Beginner How do I purposely create light leaks using Canon AE-1 & 35mm film?

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Sam
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Hey everyone

So recently I've been looking at photography with light leaks in it and I really like it!
I was wondering if anyone had any tips or tricks to purposely create them, without wiping out a whole roll of film.:D
I think I read an article from Lomography about opening the film door a little, but I wasn't sure how much a little is.

If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know! :)


Sam
 
Hi Sam, welcome to F&C :)

Basically, there's no definite rule about how much light to let in to get a light leak you 'like'! The biggest risk with trying to open the back is that there's a fair chance that you'll let too much in and fig half the roll. Have you considered using pre-flashed film instead? Adam Scot is a friend of mine and he runs http://dubblefilm.com and sells film with pre-existing colour tones/leaks etc. I know Lomo do some as well but I, personally, prefer the effects that Adam gets. I particularly like the cold tone of Monsoon but there are a few others that might appeal?

Cheers
Steve
 
Gimmicks to go. Whatever next? Is this the artistic zenith of the Instagram generation? The essence of photography is communication, not novelty.

Style over worth.

Cartier Bresson would turn in his grave.

Play, yes, but stick to substance.
 
droj said:
Gimmicks to go. Whatever next? Is this the artistic zenith of the Instagram generation? The essence of photography is communication, not novelty.

Style over worth.

Cartier Bresson would turn in his grave.

Play, yes, but stick to substance.
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I’m not a huge fan of gimmicks but I do like the tones of some of the Dubble films. I agree that substance is important and a nice roll of Velvia will always win for me but there are times when it’s good to experiment and it’s an alternative to opening the back door and hoping for the best.

Forgot to add, people have been titting around with ‘effects’ long before Instagram came along. Don’t tell me you haven’t used a star filter....
 
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I don’t think there’s anything wrong with experimenting and trying new things. Photography is supposed to be fun. Some of the comments I’ve had from ‘traditionalists’ because I’ve dared to build a purple large format camera has been eye opening, and hilarious, in equal measures [emoji23]
 
stevelmx5 said:
Photography is supposed to be fun
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Oh no it isn't! It's about communication. Fun isn't excluded, but that's not it's essence or full potential.

Nomad Z said:
Some people might use it for communication, but that usage doesn't become an essence of the thing itself.
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Communication is the crucial, overriding function. The communication can of course in itself be fun. But think about the possible depth of that communication - it can be more trivial or more vital.
 
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droj said:
Communication is the crucial, overriding function. The communication can of course in itself be fun. But think about the possible depth of that communication - it can be more trivial or more vital.
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What's being communicated in this?

Photo.jpg
 
Sam the essence of what you're talking about is that it's not precisely controllable. You can't confine it to a single film frame, neither can you see what's happening until later. You could unlatch the camera back a smidgeon and the leak might affect the frames to either side in some way.

I think it's a gimmick formulated to get people to buy more film and stuff. But do it! That's how we learn. Part of the creative process is to be able to embrace accidents. Some things though are a one-shot wonder. Stay grounded!
 
@ThatGuySam i can’t give you any advice regards your desire for light leaks but I wish you luck with your experimentation.

Enjoy your photography and let it take you wherever, there is no right or wrong if you are achieving what you want it to.

And don’t forget to share the results on here. Good luck (y)
 
RaglanSurf said:
@ThatGuySam i can’t give you any advice regards your desire for light leaks but I wish you luck with your experimentation.

Enjoy your photography and let it take you wherever, there is no right or wrong if you are achieving what you want it to.

And don’t forget to share the results on here. Good luck (y)
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at last, the essence of this section-a welcoming and balanced answer, regardless of personal views/preference (y)
 
RaglanSurf said:
@ThatGuySam i can’t give you any advice regards your desire for light leaks but I wish you luck with your experimentation.

Enjoy your photography and let it take you wherever, there is no right or wrong if you are achieving what you want it to.

And don’t forget to share the results on here. Good luck (y)
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Ditto.

Welcome @ThatGuySam. Have fun being creative with your photography!
 
:agree::welcome:
 
droj said:
Gimmicks to go. Whatever next? Is this the artistic zenith of the Instagram generation? The essence of photography is communication, not novelty.

Style over worth.

Cartier Bresson would turn in his grave.
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If Sam is looking to make light leaks on film, that means he's using film, which means he is buying film - which means production continues, and allows all of us to also have film.

As for how to make light leaks... maybe just wait until the next 'what is this on my film', then buy their camera off them? :D
 
Hello @ThatGuySam - I had some great results with light leaks when I tried freelensing: https://www.35millimetre.co.uk/2017/08/01/freelensing-is-bestlensing/ And ignore people trying to tell you what your photos "should" look like, or that your interests are gimmicky. If all our photos looked the same, the world would be very boring.

If you have any questions, do feel free to drop me a message or reply here :)
 
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Hi @ThatGuySam really pleased to see you taking up film and experimenting. There's a whole bunch of things that are oddball that interest me, including intentional camera movement, although the latter is probably better suited to digeri cameras, given the high failure rate!

If you're thinking of opening the back, I'd suggest doing your experimenting near the beginning of the roll, that way if the light is excessive you're only affecting the few shots already out of the canister. I did once accidentally open the back for a second or two with a full film ready to be rewound (I thought I was rewinding the film, as I walked along, but I was actually unscrewing the rewind lever, and in trying to put it back I opened the back!). I think I managed to rescue a few shots from near the beginning of the roll (at the centre of the wound-on spool).

Here are two, the worst affected, and one from the middle of the roll...



Light leak 2.jpgLight leak 1.jpg

I'd love to see what you can come up with (gotta be better than mine!)...
 
Actually when I look more closely at the images from that roll, it's a bit weirder. Max Spielmann scanned the film back to front, so the last shot on the film was numbered CNV00001. The first shot shown above was no CNV00028, so quite near the start of the film. The second shot was CNV00015, so definitely near the middle. I don't have an explanation (other than chance in the way the film was wound) for the worst affected shot (by far) being near the centre of the exposed part of the roll...
 
freecom2 said:
As for how to make light leaks... maybe just wait until the next 'what is this on my film', then buy their camera off them? :D
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you know, that WAS going to be my (semi) serious answer... that or buy a "spares/scrap" AE1, remove the back, scrape out some of the lightseal on the back and use that back on the "proper" camera on the occasions you fancied playing with effects...

ETA: cancel that second idea... most of the lightseal is in the body rather than the back - its just at the two ends (hinge and latch end) where there's felt/sponge - the rest of the seal is in a channel in the body. It's been a LOONG time since I had a AE1-Prog, and I mis-remembered...
 
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Just about to question Mark there but I see he's corrected his suggestion. (y) I only know this as I had to get the perished light seals replaced on my A1, so I remember where they were! Aside from that, the effect of a leaking camera back would still be hard to predict as it will depend on how much light is falling on the camera (sunshine or dull day), where it's falling on the camera, and how sensitive the film is to light (the ISO rating).

Also, there's no guarantee the leak effect would be in the right place in each photo to make it look good. This could quickly turn into an expensive (and disappointing) guessing game! Has Sam though about learning how to create a light-leak effect in Photoshop (or other image processing software)? This would at least be controllable and replicable, and probably a lot cheaper than trial and error using a leaky camera and rolls of film. Hope this suggestion is useful.
 
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droj said:
Gimmicks to go. Whatever next? Is this the artistic zenith of the Instagram generation? The essence of photography is communication, not novelty.

Style over worth.

Cartier Bresson would turn in his grave.

Play, yes, but stick to substance.
Click to expand...
I spent a fair bit of my twenties deliberately fogging photographic prints half way through development - I am a big fan of Man Ray - and produced some good pictures doing this. It is called the Sabatier Effect and allowed people to develop new aesthetics that did not depend on what the grey men taught. Of course, in time, the grey men started teaching the Sabatier Effect.

I would never introduce light leaks into my films and do not enjoy the results but I am now an old fogey and the future belongs to the experimenters.
 
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Mr Badger said:
.

Also, there's no guarantee the leak effect would be in the right place in each photo to make it look good. This could quickly turn into an expensive (and disappointing) guessing game!
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Surely that’s the point, it’s an adventure, it’s experimentation, it’s not an exact science, if the OP wanted a guaranteed look there’s probably a 1980’s Colin filter for it but where’s the fun in that. It surely isn’t something that can be created, controlled and manipulated in Photoshop.

@ThatGuySam If the light seal can’t be tweaked to give an element of light leak then perhaps opening the film back in slightly subdued light may give the desired effect and you won’t know what that is until you process the film. Great fun :)
 
Snip:
RaglanSurf said:
Surely that’s the point, it’s an adventure, it’s experimentation, it’s not an exact science, if the OP wanted a guaranteed look there’s probably a 1980’s Colin filter for it but where’s the fun in that.
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What's a 1980's Colin filter... and what did 1980's Colin do to deserve being filtered anyway? ;) I know what you mean Nick, but I remember when I was Sam's age, and I couldn't afford that many rolls of film and processing to experiment with. Hence me suggesting a cheaper and more controllable way of producing the same effect. It's up to Sam really.

Perhaps Sam could think about trying one of those old, metal, 1950s imitation Twin Lens Reflex box cameras like the 'Coronet Twelve 20', should be able to buy a working one in good condition for about £10. Load it with 400 ISO colour print 120 roll film (which would give 12 shots per roll), learn the 'sunny 16 rule' and take it out on a sunny day, take a photo with it then let the sun shine on the red window in the film door and hope the sunlight will creep round the backing paper and give a light leak (unpredictable but it might work, and could be increased in 5 second steps for each photo taken, and written notes taken on how long each photo was exposed to the sun shining through the red film window). If it did produce a light leak effect then he'd know roughly how long to let the sun shine through the red film window next time for a similar effect. Most likely still hit and miss but it might give a bit of predictability to getting the required effect?

That old Corona Twelve 20 seemed to work for me when I was Sam's age (but my light leak photos were unintentional!); a real 'lomography' type effect, and if I used the narrow aperture and shot into direct sunlight I'd get a corona flare type effect too. BUT, this might just have been down to my particular camera, and there's no guarantee any of this will work with another of the same model! Here are some results taken in about 1980 (and not a Colin in sight!). Hope this suggestion is useful too. (y)



[URL='https://flic.kr/p/YGPgAQ'][/URL]
 
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Colin or Cokin??? :)
 
I think I’ll stick with Colin filters:D
 
And welcome to the forum from me too. The one thing I would add to the above is that it is only really experimentation if you have some control over the variables, i.e. amount of light and location of the leak. I can think of a couple of ideas, such as putting the camera in a thick black plastic bag with a small hole in it and popping the back of the camera for a short time. Or may be using a double exposure with the lens removed and a cover over most of the lens opening (assuming the AE-1 will fire the shutter without a lens attached)

droj said:
Oh no it isn't! It's about communication.
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what if the communication is about the nature of film, or breaking the "fourth wall", or a nostalgic take on kids with cheap plastic cameras?
 
of course, the other option is to abandon 35mm film and buy a badly made plastic toy camera like Helga the Holga...

Anyone who joined in on the travelling camera project will probably remember the amount of gaffa tape that the camera was embalmed in to keep the back in place through the vagaries of the post office... without that tape, I reckon I got at least a couple of frames per roll that were subject to some form of light leak... With it, we just had the problems of the film unwinding in the camera, losing registration between frames, the film eating the sponge dampers in the camera and all the other problems...

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...ng-something-daft.332163/page-12#post-5062602

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...images-roll-5-in-journey-now-complete.341488/

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/gallery/albums/helga-the-homeless-holga.32/

(I think it's high time we did something stupid like this again... Happy to donate the camera again, and maybe the first roll of fillum, but I wouldn't have time and don't have the chem's etc for the processing anymore)
 
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TheBigYin said:
of course, the other option is to abandon 35mm film and buy a badly made plastic toy camera like Helga the Holga...

Anyone who joined in on the travelling camera project will probably remember the amount of gaffa tape that the camera was embalmed in to keep the back in place through the vagaries of the post office... without that tape, I reckon I got at least a couple of frames per roll that were subject to some form of light leak... With it, we just had the problems of the film unwinding in the camera, losing registration between frames, the film eating the sponge dampers in the camera and all the other problems...

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...ng-something-daft.332163/page-12#post-5062602

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...images-roll-5-in-journey-now-complete.341488/

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/gallery/albums/helga-the-homeless-holga.32/

(I think it's high time we did something stupid like this again... Happy to donate the camera again, and maybe the first roll of fillum, but I wouldn't have time and don't have the chem's etc for the processing anymore)
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If we stick to traditional black and white then I’m happy to process the film and scan.
 
Just had a look at the Holga gallery and I think colour photos looks better, we get to appreciate the light leaks more that way! To me the worst of the black and white ones just look muddy and depressing, rather than amusing like the colour ones.

I think I still have that Coronet Twelve 20 somewhere, if it still works we could post that round as it would probably survive better than something made of plastic and foam? I don't think it weighs all that much either, so perhaps keep the postage costs down a bit too? I'd chuck a roll of Ektar 100 in to start things rolling too, but we'd have to sort out the cost of processing, I'd be happy to scan the negatives though... not much point in paying for a lab quality scan for that! Let me know what you think.
 
it was just idle musing TBH, after re-reading the results thread, and rather than derail this particular thread, if we're going to go for it, it needs it's own thread starting by someone...
 
droj said:
Gimmicks to go. Whatever next? Is this the artistic zenith of the Instagram generation? The essence of photography is communication, not novelty.

Style over worth.

Cartier Bresson would turn in his grave.

Play, yes, but stick to substance.
Click to expand...
I wonder what rot the different art forms would have been stuck in if everybody in the last centuries had been playing by these rules. Or think of the lack of development of technologies it could have caused.
 
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