After my last post where I got overly excited by getting almost 90 half frames from a single roll of an overloaded bulk loaded film I decided to try out how far I can push it.

These were my learnings:
- You can physically squeeze almost 60 *full* frames into a reloadable roll without breaking it or causing light leaks, but it's a bad idea and leads to film just being wasted for the reasons below. All the film on the first picture came from a single roll.
- If you go over 45-50 frames, the film on the inside of the roll (your last frames) is squeezed too much that it starts cracking. Second picture shows details of the unexposed developed film end of this roll.
- In my Pentax MX I was unable to actually expose the last 10-15 frames because I could not wind the camera any more. Not because I ran out of the film, but the opposite - the take up spool was so thick it ran out of space inside and I could not roll any more film on it. It would have been easy to overdo it and physically damage camera like this.
- The Patterson reel can only accomodate slightly over 40 standard frames. You will need to cut your film and develop the last part separately. I just chucked it to the same tank with my reel, but the last frame got stuck on the outside of the remainder of the film and got destroyed like that (last picture).

extreme film bulk loading: some learnings and mistakes