Allow Me to Intoduce Myself: I'm an Idiot.

knifeinthedark · Apr 20, 2010

I had a stupid moment the pother day which happened to be my first development. I used rodinal, and mixed it in a 250ml beaker, and when i poured it in to the paterson 4 tank i realized i had little developer. Then with one hand rolling the tank and the other quickly mixing another 250ml. I was relived nothing bad happened. learnt a lesson, mix enough chemicals.

chris00nj · Apr 20, 2010

The thread for a mea culpa? Here's mine so far in the two months I've been developing :

1. My Miniature Speed Graphic - Open shutter. Focus. Insert film holder. Remove dark slide. Forget to close shutter first.
2. Developed a roll of 120 in a Patterson tank with 12 oz of mixed developer. Wanted to save money on developer. Top 1/4 of film is underdeveloped. Yup, pennywise, pound foolish.

Rick A · Apr 20, 2010

Shadowtracker said:
Keep in mind, with 2-part developers, Part A does not go into Part B's bottle.....

Or finding out you cant save Dektol in the same bottle thats half full of TF-4.

KWhitmore · Apr 20, 2010

Hexavalent said:
Develop, fix, open up tank to find empty reels, full reels sitting on table... oops.

Omg! Sorry but that one made me seriously laugh!

stillsilver · Apr 20, 2010

Welcome to a club with a long membership list that is growing rapidly.

Did you know that you have to put the lid on the tank before you remove it from the changing bag?

Mike

KWhitmore · Apr 20, 2010

I've been really lucky so far...no major screw-ups in processing. One of these days I know I'm going to forget to lock the door to the (darkrm) bathroom...my cats can push the door open if it's not locked, sigh.

Hexavalent · Apr 20, 2010

Here's one to add to the list, and it just happened last night.

New digital timer.. 3 00 is 3 minutes not the three hundred seconds I needed - explains a few density problems

Mats_A · Apr 20, 2010

Load film holders with 9x12 cm film. Be very careful about dusting every holder and inserting the dark slide. Check one more time that all holders are closed. Turn on light. First thing I see: Open box of films on the table......

r

Mats

Rick A · Apr 20, 2010

shimoda said:
Load film holders with 9x12 cm film. Be very careful about dusting every holder and inserting the dark slide. Check one more time that all holders are closed. Turn on light. First thing I see: Open box of films on the table......

r

Mats

I will not laugh at that one-- I greatly fear doing that myself.

cmacd123 · Apr 20, 2010

reminds me of one of my early mistakes. Had just bought a nice new Yankee Clipper II tank. Shot a roll of film, and loaded it under the bed covers at night intending to develop it in the morning.
Woke up the next day and saw my nice new tank. Opened the lid to admire the insides. Stared a long time until I took out the reel, noticed the film on it.
Needless to say I had a nice totally black roll. The clipper II has a clear plastic top spiral intended to re-expose Anscochrome and its friends.

nickrapak · Apr 20, 2010

Joe O'Brien said:
I failed to secure the funnel on top of my film developing tank. When dumping the devoloper out the lid fell off and I "push processed" my film inadvertantly...

Same thing happened to me on my first time out.

flatulent1 · Apr 21, 2010

Some of these are hilarious, primarily because I came soooo close to pulling a few of them myself. My latest flash of brilliance wasn't in the darkroom, it was this morning out on the beach with a folder that I somehow must have thought had a motor drive. I had taken several shots without winding on. More than once.

KenS · Apr 21, 2010

skyrick said:
A
[snip]
I was so excited at how easy it was to load my exposed roll of Efke in the dark that when I put on the funnel lid I put it on upside down, funnel pointing up! Then I (sigh) turned the lights on! After a brief, high-pitched, girly scream I turned the lights back off and flipped the lid around the correct way.

Note to self: valuable lesson learned...don't be an idiot

My mentor used to maintain that a person who claimed to have never made a mistake was either a liar... or never actually did anything.

Ken

DennisGrieder · Apr 22, 2010

i dont know how many times ive left my paper half way out of my paper box and turned on the lights

Terrence Brennan · Apr 22, 2010

KenS said:
My mentor used to maintain that a person who claimed to have never made a mistake was either a liar... or never actually did anything.

Ken

Too true!

KWhitmore · Apr 22, 2010

So I'm not perfect after all... ;-)

One incident I recall now was measuring water for developing a roll of 35mm when what was actually loaded in the tank was 120. I added the 10 mls of HC110 to the water, (correct for 120?) mixed it up, poured it in the tank. A few seconds later my brain caught up...I quickly dumped in another 250 odd mls of water in the tank, slapped the lid on and "went for it". Just one of my "oh $hit" moments of many...
Didn't seem to have an effect on the film...weird.

Vonder · Apr 22, 2010

My "oh shit" moment is digital with a film-based happy ending, muchly due to APUG. I got confused during a hard drive fault and siad "yes" to a question I shoulda said NO to. Erased an entire hard drive, uncluding nearly all my 2008 pictures. No backup.

Oh wait! I've been a film snob this year! Most of my pics are on film... and I still have the negatives!

Now if I ever get the ambition, I can re-scan them all in...

Oh, and the Patterson tank, forget the tube trick? Been there. Done that.

mhcfires · Apr 22, 2010

Oh my Gawd!

I think that in the nearly fifty years of developing and printing my own film that I have probably managed to do nearly every one of these stunts. I suppose that I could lay claim to the "Dumb Shit of all Time" award, but I might have some company.

Your faithful and humbled Idiot, Boob, Dumb Shit,

Michael "Pack Rat" Cienfuegos

seadrive · Apr 22, 2010

shimoda said:
Load film holders with 9x12 cm film. Be very careful about dusting every holder and inserting the dark slide. Check one more time that all holders are closed. Turn on light. First thing I see: Open box of films on the table......

r

Mats

Ouch! At USD 2.00+ per sheet of 5x7 TXP, that would be painful!

keithwms · Apr 22, 2010

Dumbest photographic thing I ever did was drop a Nikon 400/3.5 on my toe. The lens was unscathed; the toe was not.

Antonio Banfi · Apr 22, 2010

personally I think the best is focus and develop on the wrong side of photographic paper. Happened so many times..frustrating.

Hexavalent · Apr 22, 2010

Antonio Banfi said:
personally I think the best is focus and develop on the wrong side of photographic paper. Happened so many times..frustrating.

Just flip the neg over

yeknom02 · Apr 22, 2010

I poured my C-41 stabilizer back into my blix bottle. I'm punishing myself by not doing any color development for a while.

mhcfires · Apr 23, 2010

keithwms said:
Dumbest photographic thing I ever did was drop a Nikon 400/3.5 on my toe. The lens was unscathed; the toe was not.

I think I would have mixed emotions. A broken toe is painful, a broken lens is not only painful, but expensive. Hope your toe healed ok.

KWhitmore · Apr 23, 2010

Antonio Banfi said:
personally I think the best is focus and develop on the wrong side of photographic paper. Happened so many times..frustrating.

sometimes I forget to put the paper in the easel... :confused:

Allow Me to Intoduce Myself: I'm an Idiot.

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