up the printer. All that for a 17-cent adapter that took 30 minutes to print.
The Showdown: Film vs Format
Here’s the thing about shooting 35mm in a medium format camera like the RB67: the entire film surface gets exposed, including the area around the sprocket holes. This is part of what drew me in. The panoramic frame, combined with the sprockets, creates a beautiful and unusual aesthetic.
35mm film has a vertical height of 24.89mm. With the RB67 exposing a full 70mm across, the result is a panoramic frame ratio of roughly 5:14 – awkward, chaotic, and nearly impossible to scan using traditional settings.
The Final Trial: Scanning Mayhem
I passed the exposed roll to my friendly developer/scanner (Steve – our Protagonist), not realising I should’ve warned him about the sprockets.
The scanner wasn’t set up to handle sprocket holes. The aspect ratio was annoying. And Steve, bless him, always aims to deliver the best results possible.
Time ticked on. Eventually, I followed up, clarifying that while sprocket holes were nice, they weren’t necessary. This removed some pressure, and scans were finally delivered.
The results? Totally worth the effort, at least to me. I’m not sure I want to make Steve go through that again, though. From now on, these rolls might be destined for hand-printing only. They may even make great bookmarks.
The Return
So here I am, with 17 awkward, beautiful exposures in hand. Difficult to view. Almost impossible to share on social media. And yet, I’m hooked.
A new journey begins: printing in the darkroom, with and without sprockets. Hopefully, this next quest is a little less arduous.