blank negatives after souping! help me narrow down the possibilities

[bdial]

It's an easy mistake to make, and not a particuarly uncommon one.

 

[pentaxuser]

When you load it the black part of the backing paper needs to be against the pressure plate so the film part is in front and thus exposed to the shutter opening.

pentaxuser

I have realised that I have made a mistake in how I have phrased this.Sorry for that. I should have said that the white or coloured part of the backing paper need to be against the pressure plate and it is the black part that should be showing so the film is in front and open to exposure from the shutter.

Doesn't alter what I was trying to say which is that it is easy to cover the film accidentally and my mistake in explaining things only goes to show how easy it is to get the loading wrong when the right way can appear to be counter intuitive.

This can especially be the case if a previous roll film camera was of the older folder variety where the coloured part of the backing paper does need to show when you look through the red window.

I have an Agfa Isolette and when I moved to the P645N loading seemed to be the wrong way round


pentaxuser

 

[chuck94022]

... i keep things simple, only use 1 developer,
nothing rodinal, or boutique .. i process everything in coffee for about 30mins ...

I like this! Nothing boutique about coffee!

 

[mwdake]

I think it has been said already but this really does seem like the film was the wrong way out, backing paper toward the Shutter instead of the film.

 

[Nige]

I managed to load my 1st roll inside out.. and got exactly the same result! After some advice (in a chat room... pre APUG) I loaded another correctly, shot 15 junk exposures and in 15mins had confirmation that my eBay special wasn't stuffed at all...

 

[cjbecker]

Take the back off the camera and shoot some pictures and look through the body and see if it actually is opening.

 

[Bill Burk]

While you are at it... take the dark slide out with the back off the camera (waste a couple shots) and see if the shiny side is showing.

 

[kmallick]

Thanks to all for the ideas and suggestions. Right now I am narrowing it down to loading my film wrong in the film holder.

I am already running a 400 speed fresh film through the same camera, a tried and tested film that I am very used to developing. I will run the suspect APX100 through another camera. Hope to nail something!

I will know more and report back after I do the above two experiments.

 

[MattKing]

Thanks to all for the ideas and suggestions. Right now I am narrowing it down to loading my film wrong in the film holder.



I will know more and report back after I do the above two experiments.

There are little stylized diagrams right on the inserts themselves which indicate the proper orientation for the film path.

And pages 18 and 19 of the manual set out quite clearly the necessary information. In case you don't have it, here is the (recently restored) page on the Mamiya website that has links for the various 645 manuals: http://www.mamiyaleaf.com/documentation_legacy_645.asp

 

[jumbosilverette]

Is it possible it wasn't loaded correctly, and therefore didn't advance?

 

[250swb]

Is it possible it wasn't loaded correctly, and therefore didn't advance?

That is what I thought initially, but it would be obvious that there was no tag of glued paper available to seal the film if it hadn't gone through the camera.

Steve

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

Maybe the shutter isn't opening.

 

[TareqPhoto]

Well, i had same problem and found out later that the film didn't advanced, but the worse mistake is when you load it and expose it fine then there is still something wrong, the two issues i had so far are one is blank rolls which is due to not exposing it[not advancing] or the developer is dead but this is not true because i see the markings, and second is that i miss one frame in the roll or have part of it, later i found it is because i didn't loaded the film accurate correct due to the arrow, now if i will do those mistakes again means i was careless and i just didn't keep attention to errors causes.

 

[wiltw]

Thanks for the suggestions. All are in line of what I was thinking.
Everything points to the film not exposed at all. But thats what I am thoroughly confused about.
The dark slide was out of the film holder. I remember taking it off before shooting. I was using the main shutter button the front of the 645 Pro TL (and not the auto winder). I also remember putting the dark slide back after the shoot was complete and before I took the film holder off of the camera back.

Hmmm...I had a Bronica ETRSi (purchased when new) and I had in my bag some used film magazines as well as some new film magazines. With one of the used magazines, the interlock mechanism protruded into the body a little too much. As a result, when I released the shutter button, the reflex mirror would rise and I thought the shutter fired. Processed film, blank images. Then I noticed that the little red indicator light in the viewfinder did not activate, so the shutter was not opening and closing again...because the interlock pin interfered with the rise of the reflex mirror, preventing the in-lens shutter from firing. I sent in the film magazine along with the body, and Bronica fixed the problem...by shortening the interlocking pin in the magazine so that the reflex mirror would fully rise and let the in-lens shutter fire.

Long story to say that there may be an oddball thing going on.

• Have you tried dry firing the camera, to make sure your shutter curtain slit is travelling across the film plane?
• Are you noticing that the viewfinder blanks out for a moment, so that you know the reflex mirror is rising up out of the way of the light path?
• Have you tried removing the film back, and firing the camera with lens mounted, and observe thru the camera that you can see the lens stop down and see light thru the aperture?

 

[kmallick]

I am happy to report that I have concluded that the reason why the negatives came out blank was because of incorrect loading of the 120 roll in the film insert.

First, I tried a fresh roll of film, Arista EDU Ultra 400 in the Mamiya 645 Pro TL camera, souped it in HC-110 dil.H and all frames came out fine. Therefore there was nothing wrong with the camera. Here is a test shot:



Next, I shot another roll of the suspect Agfa APX 100 film in a different camera, a Bronica SQ-Ai and souped it using the exact same method as before (Rodinal 1:50 for 13 mins). All frames were exposed properly. Here is an example shot:



Nothing wrong with the camera or the film. Its just that the film was loaded wrong. And I didn't even know it.

Hopefully this posts help someone else down the road. Lesson learned for me: I need to pay attention when loading the roll films in the inserts.

Thanks for everybody's help and suggestions. I am glad I can drop in at apug for all the helping hand.