What is X-ray film: X-ray film is meant to be used in X-ray machines, where the X-rays hit a phosphorescent screen after passing through the patient's body, and the glowing (now in visible spectrum) light from that screen exposes the sheet of film, for doctors to diagnose things.

• It is orthochromatic (it comes in "green" sensitive style which is much like normal ortho photographic film and is sensitive also to blue and yellow etc, and also comes in "blue" sensitive style which is low green sensitivity, and your blues are snowy white. I prefer green. Fuji HR-U is the most common type of green film people use.).

• It has an emulsion on both sides, which makes it easier to scratch but not really less sharp as far as I've ever seen.

• It also has no anti-halation layer, so the highlights glow. This glow becomes more intense at small formats like 35mm I'm doing here.

• X-Ray film is insanely cheap. It comes in many sizes, 8x10 boxes sell for about $40 for 100 sheets, great for large format (8x10 or with a paper cutter 4x5), that's $0.10 per 4x5 sheet! Normal commercial films are like a dollar or more per sheet.

Here, I'm using 36"x14", yes an entire yard long sheet of film, which comes in 25 pack boxes for $70. In the prices in the title, I also considered shipping cost as well, for about $120 total all in where I live, from zzmedical. You can cut, for example, 5 strips of 120 full sized rolls per sheet, x25 = 125 rolls of medium format film for one box, so $120 / 125 rolls = less than $1 a roll.

How to cut the film into strips: Since it's orthochromatic, you can do all this cutting and nonsense under a red safelight, not darkness! I made this setup with scraps I had sitting around https://imgur.com/a/DdZmU4E The middle board further in with bolts is not actually bolted to the pegboard, the bolts just rest in the holes and it floats there. This allows the huge sheet of film to be slid under it, but then clamped into place by body weight on the floating fence.

The board on the far end is permanently glued, in a place where the gap in between is the size of 35mm film. Conveniently, 120 film is exactly 1" wider than 35mm film, so you can move the floating fence out 1 peg notch, and get a gap sized for 120 film instead. Pegboard comes in 4x2 so it's perfect for holding a 36x14 inch sheet with room for pegs etc.

I slide the whole sheet under the floating fence, butt it up against the glued down end fence, and then cut it or mark it. Cutting: I use a little razor blade tool with a shield around it that can rest against the fence and make it cut straight, but it's kind of a pain because it lifts up the film a bit. More precise and less frustrating but takes a bit longer: use a sharpie to mark the line, then hold the sheet up to the safelight and cut with scissors.

I hang the strips up on a piece of twine suspended in the room as if drying film until I'm done cutting them all and can then move the cutting board out of the way.

Use in 35mm: For 35mm, rolling it is just like bulk rolling. I tape the strip to a bit of film I left sticking out of an old commercial 35mm reel (already developed and most cut free), stick it in a spare manual wind film camera, and "Rewind" the film. Easy Peasy. I Tape a normal film leader at the front too purely to avoid wasting xray film, since it's a short roll of only 20 shots, limited by the size of the xray sheet. (When I said $0.80 in the title, I accounted for this already, that's the price for 36 exposures, i.e. almost 2 of these short rolls combined)

I then shoot the film in specifically a Canon 10QD (or 10S, same thing just without the date feature). No other modern camera works! I've heard that maybe a Nikonos II does, but cannot confirm. This camera uses a friction drive and a roller to count film distance, not a gear wheel, so it can take un-sprocketed film. It works just fine, the frame spacing is perfect, the auto rewind works fine, everything.

35mm rolls of this leak light like a bitch, I don't know why. I have to load it and unload it in the darkroom to not lose some frames at the beginning. I think the xray film is too stiff and messes up the felt light trap or maybe pipes light.

Use in 120 medium format: To roll the rolls, I take an old already developed roll of 120 without the film in it anymore (just spool and backing paper that i rolled back up again after developing), and before I begin, I unroll a bit of it and mark a line in white gel pen about 10-ish inches in. It depends on your format and your camera you're using etc., you have to experiment or use a sacrificial roll to measure it out for your case.

Then in the safelight darkroom, i start rolling the backing paper onto a new spool. When i reach the line I drew, I stick in the film and start rolling it in too. When i run out of film, I tape it to the backing paper (this must be the ONLY tape used!), and continue rolling the paper, and rubber band it all off.

I also usually load this in the dark, because the xray film is thicker and it baaaaarely is contained by the reel ends. It can leak onto some frames if you didn't roll it super tight. It's much better than the 35mm though for leaking. It also really wants to unwind, so you have to be careful to pinch it and maintain tension until it's loaded in the camera. My Pentax 645 happily motor drives it and re-winds it once it is, though, without any complaints. Spacing is fine between frames.

Example Photos: I was not trying to win a Pullitzer here, lol, these are not my favorite photos, and I'm not looking for any feedback on the art (not even the subreddit for it anyway). It's purely to show you what the film stock looks like in the formats. I was walking around testing the rolls in my neighborhood taking random snapshots. The last one in 35mm is completely out of focus, but I include it to demonstrate how extreme the halation can get at this 35mm scale:

• 35mm examples: https://imgur.com/a/iolN0Pz

• 120 Examples: https://imgur.com/a/93dEfki

Exposure and Development: I rated this film at ISO 100 for all these shots. The 35mm I developed in D-76 1:3, agitate, then 10 minute stand, agitate, 10 minute stand, agitate, 10 minute stand, agitate, 5 minute stand (35m total). This was simply because I was processing it with normal 35mm and didn't want bromide drag on the other normal films. What I prefer is what I did with the 120 instead, which is also D-76 1:3, agitate 1 minute, let stand 30 minutes, the end.

It is so contrast-y that it would probably be better to pull it more, rate it at 50 ISO and stand for like 45 minutes(edit: 20 min, wrong direction), but I haven't tried that yet enough to recommend it.

Scanned by digital camera on a copy stand.