This first tutorial is the one that I consider as the most complete and useful. It explains how to load a 35mm roll film on a Bencini (which is a 127 film camera)

Some important steps:

The right way to cover the back of the camera and plug up its little holes.

0. Plug up the little red filter holes covering the back of the camera either with some black masking tape or cardboard.

1. Go into a dark room.

2. Pull out the film from its cassette, toghether with the spool.

3. Put the roll of film in the Bencini together with its spool.

4. Lock the leader into one of the slits on the spindle of the Bencini (you can use some scotch-tape if you want)..

5. Close the back of the camera and turn on the light..

6. Take some shots.

You can read the full tutorial here:

I managed to load the 35mm film into my Bencini carefully following this tutorial. Here are some tips to help you out.

I usually use some scotch-tape to fix the film to the camera’s spindle. If you want to use the scotch-tape, try to have it already cut out in small pieces: it would be impossible to do it in the dark!
I usually open up the film cassette breaking the side from which the film comes out.
If you have some used rolls of film, use them to go through the various steps a lot of times. Try to do this with your eyes shut (if you can): it is not a simple thing to load a 35mm film in the dark!

It is impossible to see the film advancement or to shoot photos at the same distance. You need some attempts before knowing how much you have to advance the film to avoid pictures overlapping. My advice is to use a permanent marker and put a sign on both the winding mechanism and the camera. This will help you to control the film advancement. I put 4 signs on the winding mechanism. I personally tried to fully rotate it twice for each shot, but the pictures came out to distant from each other. So I tried to rotate it for 3/4 of its rotation, but the pictures overlapped . My advice is to rotate the winding mechanism for 5/4 of its rotation. For the last shots, you can also rotate it less.

The signs I put on my Bencini

It can be risky to load a 24 exposures film. There’s not enough space in the camera, and the film could overlap. It is better to load just a half of the film. This is also useful to avoid breaking the film cassette: you can just gently pull up half of the film and stick it to an old spool.

Don’t forget to focus the picture!

The photos shot with this camera can be very unpredictable. My advice is to experiment this camera as much as possible: you will get a lot of surprises!

Translated by Vito Russi.