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But not so much to "bright enough to read well" light and multi-second exposure...
I'm sure this has happened to everyone here, one time or another...
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But not so much to "bright enough to read well" light and multi-second exposure...
Haven't done that yet, but I did recently load a roll of 120 with the emulsion toward the pressure plate.
Those were the best photos I never took...
Those were the best photos I never took...
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I remembered to check this when I'm home. Neither the roll of Ultra 100 that unrolled on me here, nor the previous roll of backing paper in my darkroom trash bag (from a roll of Ultra 400, since it's one of the three in my Paterson tank waiting for me to get new EcoPro developer mixed) have peel and stick. On both, I can see the ineffectual gum. The 100 I have on the shelf (pretty sure it's the same order, likely from B&H due to their free shipping for $50 orders) has expiration 05 2022, while the 400 on the shelf is 02 2023. It doesn't get much fresher than the latter, and short of opening and unwinding a roll of that, I'm as sure as I can be that what I have does not have a peel-and-stick end band.
BTDT with a Calumet 6x7 roll back. Can't guarentee it wasn't twice....It seems like a lot of people do that one time with a film back exactly once.
One of the times I loaded correctly -- RA4 print...
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Thanks for following up. That's so weird...although, I get my EDU Ultra from Freestyle...
For my last order (from Freestyle) I bought actual Fomapan 100/400, and it has the same peel and stick tape that the the EDU Ultra I usually use has on it.
They drop the SD card and lose the content, forget (heavy-) spare batteries and have to haul a dead camera, change lenses at the (sandy-) beach and mismanage a sensor sweep, run out of RAM and have to (re-) invest in more, the external storage discs are getting overloaded, the printer heads have clogged up and the ink cassettes ran empty, and after 5 years their camera/computer has become completely outdated and it all starts over again, just to name a few...
Do you understand now why I stick whit my still alive and kicking 1980 Hasselblad, 1954 Tri-X/120 and 1954 Omega D3, and, do believe me, I am far of being reactionary nor a tory!
I bulk-loaded a batch of 35mm cassettes using an inferior kind of tape to fasten the film to the spool. They then got mixed with another batch, so it became a Lucky Dip. After the first couple of disasters where I had to sacrifice the film in order to keep on shooting, I carried a changing bag whenever I had the camera. This situation persisted for a couple of years.
More recently I mislaid an exposed film that had some shots I was very optimistic about. I found it eventually, superimposed with another 36 shots I was very optimistic about.
More recently I mislaid an exposed film that had some shots I was very optimistic about. I found it eventually, superimposed with another 36 shots I was very optimistic about.
I set everything up to develop a sheet of 4x5 film -- very optimistic until I opened the film holder to find it empty.
It would have been a new "Cadillac Ranch"; the Covelo, CA edition. In reality, it would have been poor, but funny copy of the concept and I probably would not have printed it.
That's why I shake the film holder to hear the sheet moving a little up and down, before sliding it in the camera...
Yeah -- it was early in my use of LF. Actually, especially with larger than 4x5, I thud the holder on the heel of my palm to make sure the film is not cock-eyed in the holder before loading it in the camera. I have had too many sheets of film start off crooked, then slip straight in the holder during a long exposure.
It also makes sure any dust in the holder falls down into the sky area....
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Whereas if you'd been sure the tape with notes on the holder was outdated and it was empty, and opened it in the light to dust before going dark to load, you've have found the exposed sheet that matched the notes...
In 40 years of LF use, I have made most of the mistakes, sometimes repeating them for good measure. Including loading up the 3005 Jobo drum with five 8x10 with potentially wonderful latent images of my boys in the redwoods, knocking the last film holder to the floor, finding it in the dark, get everything set, turn on the lights and think "The drum sure looks weird."
It does look weird when it does not have the lid on yet.
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I sometimes think the true function of shooting film (vs. digital, now that we have the choice) is so that our mistakes have a tangible aftermath; we can't convince ourselves (a short time) later that we didn't in fact make that mistake. Nope, there's that roll of crumpled film and backing in my darkroom trash, and will be until I close up and haul out that bag. I'm certain that in the (fairly) near future, I'll do something like open the envelope of RA-4 paper under a red safelight, or try to print on it with multi-contrast filtration.
If you're not making mistakes, you're doing things you don't have to think about.
If you're not making mistakes, you're doing things you don't have to think about.
Just last night I was making contact sheets of my backlog of 35mm negatives.
Had a good rhythm going, but then got ahead of myself...
I hit the "expose" button before I turned the proofing frame over...
Doh!
No harm done, but it made me laugh.
"Always make new mistakes "
Had a good rhythm going, but then got ahead of myself...
I hit the "expose" button before I turned the proofing frame over...
Doh!
No harm done, but it made me laugh.
"Always make new mistakes "
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Yep. And if, like me, you use Graflex roll film backs on your RB67, you will quickly discover that they don't lock the shutter when the dark slide is in, as the RB67 backs do...
Will that help keep the sheet of film in place? Keep it from falling out into the camera?
That is why I put bright yellow gaffer's tape on the edge of my lens caps and lens hoods of range finder cameras and the SWC.
Long time ago, when I was still learning very, very, much (I still do but just a tiny little less after almost 50 years of muddling through), I somehow managed to 'load' a sheet of film in the opening in which the protective cover slides, and still putting back that cover.
So when taking out that cover, when the sheet holder was put in the camera for exposure, the film sheet fell out...
BTW, over here we call a 'sheet holder' a "film cassette" (elder colleagues call it a "film chassis") is that a genuine expression in plain English too?
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I don't like lens caps as I always manage to drop them on places were there is a lot of dirt or they roll away where I can't find them.
That's why I use a 'protective' filter and a lens hood, as a matter of fact, I can't stand a lens without a lens hood particularly wide angels.
Of course there is always the back side of the lens, but I don't haul a bunch of them when going out (see the photo of the contente my bag in my previous post)...
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If one does not hear the film rattling freely in the holder, it is 1) empty, or 2) mis-loaded (and the sheet might fall into the camera). It helps to take a minute to learn what "rattling freely" should sound like (and feel like in the hand). Better yet...to keep good notes and/or have a solid system to keep track of all this. I find that easier during trips and multi-day projects. Around my home/studio I tend to lose track of my holders (4x5 to 11x14) over time.
I tend to remember whether or not the lenscap was in my left hand. So, every now and then I don't remember it being there and I'm almost always not surprised to see a blank frame on the roll once developed. It's very confusing when I put the cap in my back pocket.
Not using a lens cap with a cloth focal plane shutter is asking for sunburnt pinholes, which can happen in 15 seconds focused at infinity with the aperture open all the way. So, I never like not having a lenscap.
I once misplaced a lenscap while taking photos of a permanently parked train. I went back a year and a half later and found it. I have since lost it again.
Anything that can go wrong, will-- whether you're shooting analog, digital, or light-field holograms. We put in place processes to minimize those risks, but as Donald points out, even the best of us are sometimes overwhelmed by circumstance. Most of your examples for why not digital, are inconveniences, rather than leading to lost images. You forgot filesystem corruption, viruses, and electrical surges-- but again, most of those can also be mitigated by good practice.
I could make a similar list of arguments against analog photography, but cap it off with the fact that every single manufacturer of film could go out of business tomorrow, and my 14 year old EOS 30D will still take beautiful photos.
If one really wants to experience problems, just switch to LF which has no built in safeties or interlock. There are just so many new and exciting ways to mess up:
- Remove lens cap, open shutter, load film holder, remove dark slide, crank focal plane shutter
- Pull out film holder before reinserting dark slide
- Using the same film multiple times, this is a real money saver
- Insert film holder, remove dark slide, change the lens
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