Dumb question???

[Isaiah Dominguez]

Okay this is probably a dumb question, but I'm a beginner. I took my lens off my canon ae1 to clean this spec off and while the lens was off I accidentally pressed the shutter button. Did this ruin my film I had shot that was in the camera ?

 

[Horatio]

Just the one frame, most likely.

 

[wiltw]

One shot wasted,

• likely underexoposed or overexposed,
• likely out of focus,
• likely not of any subject for which you have any interest

All earlier shots made to whatever level of quality (or not). not effected by abpve shot

 

[Mick Fagan]

It would only have exposed one single frame of your film.

This means that when you finish the roll of film, you should have 35 frames with images and one frame that is blank. Presuming you have a 36 frame roll of film in the camera, that is.

Pressing the shutter button when doing what you are doing certainly does happen, usually a safer way to clean a lens is with it on the camera. By keeping a lens on the camera body you have less chance of dust and other stuff entering the camera innards. Another way to do this is to have a lens body cap, which replaces a lens and keeps your camera innards safe and dark, so that if you accidently press the shutter button, you don't waste a frame; instead you utulise the multiple exposure mechanism (if your camera has one) then merrily go on your way.

Welcome to Photrio and film photography.

Mick.

 

[Isaiah Dominguez]

It would only have exposed one single frame of your film.

This means that when you finish the roll of film, you should have 35 frames with images and one frame that is blank. Presuming you have a 36 frame roll of film in the camera, that is.

Pressing the shutter button when doing what you are doing certainly does happen, usually a safer way to clean a lens is with it on the camera. By keeping a lens on the camera body you have less chance of dust and other stuff entering the camera innards. Another way to do this is to have a lens body cap, which replaces a lens and keeps your camera innards safe and dark, so that if you accidently press the shutter button, you don't waste a frame; instead you utulise the multiple exposure mechanism (if your camera has one) then merrily go on your way.

Welcome to Photrio and film photography.

Mick.

Thank you so much!

 

[railwayman3]

As Horatio says, it will probably have just spoiled the one frame, It's a focal plane shutter on that camera, so this would have been protecting the film while the lens was being changed, other than just for the fraction of a second when you pressed the release. This would not have caused light to get to the remainder of the film, which would have been rolled up in the cassette or on the take-up spool. (I think that most of us have probably made this easy mistake at one time or another !)

P.S. Don't worry, there are no dumb questions here....asking (and the occasional mistake) is how we all learned.

 

[Horatio]

Does the AE-1 have a shutter lock switch?

 

[MattKing]

You might see some light flaring around the edge of the ruined frame, but it is unlikely that it will bleed as far as the adjacent frames.
What type of film is it? I ask because a small portion of films are on a different base, which might increase slightly the amount leaking outside the frame.

 

[AgX]

Does the AE-1 have a shutter lock switch?

Yes.
The lever around the release button can be swung into a locking position.

 

[grain elevator]

likely out of focus,

There was no lens on the camera, so the lens mount acts as a large pinhole: everything is in focus! The sharpness may not be up to very demanding standards however.

 

[wiltw]

There was no lens on the camera, so the lens mount acts as a large pinhole: everything is in focus! The sharpness may not be up to very demanding standards however.

Try it yourself, even with a digital camera...nothing is 'in focus', even if exposure is proper.

 

[grain elevator]

Try it yourself, even with a digital camera...nothing is 'in focus', even if exposure is proper.

You don't say. I was employing irony, prompted by your cautious language: "likely out of focus" (emphasis mine).

 

[wiltw]

You don't say. I was employing irony, prompted by your cautious language: "likely out of focus" (emphasis mine).

Irony does not come thru readily on a written medium unless you use a smilie

 

[AgX]

Try it yourself, even with a digital camera...nothing is 'in focus', even if exposure is proper.

Grainelevator is right in that way that there is no plane of focus, as it being basically a pinhole, though as he indicated at such aperture of the hole there will be no decernible image at all, so the focusing characteristics will no longer matter.

 

[Chan Tran]

Grainelevator is right in that way that there is no plane of focus, as it being basically a pinhole, though as he indicated at such aperture of the hole there will be no decernible image at all, so the focusing characteristics will no longer matter.

Can't call a hole as big as the lens mount a pin hole. He will get just an exposed piece of film and no image. The exposure isn't likely to be correct either as the AE-1 only has shutter priority and with the lens off there is no aperture to control.

 

[Down Under]

As most everybody has already posted, unlikely - only the one frame.

A thought (pedantic 'tho it may be) did cross my mind...

Did you open the back of the camera to check if there was any 'damage' to the film?

We all hope not.

PS As I have so often said before - t'ain't no such thing as a 'dumb' question, if it's something you don't understand and want to know. We are all here to assist.

 

[CMoore]

How can there be a pin hole with no lens.?
Once the mirror swings up....................its all shutter, isn't it.?

 

[AgX]

The true pinhole camera has no lens.
There are contraptions that use a pinhole in front of a lens. But this has not the effect of a pinhole camera, but rather that of a camera with a lens extremely downstopped, though with the aperture at optically not best position. Benefit of this approach is to achieve very small apertures without precision drilling, less diffraction and to yield this all with a plain, filter-like, attachment.

 

[MattKing]

If the lens throat on an AE1 was used with an 11x14 camera, it might behave a little bit like a lousy pinhole.

 

[jerrybro]

One shot wasted,

• likely underexoposed or overexposed,
• likely out of focus,
• likely not of any subject for which you have any interest

All earlier shots made to whatever level of quality (or not). not effected by abpve shot

That makes it art!

 

[wiltw]

If the lens throat on an AE1 was used with an 11x14 camera, it might behave a little bit like a lousy pinhole.

Per the web, "Optimally, the size of the aperture should be 1/100 or less of the distance between it and the projected image. ... For a pinhole-to-film distance of 1 inch (25 mm), this works out to a pinhole 0.236 mm in diameter." With a pinhole of 47mm, that works out to needing distance to film of more that 4700mm."

and then, "Using a larger pinhole gives you a brighter image, since it lets in more light, but increases the overlapping of images. The result is an image that's lost its sharpness, becoming blurry.
"A better image is made by replacing the pinhole with a lens whose focal length is equal to the distance from the lens to the viewing screen. The diameter of the lens might be ½ to 1 inch for a focal length of 10 inches. In a basic instrument this can be a simple lens made of one lens element"

If we follow the statementa above,Camera obscura dimensions..47mm opening (no lens) .just short of 120" and a blurry image.