Was in Washington DC last week the day before (left the day of) the big Army parade. I tried rewinding film in my Contax iia (from a ZU cartridge, Ilford FP4+). Apparently I did not assemble or mount the cartridge correctly because rewinding was hard, and eventually the film tore. I did open the camera and look. I got home extracted two portions of the film- a little left in the cartridge and about 20+ images on the original Ilford unwind cartridge The film left in the cartridge was exposed so no images, but I did save some images on the original Ilford cartridge. Also, my daughter's has a point and shoot and did not rewind properly. Back was opened momentarily then closed and manually rewound (HP5+). I did not know the status of either roll so when I purchased more film and chemicals last week I bought a bottle of Bergger One and processed both rolls in that. My daughters images came out, but with obvious exposure when the back was opened. The images in my Contax that were rewound turned out, but not the quality I usually expect. I am suspecting there may be a small light leak, possibly from not assembling and mounting the ZU cartridge correctly, plus some mechanical issues that I felt in the difficult rewinding (I did not notice any issues unwinding). Clues on the negs only show minor light leak on a few shots near where the film tore- may have been a mechanically induced light leak during rewinding. I am using ZU cartridges because my main rewind spindle (original Zeiss as far as I know) is no longer good. I need to either learn to use the ZU cartridges better, or try a ZU spindle (~1mm short) by it self, or get a new/old original spindle. I am glad I saved some some shots in any case. I am not sure I am sold on Bergger One yet, but there are too many variables to judge fairly in this one use. Here are a few of my saved shots:
Low/tricky light situation
Bell MV75 by
Mark Wyatt, on Flickr
Washington Monument Across Reflecting Pool by
Mark Wyatt, on Flickr
Washington Monument Up by
Mark Wyatt, on Flickr