101 ways to ruin a roll of film

robhooley167

robhooley167

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We've all done it, shot a roll then developed it to find something has gone very badly wrong... We all make mistakes, its a fundamental part of life

Lets see if we can make a list of ways we have ruined rolls, if nothing else it helps us learn from each others mistakes, if not provide a few laughs on the way :LOL:

Here are a few of mine

1) Load a roll of 120 film backwards so you expose the backing paper not the film
2) Get halfway through a roll of PanF before realising you shot it as ISO 800
3)Put a film in to dev and then get distracted and forget its developing until you next use the tank
:bang:
 
An easy one

Open the back of a 35mm camera thinking you've wound the film back. Then discover you hadn't.
 
4) Forgetting to remove the darkslide (P-back, no interlocks - not strictly a roll affected)
5) Forgetting your using a camera without interlocks and not remembering to wind on
6) Forgetting it's a zone focus camera ("it looked in-focus through the viewfinder..")
 
Alastair said:
5) Forgetting your using a camera without interlocks and not remembering to wind on
Click to expand...

when I was about six we were visiting mother's cousin. She'd left her camera out and I picked it up and started playing. Click, click, click.

Turned out said cousin had taken a pic of a spectacular sunset the evening before. The camera had no interlocks and I'd multiple-exposed images of her hallway over the top of her photo. :-/

Touch wood, apart from the one occasion mentioned in my previous post (and a completely blank set from a test with a car boot rangefinder) I don't think I've killed an entire roll.
 
Musicman said:
Touch wood, apart from the one occasion mentioned in my previous post (and a completely blank set from a test with a car boot rangefinder) I don't think I've killed an entire roll.
Click to expand...

I've managed to kill three on a roll of 12 this way.. easy to do when you're switching backwards and forwards between cameras.
 
kill an entire roll ?.......easy

1. use LC29 developer, its nice and clear with no colour.
2. mix some fixer and leave them next to each other in identical jugs.
3. let nature take its course

:s
 
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i put a few negs that got dusty back on the reel and washed them in the tank, then left them overnight to dry and returned to find the emulsion in a gooey mess at the bottom of the tank
 
Not unsalvageable, but from memory the worst I've done is for the first few rolls of B&W I developed myself I completely covered them in fingerprints trying desperately to get them on the Paterson reel. I don't think the damage has been any worse so far, touch wood.
 
Can people please use sequential numbers? It's messing with my head :p

7) Decide that since Rollei Retro 80S has 80 in the name it's an ISO 80 film, expose and develop it as such and end up with an almost clear roll of film.

Seriously, does anyone even know what ISO that film is? All i've found out is that it can be anywhere between 25 and 160, although probably further in either direction. I think i've got a roll left too...
 
^ it isn't ISO80? Are you positive you didn't have a light leak/developer or fixer problems or exhaustion? Firstcall Photographic's product page for Rollei Retro 80S says ISO80 in the title, and in the description it says expose between ISO32-100. Besides, it's a negative film, so it should have a wide enough exposure range anyway - sounds like you possibly did something wrong IMO.
 
8) Shoot with an aperture priority camera but use a lens that has no aperture coupling, forcing the camera to meter all shots for f22 when they were almost all the other end...
 
9) Load roll into camera but be a tight wad and not pull out quite enough so it misses the sprocket. Shoot and process blank roll...
 
10) while multi-tasking - processing a roll of 120 in one Patterson tank and 2 rolls of 35mm in the other. Pitch the 600mm of Dev into the tank containing the 120 film, and the 500mm into the 35mm. Continue the error through all steps of processing, to get two rolls of film developed perfectly, and one roll developed perfectly on one side, and untouched on the other. :bonk:
 
13) Not concentraing and accidentally inserting the darkslide between the camera back and the film holder, thus letting in light
 
16) Opening box of film before realising the darkbag isn't zipped up (fortunately only 6 sheets left out of a box of 50. That would have been a costly mistake otherwise
 
17) Putting the darkslide in the wrong way when loading the film, thus assuming the sheet of velvia to be exposed and sending off for processing only to get a blank sheet back
 
The Woes of Large format are many. And at £3 for a sheet of velvia and £2.50 p/sheet processing. Sometimes bloody expensive!
 
Loading a sheet of Velvia the wrong way round and ending up with the redest set of green hills ever

I have to agree on the sending B&W fillm away to be processed as well, spending money getting entirely blank sheets of film sent to you isnt fun
 
freecom2 said:
^ it isn't ISO80? Are you positive you didn't have a light leak/developer or fixer problems or exhaustion? Firstcall Photographic's product page for Rollei Retro 80S says ISO80 in the title, and in the description it says expose between ISO32-100. Besides, it's a negative film, so it should have a wide enough exposure range anyway - sounds like you possibly did something wrong IMO.
Click to expand...

It's not light leak, since the rolls i developed before and after it came out just fine. Don't think it's developer (R09) and the fix wasn't that old and had only been used once before (i did replace it after, just in case). I thought the quoted dev time of '4 minutes' did sound a bit strange though, but i had nothing else to go on...
 
19... I think.

Taking the wrong lid off the developing tank to pour the pre-soak in.

Also, similar to Joxby, blixing before developing... but the bottles were clearly labelled and, *really*, you can't mistake c41 blix for anything. Can you?
 
Superewza said:
It's not light leak, since the rolls i developed before and after it came out just fine. Don't think it's developer (R09) and the fix wasn't that old and had only been used once before (i did replace it after, just in case). I thought the quoted dev time of '4 minutes' did sound a bit strange though, but i had nothing else to go on...
Click to expand...

Hmm, just saw that time on the Massive Dev chart. 1:50 dilution right? It is possibly off the mark - here's a Rodinal 1:50, quoted as 12mins 30s: http://filmdev.org/recipe/show/6713 (although the ISO is not mentioned). A thread on APUG suggests using similar times to Rollei Retro 100 (which is actually Agfa APX100). All very murky, unfortunately.
 
shoot past the last exposure so the film tears, then take the empty film cartridge out, send it for developing and realise that the exposed film is still on the spool in the camera....Done that once!
 
19) Forgetting to disengage the film transport before winding back the film in a Zenit, struggling to wind it back and then it suddenly going very slack...
Open back and....


One snapped film!
 
Dropping a roll of exposed 120 film while changing it and watching helplessly as it unrolls on the floor.
 
21) Shooting with your new rangefinder camera and forgetting to remove the lens cap.
 
...and there are guys who have sent their film off and it's been ruined :(
 
joecobbs said:
22. Devving 120 in 300 ml instead of 500. Three quarters of a perfectly exposed photograph. Did it twice too.
Click to expand...

that was the gist of mine (#10) - tried to develop 2x35mm rolls in a patterson tank with 500ml instead of the required 600ml - one good film, and one neatly developed 3/4 of the way across the film :LOL:
 
My latest:- forgot how to use my Watson bulk loader properly.................

70-210macro-1.jpg
 
Not strictly my fault - but took pics at a family wedding many years ago; sent them off to Truprint (or something); their van gets stolen!

I finally end up with maybe 1 roll out of about 6 back - all they could salvage from the recovered van.
 
23. (?)
When you've finished a roll of 120, only to secure it wrongly so that the reel is loosely wound = light leaks everywhere
 
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