KODAK 35mm IR film can be loaded in daylight! Here's how:

[Rolland Elliott <liquidriver@xxxxxxxxx>]

I just got done looking at the "black" felt light
traps on about 50 various rolls of film canisters. 
Looking at the felt through an IR sensitive camcorder,
the felts showed up as either black (absorbs IR light)
or as white (reflects IR light).  Kodak, Fuji,
Polaroid, Meijer (a midwest department store chain in
the USA) Signature (a cheap mail order film), & Sharp
( a generic film) film casettes had blazing white film
traps under IR illumination.  Kodak 70mm casettes had
a white felt under IR illumination. 

Rite Aid (A North American Drug Store) had black felt
traps under IR illumination.

On the other hand. Kalt bulk loadable film casettes,
and Adorama generic bulk loadable casettes showed a
mixture of black and white felt traps under IR
illumination. About 20% of the Kalt bulk loadable
casettes were black ( under IR illumination), while
the rest were white ( under IR illumination). One Kalt
casette even had a mixture of black and white felts on
the same casette ( under IR illumination). The top
felt was black while the bottom felt was white.  The
Adorama  casettes were about 90% black and the rest
were white ( under IR illumination). I bought about
100 of these Adorama casettes about 4 years ago. 
Since there is no consistent manufacturer that makes
black felt light trap canisters, one will just have to
determine this by using an IR camcorder.

To get a better look at the effectiveness of each felt
light trap, I took one white felt canister and one
black felt canister and cut them in half using a high
speed Dremel rotary tool.  I then placed each half of
the casette over my camcorder lens so that I was
looking out through the film trap.

The 35mm casettes with white felts leaked IR light
quite badly.
The 35mm casettes with black felts DID NOT leak IR
light!

So obvioulsy a simple change in felt materials would
allow one to load Kodak HIE in daylight!

But I can't just end this message here, because
someone would quickly point out that Kodak IR HIE film
"light pipes" IR light into a film casette just like a
fiberoptic cable moves light through a clear piece of
plastic. I looked at this "light piping" effect
through my camcorder and while it is true that the
film does this, it is not a very strong effect.  I
doubt that it would even fog to the first frame on a
35mm roll of film.  The reason I say this is because I
have sucessfully loaded 220 Kodak HIE (cut down from
70mm stock) under subdued light inside, and in deep
shadows outside, with out major problems.  The edges
get some fogging  but it hardly ever gets into the
image area, and usually just leaks around the edges of
the film, if that. Since 70mm and 35mm IR films have
the same emulsion and all 35mm cameras advance the
film two or three frames before the first exposure the
"light piping" won't be noticible.

So if you want to load Kodak HIE in the day light, buy
yourself some black felt bulk loadable casettes & a
150' bulk roll of Kodak HIE. Not only will you save
money bulk loading, but you can finally leave that
changing bag at home. 

Peace Rolland Elliott
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