Developing Black & White Photo's at Home

Step 2 Getting the film

With a bit of foresight this step can be made alot simpler, it can be a total pain in the arse. When you wind the film back in your camera make sure the film doesn't retract full into the canister and a little bit is left poking out, when the film detaches from the right hands spool in the camera it can usually be felt, you want to stop at this point so it doesn't full wind back into the canister (see photo for about how much you'll be wanting to leave sticking out).
If the film does end up full back inside the canister there are two options:

1.) Use a film extractor- These are really fiddly, but once you get the hang of it they are fairly simple, instructions on how to use are usually printed on them. (This is what i usually end up doing)

2.)Use a special film cannister opener- these are like bottle openers and you use them to pop off one end of the film cannister- THIS MUST BE DONE IN TOTAL DARKNESS otherwise the film will get exposed and be ruined. (Never tried using one of these before, but they are fairly straight forward by the looks of it)

Comments

[stopmenow]

or what i do is wrap the canister between my thumb and index finger and push the nubed edge down on a hard surface and the end pops off allowing you to reuse the canister and save money by buying film in 100' rolls

[falsemoniker]

I worked at a BW lab. I used a bottle opener. No time to be fiddling around with coins and tools when you need to run 200 rolls a day by hand.

[dfairbairn82]

Another easy way to pop the can open is to use a large coin, force it into the gap, and pry the metal cannister back -- all while in complete darkness! So, be sure not to drop your coin (or have extras handy), otherwise you're SOL.