Loading a Bronica film back

college still life

On one particular trip I made into college I was met by my tutor who placed in my hand a Bronica 6x45 camera and a roll of film in the other. Then told me to go into the studio and make pictures of the still life he had set up. Wow! I had wanted to try out one of these cameras for ages, part of this enthusiasm was when I found out that the lenses were made by Nikon. Sadly later models used seiko lenses. This is not to say the quality is any less. At one time I was very keen on all things Nikon.

I placed the camera on the tripod and released the film door to load the film. Which stopped me in my tracks. “How the hell do you make this work” I was expecting it to load the same way as other 120 format cameras that I had used. A short time later the tutor came in to see how thing were going. As he approached he smiled and said “It does not matter how many students I give this camera to you are all stumped by the film loading”. He took the film back and reversed the backing paper over the pressure plate round and onto the other reel. It was that simple.

For those who are not familiar with the way you load film into the Bronica here are a few pictures to point the way.

Film backs can be loaded on or off the camera body.

To open the film back compress the two clips on the top. The door will spring open

Remove the film holder from the case.

Push open the film spool holders.

Place the empty spool in the lower holder this is the one with the winder on the side. With the fresh film in the top as shown pull the paper backing over the top.

Pull the paper backing all the way up and over the top

Thread the paper backing into the empty spool as shown

Using the winder on the side of the film holder wind the paper on

Keep winding the paper backing until the arrow shows and stop 

Place the film holder back in its casing and close.

Do not forget to set the ISO. If you use a number of different film tear off the top of the film box and slide it in to the window.

Trimming prints a method

I don't know about you but over the years I have found no matter how careful I am setting the printing paper in the easel before exposure, it can still come out wrong. I'm talking about making sure the the picture is parallel to the sides of the paper. It is something we all have to deal with at some point. The problem being you can not tell this until the paper has been processed by which time it is to late.

This means that the paper has to be trimmed true again. To allow for this I have increased the margins around the printed area and even the size of the paper. Which I think is a waste as I would prefer to use the whole sheet to print on. But aesthetically speaking I think the margin around the picture adds to the overall effect and stops finger marks getting on the image. Which leads on to another skill that needs to be mastered, the art of trimming your print parallel. At one time it did not matter what I did I could not get it right, that is until a friend introduced me to the cut edge principle. This is where you use the freshly trimmed edge as your straight edge for the next cut and so on round the print. Wow! what a difference it has made over the years.

The knowledge of this method has helped with the trimming of my FB prints that I stick to a pane of glass so they dry flat - described here in another article.