I had a bit of a stroke of genius today...............

I shot a couple of rolls of T-Max 100 120 with the Hasselblad the other day down in Charleston, SC. I mixed up the chemistry this morning and got all ready to go. As anyone who has had to load 120 B&W film onto film reels knows, the film base is rather thin and at 2.5x the width of 35mm it makes loading reels a little tricky. 35mm is easy, I can load a 36 exposure roll in about 10 seconds with no problem. 120 not so much, even though the film is a lot shorter. And for those of you who have ever shot 220 back in the day you know that it is even worse. My 120 reels have a strong little clip in the very center that hold the film while you are loading but you have to get the film centered perfectly in that clip or you are going to have all kinds of alignment issues, which is never a good thing and especially frustrating when you cannot see what you are doing. I always trim the edges at an angle to make it easier to get it into the center of the reel.. In pitch black it is difficult at best to get them at the same angle. It was then that a stroke of genius entered my head. Panchromatic film is insensitive to IR. Why not use my Night Vision Goggles (Gen III+ PVS-7B's) and turn on the IR illuminator so I can see what I am doing? The IR Illuminator is which is necessary when there is essentially no light which was the case on many a black ass night ini Baghdad. NGV's multiply light up to 50,000 times but 50,000 time zero is still zero. Loading those reels was a snap! Why have I not ever thought about this before?

Brilliant. Now if I only had a pair back in the day when I shot film.

Whoa, that's an ingenious solution! Using Night Vision Goggles for loading film - never would've thought of that! I've had my fair share of struggles with 120 film too, and I wish I had your kind of gear. Totally trying it if I ever get a chance. Thanks for sharing this super cool trick!

Interesting idea - have you actually done this yet? I'd be curious about how it went.

My experience loading reels is the same as yours - 35mm was a piece of cake, 120 not so much. I switched from a center-of-the-reel loading tank to a Patterson, which was better, and then to a third-party reel with larger film guide flanges, better yet. But still a pain. I sometimes shoot 120 in an old sheet-film camera using an Adapt-a-roll film holder, which winds the film on the takeup spool emulsion-out, and seems to make the film even more difficult to load.

Great idea. Agent Starling could have used a pair of those in Silence Of The Lambs.

The Lab-Box is a pretty straightforward way to load and process 135 and 120 film in daylight, without having to spool the film onto a roll in a dark bag or in the dark.

https://www.lab-box.it

If this does what you need.

I will say, however, that yours is a pretty great solution. Back in the day I worked on an old Land Rover Series III lightweight ex-military vehicle. The vehicle was equipped with a 6-way light switch that enabled and disabled the various lighting on the vehicle. During convoy operations, the vehicles would be outfitted with IR filters over the headlamps to pass IR only and painted with IR sensitive paint - they would drive in convoy with night vision goggles on and be able to follow in convoy without any visible light revealing their presence. There was also a "convoy lamp" installed under the rear tub of the vehicle, above the rear differential housing that was illuminated during these operations. The diff housing was painted white and the light illuminated the white painted housing. This was for visual sighting of the vehicle ahead of yours in a convoy when you did not have NV goggles, and was not visible from above by aircraft, etc. Pretty nifty.

Kirk