How much film area is in a 35mm or 120 roll for fixer capacity calculations?
Asked 8/21/2015
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Fixer instructions sometimes say things like “1L working solution will fix 1 m² of film,” but that’s hard to apply to common roll films. Roughly how much total film area should I count for:
- a 36-exposure roll of 35mm film
- a 24-exposure roll of 35mm film
- a roll of 120 film
I’m looking for ballpark figures for darkroom fixer capacity, using the full film area rather than just the image area.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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A 35mm film has an image size (exposure area) of 24*36 mm. Generally, you have a 2 mm gap between two consecutive image and about 5 mm on each side for the perforation. As the fixer will react on all the film, all the surface has to been accounted for. The holes should be taken into account too but you probably won't see a difference if you don't.
So for our purpose, the area of an "image" is (36+2)*(24+5+5) = 38*34 = 1292 mm² (or about 0.001292 m²).
1) The surface area of a 36 exp roll of 35mm film is about 36*0.001292 = 0.0465 m²
2) The surface area of a 24 exp roll of 35mm film is about 24*0.001292 = 0.0310 m²
Now for the 120 film roll, the film is about 61 mm large and 760 mm long (which allows 8 exposures as a single exposure is about 56*84 mm + gaps, assuming 2*3 format). It gives a surface of 0.061*0.760 = 0.04636 m².
3) The surface area of a 120 roll is about 0.04636 m².
It's only mathematics (and conversion form inch or millimeters to meters), you should be able to apply this with any film you want.
Don't use those number to compute the fixer to water ratio. For film, a mix of 1 + 4 is a classical number. So if you need 1 L, 200 ml of fixer + 800 ml of water. Using 1), one could say : I have 0.0465 m² to develop, so I will use 0.0465 L of the fixer and add as much water as needed => nope, don't do that :)
Edit: a 220 roll is twice as long as a 120 roll so it shouldn't be hard to compute its area.
Originally by user26456. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user26456
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
For fixer capacity, count the whole film strip area, not just the exposed image.
A practical estimate for 35mm film is to use about 38 mm of length per frame (36 mm frame width plus a small gap) and about 34 mm total film width including the perforation area. That gives about 1292 mm² per frame, or 0.001292 m².
So approximately:
- 35mm, 36 exposures: 36 × 0.001292 ≈ 0.0465 m²
- 35mm, 24 exposures: 24 × 0.001292 ≈ 0.0310 m²
For 120 film, a commonly cited roll size is about 61 mm wide and 760 mm long, so total area is:
- 61 × 760 = 46,360 mm² ≈ 0.046 m²
So in round numbers:
- 35mm / 36 exp: about 0.047 m²
- 35mm / 24 exp: about 0.031 m²
- 120 roll: about 0.046 m²
These are ballpark figures, but they’re good enough for estimating fixer usage.
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