Bulk Film Canister Stickers

The Problem: When bulk-rolling film, it’s challenging to quickly and accurately note metadata—such as which canister the film was loaded into, when it was exposed, and when it was shot—without risking loss or confusion of this information.

The Solution: Design a film canister sticker with dedicated spaces for writing essential notes for easy identification of the film type, loading date, and exposure details.

One of the things I love about shooting with my Contax G2, especially with the GD2 databack, is how it logs every single frame on a roll of film using its magical light printer. Keeping track of all that data, however, requires an external organizational system.

One part of this system is managing the canisters I load: knowing what film is inside, whether it’s been exposed to X-rays at the airport, whether the roll itself is exposed (I leave the leader out for easy extraction), some additional notes, and a unique roll ID that I assign to every roll.

Kodak film canisters are great because they come with a yellow space on the canister where I can jot down the date and roll ID. But when you load bulk film into reusable canisters—like the plastic ones with a snap-top lid—that’s no longer possible. Sure, I could use a white-out marker, but rubbing it off with alcohol is too much of a chore when it’s time to reload.

To solve this, I designed film stickers that are easy to print at home on A4 sticky sheets using any printer. These stickers have all the space I need to note relevant details. In Japan, I use A-ONE 28409 (20 sheets) or 28422 (100 sheets), but any matte sticky A4 paper will work as long as it doesn’t leave residue on the canister.

I recommend using matte paper to avoid light piping that can occur from the film preview window of the camera reflecting through a glossy layer. Matte paper is also easier to write on and remove cleanly when reloading.

While I designed these stickers to suit my own workflow, I realized others might find them useful too. So, I created a more generic version of the stickers, making them versatile for anyone who wants to better organize their bulk film workflow.

The fields on the canister are as follows:

• Film: The name of the film—simple as that.
• Exposed: Color or tick the circle if the film is exposed. This is especially useful for people who leave their leaders out after rewinding.
• X-Ray: If airport security didn’t have a good day, your film might have been through an X-ray machine. Tick a circle for each exposure.
• If found, please return to: I usually write my Instagram handle here, but you can write your name, phone number, or any other contact information.
• Date Loaded: Whether you want to note the date the canister was loaded or the film was placed in the camera is up to your interpretation.
• Date Finished: Self-explanatory.
• Exp. Index; Push/Pull: The ISO or N value for how you intend the film to be developed.
• Notes: Anything you’d like to jot down.
• Canister ID: Keep the canister ID consistent for each physical cartridge. If you track which film is in which canister and detect light leaks, you’ll know exactly which one to blame.

These stickers are specifically designed to fit AP 35mm film reloadable cartridges (product code APP351120), but I suspect they’ll work on any cartridge, even metal ones that are reused.