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What happened? Waves...

pierods

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35mm
I am totally flabbergasted, never seen this before. What happened? Every image has these "waves".
 

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You'll have to tell us a bit more about what we're looking at. What kind of film, how was it exposed, processed and digitized and by whom? What materials were used? Did you travel with this film? Can we see some photos of the actual film strips as they appear to the naked eye (i.e. not scans), held against a light source/light table?
 
- fp4, box speed, 10 years expired, rodinal 1+25, 9 minutes
- the other 3 rolls came out perfect, this one I shot with a new camera
- film was scanned by a lab that has never failed me
- did not travel with film
- the negs are at the lab, they look exactly like the images, but in negative, edge markings are perfectly developed

The background story is that this specific roll I shot with a new camera (Nikon S3). Advancing the film felt excessively though, and by the end of the roll, the shutter and the shutter button jammed.

The shutter is made of cloth, I think it's two pieces separated vertically, and by now you can see a slit between the pieces.
 
Is there any possibility you wound the film the wrong way round into the take up spool in the camera? It doesn't quite explain the waviness, but it would explain the difficult transport and it might explain the peculiar fogging pattern.


pierods said:
by now you can see a slit between the pieces.
Click to expand...

That might just be the shutter cocking mechanism not having gone full cycle.
 
I suspect pinholes in the cloth shutter, with light causing streaks when you advance the film.
 
Hm... unfortunately i don`t have an empty SLR at hand to check - but what is the synchronization of the shutter and the mirror when advancing and cocking the shutter?
Will the shutter be cocked first and the mirror hinge down last? If shutter and mirror move simultaneously the effect of additional exposure on the neg should be stronger on one side and decrease to the other.

Also there must be some up-and-down movement. If there are pinholes in the curtain, the curtain or the film had to move up and down a bit when advancing/cocking to create these waves.
 

OP mentions that the camera was a Nikon S3. I’m pretty sure that’s a rangefinder, not an SLR - so, no mirror.
 
It looks like the cloth focal plane shutter had a wrinkle in it, or was a bit twisted, giving you the wavy exposures. You mentioned "Advancing the film felt excessively though, and by the end of the roll, the shutter and the shutter button jammed" so I would think that the shutter is completely hosed at this point.
 
djdister said:
It looks like the cloth focal plane shutter had a wrinkle in it, or was a bit twisted, giving you the wavy exposures.
Click to expand...
But how does variation in shutter slit width leave relatively sharply defined striations as shown here:
Especially at larger apertures as also evidently used. The shutter is quite some distance from the film. Hence, the variations in exposure you'd expect from a shutter anomaly will be rather fuzzy and more like the vertical lighter bands in these frames. I could explain those from a wrinkled shutter curtain, but I find the dark lines puzzling.
 

Well yeah, it's a puzzler, and probably the result of multiple things going wrong. I would like the OP to post photos of the focal plane shutter (from the front and back) even if it is stuck.
 

Sounds very possible
 
The front photo was taken against full sunshine, so I doubt the pinholes. You can observe the stuck shutter.



 
Ah, so it's a horizontally traveling shutter. I hadn't realized this and it makes the shutter as the main cause of the problem more likely in my view. It seems like the shutter curtains are flapping about a bit as they travel, and they fail to track properly. Something along those lines, I'd expect. I'm no expert on shutters, but I understand this is the kind of thing that tends to trigger major repairs to these types of shutters.
 
BradS said:
OP mentions that the camera was a Nikon S3. I’m pretty sure that’s a rangefinder, not an SLR - so, no mirror.
Click to expand...

I see, thank you very much, then it indeed could be the shutter.


...maybe because you expose another picture onto the neg when advancing the broken shutter. If the shutter curtains are not closed when advancing the film and cocking the shutter, whatever the lens sees will be exposed on the film. Usually when advancing the film you`re not trying to hold the camera as steady as possible, but sometimes even give her a "twist". When the thumb of the right hand moves the lever to the right, you sometimes twist the camera to the left. This would streak the subject on the film if the curtains were open during advance/cocking.
Depending on what distance the lens is set at and distance to the subject pretty sharp streaks could be exposed onto the film.
 
Harry Callahan said:
you expose another picture onto the neg when advancing the broken shutter.
Click to expand...

That is it entirely and accounts for the wavy lines. The film advances and the shutter resets at the same time. The shutter is likely almost completely closed while advancing (the first curtain pulls up against the second and then they both travel across the focal plane) but probably letting little pinpoints of light.

The shutter needs to be serviced but maybe not replaced. That kind of behaviour can be from dried lubricants or even just bits of film stuck in the track.
 
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