Hi Albano, I have a definite answer for you ;-) Although you can buy plastic or metal openable film crtridge, it's expensive and not ideal. What's best is to get to a nearby lab, and politely request a search trough their cartridge trash bin. Find enough cartridges of the ISO you need (so DX coding will work), and get only those who look ok (I mean they aren't dirty or whatever, check the film gate too, for sand, dirt,...). Get a bunch of them, they come FREE :) You see, these cartridges from lab developed films have the part of the film still sticking out, where they were cut by the lab. You can easily with little sticky tape attach the film from the bulk loader, close the loader and wind away.
I and all my college photographer friends (and just about everybody who saves on film, which can be really high cost with really low profits from it, even some of my pro friends) use this procedure. I throw the cartridges out then, as there is always enough of them in the pro lab I have my colour work developed. You could reuse them instead, whatever. I mark the cartridges with a sticker to remind me they are NOT C41 and to develop them myself (B&W). Also, I choose cartridges of films who are more likely to be used in the studio, like Portra, than some Kodag Gold or some other snapshooter's film which might have been to hell and back in the wallet all dirty. Check with some movie supplier companies you can sometimes get nice B&W emulsions from them in really long rolls (120m) for better price than if you bought the equivalent 4x30.5m from a photo supplier. HTH Frantisek P.S.: it's sad what happened in your country. I guess it comes with letting the IMF run things. I hope and wish you things will get better! - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
