Film problems

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macmike

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A friend of mind recently bought a second hand SLR and has shot through a couple of films. Besides getting used to the manual focus and over/underexposed shots, there were a couple of problems...

Some of the exposures came out blank (and so weren't even printed by the photo company). The camera doesn't let you wind on to take the next shot until you've pressed the shutter. Any ideas how this happens??

Also, three successive shots came out very underexposed on the left half of the photo, but fine on the right. It's a fairly sharp cut between properly exposed and underexposed, so I don't think it's something in front of the lens. As far as I remember, the flash was pointed at a wall, but in a small room and with white walls, I wouldn't expect such a dramatic difference in exposure between left and right.

I'd really appreciate someone with experience of film cameras to enlighten me (no pun intended) as to what's happening. Thanks (y)
 
macmike said:
Some of the exposures came out blank (and so weren't even printed by the photo company). The camera doesn't let you wind on to take the next shot until you've pressed the shutter. Any ideas how this happens??
Click to expand...

Best guess would be that you've fired the shutter by accident with the lens cap on.
 
macmike said:
Also, three successive shots came out very underexposed on the left half of the photo, but fine on the right. It's a fairly sharp cut between properly exposed and underexposed, so I don't think it's something in front of the lens. As far as I remember, the flash was pointed at a wall, but in a small room and with white walls, I wouldn't expect such a dramatic difference in exposure between left and right.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the shutter speed was too high for the flash to sync. Check out the camera flash sync speed (probably around 60th sec).
 
Some of the exposures came out blank (and so weren't even printed by the photo company). The camera doesn't let you wind on to take the next shot until you've pressed the shutter. Any ideas how this happens??

Hi Mike
Just a thought, does the camera have a T (timed) setting? You press the shutter button once to open the shutter then again to close it allowing you then to wind on. was the camera set on this? this could explain both exposure problem and wind on problem. Other cameras have a B (bulb) setting where you just keep the button pressed to make your timed exp.

hope this helps
Ken
 
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