101 ways to ruin a roll of film

40) Develop in hard tap water, realize that you're out of distilled water to rinse the film and it's a Sunday. Try to pass off the resulting thumb-sized stains as "art".

You could just rewash it if you wanted? Instead of using distilled water, I prefer using something like Photo-Flo (I use FotoSpeed RA50) - 2.5 millilitres per 120 film.
 
Yeah, but Photo-Flo is expensive. Parents won't notice if a drop of ecover goes missing ;)

Even if you still get drying marks (which i find are usually on the non-emulsion/shiny side) then you can carefully just rub them off with a microfibre cloth (tons lying about thanks to a family history of bad eyesight :p ).
 
My bottle came to less than a fiver and it's good for 200 medium format films, which works out to 2.5p per roll. For 35mm that's 330+ rolls, or 1.5p per roll. And I reckon their 1+200 dilution is actually slightly too much!
 
Dunno if this is worth mentioning.....but I've ruined a few shots not using a hood at times.
 
I'm definitely making a note of these methods, although I don't work with film so often anymore... I did try re-washing several times, but only with distilled water, and most times it did absolutely zilch for the spots while other times it would work. Beats me.

Thanks, folks! I knew it was a good idea to register here :)
 
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and most times it did absolutely zilch for the spots while other times it would work. Beats me.
Calcium carbonate is poorly soluble in water. I would try a slightly acidic solution, for example citric acid. I can't account for colour films, as I'm unsure of the chemistry, but black and white film is basically precipitated silver, which shouldn't be affected at all.
 
41) turn rewind crank into the wrong direction. I think I fogged my first roll from the CLE.
 
Check camera doesn't have a hair in front of the film....all my shots have a semi circle mark look at the centre pillar :( e.g.

T90, sigma 24mm, 300tl flash
Sigma24mm21000px-1.jpg
 
13) Not concentraing and accidentally inserting the darkslide between the camera back and the film holder, thus letting in light

did that last week, ruined a roll of 120 acros
 
Got another one - leave it in AE mode for flash photography
 
When taking everything out of the car, put it all into a shopping bag that was in the boot to make it easier to carry indoors. Get indoors and find that the water bottle that only had a couple of mouthfuls left has leaked and your T90 is sitting in the puddle. Strip out the batteries, dry it off, leave it for a few hours to dry while you go do the weekly shop.

Still with me? Good.

Get back and discover the T90 is fine but is struggling to advance the film. Check the window and see condensation. Result, one soaked film that's sticking so out it comes and into the bin while you fuss over the T90 utilising kitchen roll and swearing to dry it out inside.

The T90's fine, shutter and apertures firing on all cylinders after a quick check. I'm going to leave it to air dry overnight, then run a scrap film through it to check the winder/rewind is all ok.

Could have been worse, my phone could have been laying in the bottom of the puddle too!



Oh.



Cock. :(
 
One I have heard about (Although actually quite skeptical myself) from a mate, he didn't 'think' he had finished his film, yet his rewind was 'abnormally stiff'. A heck of a lot of strength later, it advances, but only after the film ripped off the canister thing.

So he couldnt rewind it.

Although I don't believe him, he is adamant it is true. I would have thought the perforations would have just ripped themselves apart.
 
One I have heard about (Although actually quite skeptical myself) from a mate, he didn't 'think' he had finished his film, yet his rewind was 'abnormally stiff'. A heck of a lot of strength later, it advances, but only after the film ripped off the canister thing.

So he couldnt rewind it.

Although I don't believe him, he is adamant it is true. I would have thought the perforations would have just ripped themselves apart.

That has happen to me quite a few times when using bulk film and sticking the film onto the spool in the cassette with weak/well used...sticky tape. :bonk:
 
I've also done that with my old FG when trying to squeeze one more shot on the film. It wasn't ruined though, I took the film out under a duvet, put it in a film canister and wrapped it in tin foil. I can't remember where I had them developed but they didn't have a problem getting the film out.
 
Have we had "set the wrong speed for flash sync"

Konica TC with wrong shutter speed/flash syn:-
Hex40mm8-900px-1.jpg
 
erm have we had this one? I bought a 35-70mm zoom at the bootie with a deep hood, silly me didn't check if it was wide enough at the 35mm end :-

jjpg022-1000px.jpg
 
Put 6 films through your T90, send them off for D&P, get a call explaining that quite a few shots appear to be over-exposed and then discover that your T90 isn't stopping down the aperture when it takes a shot, even when you set the aperture manually.

Honestly, the way my luck's going at the moment, if I fell into a barrel of boobs I'd come out sucking my thumb. :shake:
 
Put 6 films through your T90, send them off for D&P, get a call explaining that quite a few shots appear to be over-exposed and then discover that your T90 isn't stopping down the aperture when it takes a shot, even when you set the aperture manually.

Honestly, the way my luck's going at the moment, if I fell into a barrel of boobs I'd come out sucking my thumb. :shake:

erm this needs to be investigated by the members maybe a new thread should be started here or at Apug or http://photo.net/canon-fd-camera-forum/ :eek:
 
Put 6 films through your T90, send them off for D&P, get a call explaining that quite a few shots appear to be over-exposed and then discover that your T90 isn't stopping down the aperture when it takes a shot, even when you set the aperture manually.

Does it stop down when you press the DoF preview lever (either in 'A' mode on the lens or manual)?
 
Are you positive it's not sticky aperture blades (i.e. is it a lens rather than a body problem)?
 
erm this needs to be investigated by the members maybe a new thread should be started here or at Apug or http://photo.net/canon-fd-camera-forum/ :eek:
It's already off for repair. The guy who serviced it last time told me to send it back to him for a major service, which he'll cover under warranty despite the warranty from the previous service having expired a couple of months ago. Hoping to receive it back next week if all goes well.

I wasn't getting any indication of an error from the camera and if I stopped down the aperture and opened it before releasing the shutter, the aperture would close properly but the very next shot would be wide open again. I tried multiple lenses to rule out a sticky diaphragm, same result on each one.

I'll post an update once I know more next week. :(
 
Update: apparently the problem is the auto-aperture linkage board, which needs replacing. So much for T90s being bullet-proof.

At least I've got my FM. Maybe I'll open a book on how that's going to bugger up a film. :(
 
Use Fomapan 100 in 35mm, possibly the fiddliest, curliest film back ever. (except for kodak verichrome pan which has been expired for 30 odd years)
 
I can relate to more of these replies than I care to admit :eek:/

Can I also add:
42) Absent-mindedly unscrewing the lid of the developing tank to pour in developer... It took a few seconds to realise what I'd done but that was more than enough to add that Arty touch to the whole roll.

Note to self: No more wine while developing film.
 
i didnt think it was as bad in medium format, maybe i dried it more... the roll of kodak verichrome pan i devved for the "fancy a suprise" thread curled lengthways and widthways... i didnt know that was even feasible?!
 
take exposed roll of film out of camera, put in jacket pocket for safe keeping, return home and leave jacket on kitchen chair while go for shower - come back downstairs to find that swimbo has considerately put 'dirty' jacket (complete with film, car keys , and mobile phone ! ) in washing machine.

(I'd hasten to add that it wasnt my current swimbo that did that, but my psycho hosebeast now ex a few years back)

Alternately roll over a floating hide while photographing displaying greebes - that wrote off not just the roll of film in the camera but the several other rolls in my pockets, but a pentax MZS and Sigma 400mm as well

I would add the fall out of rhib while photographing diving gannets experience, but i'd gone digital by the time i did that.
 
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Ouch... Some people have all the luck :/

Here's one of mine from a couple of weeks ago, using dodgy film back on medium format, write in massive letters across the back of the film back to wind on the film as the interlock was broken... Then proceed to triple expose some lovely landscapes before realising what i did. :(
 
#45 ~ Not loading the film into my 35mm SLR properly & only after shooting, I discovered my half exposed film hadn't continued to wind on after a certain point, nor wound back into the canister once I'd finished. Obviously the film was destroyed as I opened the back of the camera up o_O oops!
 
46 ) Asking your drunk friend to take a photo of you and your girlfriend (whilst at a wedding) and to watch him run off with the camera aimlessly taking random photos of out of focus faces, close up eye shots and him on the toilet!
 
#47 ~ Working in a light tight room off the darkroom with an ignorant fellow student whilst loading films onto spirals & preparing them to be developed when the fool looks at her phone. The white light from the phone fogs part of my film & pretty much all of hers {during the first year @ college}.
 
#47 ~ Working in a light tight room off the darkroom with an ignorant fellow student whilst loading films onto spirals & preparing them to be developed when the fool looks at her phone. The white light from the phone fogs part of my film & pretty much all of hers {during the first year @ college}.

I had something similar, i forgot to take my watch off when using my dark bag and the glow in the dark digits fogged part of the film, luckily it was a test roll so nothing major :/
 
Not sure I really want to admit to this one:
Had just taken a LF shot and found myself being asked where the film was by a curious bystander. In order to answer his question, I opened the darkslide to show him! :bang:
 
One I have heard about (Although actually quite skeptical myself) from a mate, he didn't 'think' he had finished his film, yet his rewind was 'abnormally stiff'. A heck of a lot of strength later, it advances, but only after the film ripped off the canister thing.

So he couldnt rewind it.

Although I don't believe him, he is adamant it is true. I would have thought the perforations would have just ripped themselves apart.

I did that a couple of weeks ago but used a changing bag to remove the film from the take-up spool and load straight onto the Paterson reel. A few shots were lost to scratches but managed to save most of them.
 
Here's another embarrassing one:
The darkroom place I use has a separate film processing room, which has 2 light switches, one for normal lights, one for safelight. So in I go thinking 'right, have to be sensible, important roll here' & concentrating so much on not messing anything up that I turn off the lights & forget to turn the safelights off. I'd just got the film out the canister when I thought 'so that's what it looks like! Wait, why have I never seen this before? Oh...' Luckily it only ruined the 1st couple of frames as the light was fairly weak & it was rolled tightly enough to prevent light getting further down the roll. Could have been a lot worse :puke:
 
hahaha, I'm starting to think a lot of these are more like light blunders than film! Everyone has the odd foolish moment :}
 
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