The first rule of photography...

Donald Qualls said:

Or you could always use Rodinal 1:50 and stand development for 90 minutes or so. That works (as well as it works) on almost all B&W emulsions.

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Yeah, that's my fail-safe method when I've forgotten which film is which (I bulk load a lot) and the reusable plastic cartridges all look the same.

Juan Valdenebro said:

Things happen sometimes... I met Buena Vista Social Club band members in Barcelona 20 years ago, and we had a great time two hours before a concert, and they allowed me to photograph them freely: relaxed people... I did nearly a whole 36 frames roll, all Musicians smiling and playing their instruments, getting ready for the show... Unforgettable. I had seen them live recently, a few days before, so I just went home to develop while they were about to start... In front of my door, looking for the keys, I found my roll was yet in my coat pocket: I never put it inside my camera.

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oh,that hurts!

MattKing said:

I don't measure out the next chemical until the film is in the current chemical.
But I do line up the bottles before starting.

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Same here. Back in my teen years I had three rolls of photos coming up to our school magazine.

Poured the fixer first.

Leaving the lens cap on a RF camera is sometimes an issue. You'll probably notice that on an SLR

I ended up putting little pcs of red tape around the edges of the lens cap so that it was visible in the viewfinder. It worked, but nowadays I would just throw the lens cap into a corner, put a filter and hood on the camera, and be done w/ it.

I saved up for a few years for a 3 month hitch-hiking trip through New Zealand. Bought a new 4x5 and off I went. Camera had a major light leak where the metal back attached to the wood. All film fogged, some not too bad. A valuable lesson about knowing one's equipment before a major trip. The experience got me to save up money for the next 5 years to buy a new 4x5 (and use it for a few years), a bike, and a plane ticket for a return trip -- 6 months on a bicycle through NZ. great trip. Would not have happened if I had not had the camera/photographer failure on the first effort.

Tolaga Bay Wharf, East Cape, North Island, NZ, 1986
Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom in LOTR), Tongariro National Park, 1987
Both: 4x5, 150mm, 16x20 silver gelatin print

Vaughn said:

Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom in LOTR), Tongariro National Park, 1987

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Should have thrown the light leaky 4x5 into the molten lava....

The empty reel never happened to me. But: grabbing the camera bag and later realizing there's a lot of stuff in there, but not a single roll of film, happened to me at least twice.

abruzzi said:

Should have thrown the light leaky 4x5 into the molten lava....

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Interesting alternative to the Ring That Rules Them All. Don't think an Indian knock-off copy of a Deardorf Special can pull off the same trick and save the Kodak Empire from the pixelorcs.

Nah...instead I replaced the 4x5 back with a 5x7 Deardorf back and used it a few years before it was stolen ...then I used the insurance money to help buy an 8x10.