I Renounce Photography...

Kintarō Hattori

... for I am an idiot. OK I won't be giving it up but I am feeling quite stupid today. For the last few weeks I've been shooting some rolls of film with a Pentax ME Super. One roll came out fine but the rest didn't. I've been scratching my head trying to figure out why rolls were coming out blank as everything seemed hunky dory.

I was telling this to a boardsie mid-week and they offered to have a look at it and give it the once over. I was waiting on the bus to head over to them this afternoon when I decided to go over my steps once more and very carefully.

Sitting on the bus bench I opened up the camera, checked the slot the film sits into. Looked at the film take up spool and decided to wind it on a slot. That was the light bulb moment. For whatever reason I thought the film was taken up clock wise when it actually fact it gets taken up anti-clockwise.

All this time I've been attempting to load the film the wrong way and it wasn't being taken up by the spool. While the Fed may have its quirks it's never caused me to have egg on my face.


Bring on the facepalms.

.Longshanks.

Will this one do? !!

http://www.facepalmbook.org/facepalm_.jpg

At least you finally got sorted...

DaireQuinlan

Doh. As part of your load procedure you should always tighten up the film by winding the rewind lever a bit, and then when winding on at the start of the roll, ALWAYS make sure the rewind lever turns, assuming it does on the Pentax. This makes sure that the film has been taken up properly.

AnCatDubh

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Doh. As part of your load procedure you should always tighten up the film by winding the rewind lever a bit, and then when winding on at the start of the roll, ALWAYS make sure the rewind lever turns, assuming it does on the Pentax. This makes sure that the film has been taken up properly.

What Daire says.

Ok....., this is similar to my admission a while back of i think the exact same issue - well I didn't admit it, but the forum got it out of me

:eek: With me, it also was the Me Super

It had been about 20 years since I had previously loaded film (that's my excuse )

Anyhow now, i'm always checking the rewind spool visibly winds as the film is advanced forward.

sunny2004

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Doh. As part of your load procedure you should always tighten up the film by winding the rewind lever a bit, and then when winding on at the start of the roll, ALWAYS make sure the rewind lever turns, assuming it does on the Pentax. This makes sure that the film has been taken up properly.

I wouldnt tighten the film you run the risk of damaging or scratching it.. just gently spool it in a little and click the shutter and watch for movement when you advance a frame..

magicbastarder

i tore several films in my hasselblad years ago, and it was only when i was getting the back serviced that i was shown what i was doing wrong.
for some reason, it only seemed to tear transparency film; b&w seemed not so badly affected.

Ghost Train

Sorry to hear that, had my first film (developing) failures this week after getting on well with it for some months and its annoying

I normally bend the end of the film just so it hooks on to the camera spool a bit and wind it on so I can see its gripping.

sunny2004

you should know by frame one that its taken up right...

sunny2004

and for the record, its stupid to make this error. I knew a guy who was on a boat shooting on the Shannon, off he went with a nikon FA with an MD15 motor drive, shooting to his heart content, shot of this, shot of that, and then wondered had he invented the ability to get 46 frames from a roll of Xp1, ilfords first C41 film.. 47, 48, went that counter, what an idiot....

I was so annoyed at the stupidity I simply took the camera and put it back in my bag and went red as a beetroot, my only saving grave was the boat trip was a round trip, you only do that once, its the beauty of it and I think most people do it once, like opening the back with film it in, shoot enough film and you will do both once...

Kintarō Hattori

sunny2004 wrote: »

you should know by frame one that its taken up right...

Not necessarily. It 'felt' fine, like it had done before when everything was fine. It was a 36 exposure roll which is as far as the frame counter went.

The first film camera I got my hands on within the last year is a Fed 5 and that has many quirks. The exposure counter doesn't work and the film can't be rewound in the camera I have so having used the ME Super which has none of those quirks everything seemed fine on the surface.

sunny2004 wrote: »

and for the record, its stupid to make this error. I knew a guy ....... what an idiot....

I was so annoyed at the stupidity I simply took the camera and put it back in my bag and went red as a beetroot

I'm glad I wasn't with you when I made my mistake!

sunny2004

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Not necessarily. It 'felt' fine, like it had done before when everything was fine. It was a 36 exposure roll which is as far as the frame counter went.

The first film camera I got my hands on within the last year is a Fed 5 and that has many quirks. The exposure counter doesn't work and the film can't be rewound in the camera I have so having used the ME Super which has none of those quirks everything seemed fine on the surface.




I'm glad I wasn't with you when I made my mistake!

LMAO,

Firstly, there is approx 3 frames take up on a roll at the start, more than enough to know its worked.. as I stated earlier, if you gently wind the film back, just gently, it will move on the first click of the shutter, then second, then onto the first frame.. iam not sure about your film camera, mine were a range of nikons, Canons,, ranging from F3, Fm Fa, and F4 and the F1.. I also used Practica cameras when I started out.

Secondly, your hacked quote it as usual in cases like this totally misleading.. I was the guy. Its just humour

Thecageyone

I doubt there's anyone here, or many in general, who haven't had their "oops" moments. I was heading out with the camera yesterday and I swear, I triple checked to make sure I had the card and battery in the cam - As I've neglected to check in the past and was very annoyed with myself

Kintarō Hattori

sunny2004 wrote: »

Secondly, your hacked quote it as usual in cases like this totally misleading.. I was the guy. Its just humour

sunny2004 wrote: »

... I knew a guy who was on a boat shooting on the Shannon, off he went with a ... what an idiot....

I was so annoyed at the stupidity I simply took the camera and put it back in my bag and went red as a beetroot

You made that really clear............ like mud. Regardless lets move on. I was stupid on this occasion and it's here for you all to have a laugh at.

Slidinginfinity

Liam don't feel to bad first roll I put through my Nikon N65 (simplest camera in the world to load) came back blank. I fed it wrong way also. :P

Calina

sunny2004 wrote: »

you should know by frame one that its taken up right...

Not always though. I shot with an Olympus OM10 which I think on 2 occasions, the film didn't catch correctly. It never felt any different to the 1000 times I put in the film correctly.

Typically the only sign for me was that the film shot more than 3 plus the exposure number - I generally got 26 photographs out of a 24 shot film and 38 or 39 out of a 36 shot film so once I went over that, I pretty much knew the film hadn't caught.

It's not as bad, however, as a CF card failing. At least with a film, it's max 36 lost photographs. A dead CF card and you could be down a couple of hundred photographs.

DaireQuinlan

Calina wrote: »

It's not as bad, however, as a CF card failing. At least with a film, it's max 36 lost photographs. A dead CF card and you could be down a couple of hundred photographs.

Yeah, but that's only a couple of minutes of digital shooting

Probably depends on the camera. The once or twice I've done it I've noticed it because the advance action on my FE-2 just feels -different- if there's no film in the camera. Quick spot check on the rewind lever just confirms it.

sunny2004

Calina wrote: »

Not always though. I shot with an Olympus OM10 which I think on 2 occasions, the film didn't catch correctly. It never felt any different to the 1000 times I put in the film correctly.

Typically the only sign for me was that the film shot more than 3 plus the exposure number - I generally got 26 photographs out of a 24 shot film and 38 or 39 out of a 36 shot film so once I went over that, I pretty much knew the film hadn't caught.

It's not as bad, however, as a CF card failing. At least with a film, it's max 36 lost photographs. A dead CF card and you could be down a couple of hundred photographs.

Does the Olympus not have a film winder on the top? it seems to have one here. I think there is some misunderstanding what I am explaining to do, simple put, gently take up the slack with the winder, then watch winder and see if it moved and by frame 1, or 3 exposures it should be moving..

The camera you are talking about has a top winder.. So I dont understand..

i71jskz5xu42pb

sunny2004 wrote: »

Does the Olympus not have a film winder on the top? it seems to have one here. I think there is some misunderstanding what I am explaining to do, simple put, gently take up the slack with the winder, then watch winder and see if it moved and by frame 1, or 3 exposures it should be moving..

OK you don't really need to do that, the Super ME has a film advance/rewind indicator. It does what it says on the tin - tells you if the film is advancing/rewinding properly.

magicbastarder

sunny2004 wrote: »

simple put, gently take up the slack with the winder, then watch winder and see if it moved and by frame 1, or 3 exposures it should be moving..

you don't even need to cock the shutter. just spin the winder backwards a few turns, and if there's film, you should feel the tension building as it tightens inside the canister.

upaho

Wasting your time and money on film.

Am I the only one thinking this? I had my first experience with a serious digital camera in 1999. I knew film was dying then. 2008 was the last time I used film and cant see any reason now that I would ever go back.

sNarah

upaho wrote: »

Wasting your time and money on film.

Am I the only one thinking this? I had my first experience with a serious digital camera in 1999. I knew film was dying then. 2008 was the last time I used film and cant see any reason now that I would ever go back.

The good people of Boards still have a liking for film and use it quite regularly - irrespective of the fact that they also shoot digital.

Both have their pro and cons, which have been discussed in full lenght on previous threads here.

DaireQuinlan

upaho wrote: »

Am I the only one thinking this?

probably, yes. Or at the very least you're probably in a minority.

I've never bothered shooting digital. I like what I achieve with film, why would I go to the considerable expense and effort to try and just duplicate that digitally ?

Horses for courses. Both film and digital have their strengths and weaknesses. Both are, ostensibly at least, just a means to an end, either a print or a digital image.

Actually, as an afterthought, why do you think it's acceptable to jump into a thread with some completely off topic jibe about film ? Its like every time someone here complained about digitals lack of dynamic range or dust spots on the sensor or this perceived necessity to upgrade your digital body every 12 months, someone jumped in with some asinine comment about it being better to use film. They'd be rightly drummed out of the thread.

-edit-
And yes, there have been, as sNarah points out, several threads discussing the pros and cons of film versus digital. A few recently.

magicbastarder

ah, mad people are fun.

they don't seem to realise that we *like* wasting our time.

Brndn

I did the same thing with my OM10, was on the 36th exposure and ready to head to unicare when my GF's dad copped the film rewind not spinning, felt like such a fool! It's a mistake you'll only make once :rolleyes: