Blackbird, fly tutorial – How to load film

15 Comments Posted by MavericK on Friday, September 18, 2009

Thought I’ll do a simple photo tutorial on how to load the film into your Blackbird, fly camera, since even I myself had trouble reading the manual that was provided.

Now that you have your Blackbird, fly, you will definitely need to have a roll of film to start shooting with it. But first, release your Bbf from the cage!

You will realize that the base is stuck to your Bbf! Don't panic just yet (if you are anyway)...

That is because this key is holding the Bbf together with the base. All you need to do is to turn and screw it out. Remember! Don't pull the key or your Bbf using brute force!

Now your Bbf is ready to fly! Or shoot, actually.

To load the film, first you have to open up the camera. Turn the camera over and release the catch, and then open up the base as above.

From the manual, you can see that you need to squeeze two levers to open up the film room. Open it up and you will see this. Before you load the film, remember to pull out the film rewinding crank (you won't be able to stuff your film in without doing so anyway).

What's left is to just put the film in, and then push the crank back in! Make sure that the crank is all the way in (the 'pegs' at the interior must be clamping the film at the axel). Note that you don't have to pull out any film before you close the film room.

After you have closed the film room, you have to now feed the film into the camera. Look out for the spot (see above) at the spool. The horizontal gap directly left of it will be where you want your film to go. You have to latch the second hole of the perforation at the spool at the left side, because the first hole is insufficient for the spool to 'bite' onto the film, whereas you can't feed in until you can latch onto the third hole. ^^

Afetr you have latched the film, turn the film advance wheel slightly to feed the film. Like this.

Make sure your film counter has been reset (if you have finished a previous roll of film). Just align the white line with the mark below the counter. Extra: I thought I broke my camera (after the first roll!!!) when I couldn't turn the film advance wheel in any direction. When this happens to you, just push down gently on the lever next to the film counter (see above), and everything should be fine (Worked for me). ^^

Extra: The shutter is circled above. When you use "N" mode, it opens and closes in a split second. When in "B" mode, the shutter opens and remains so as long as the shutter release is pressed, to allow more light to enter (for night shots or in poor lighting). To close it, just release the shutter release!!

And there you have it!
Well, I’m no photography professional or anything…just trying to help those who had trouble understanding the manual (like me).
If any photography masters out there notice any mistakes I had made, please educate me!!

Read more »