When was the last time you screwed up ...

[MattKing]

Killed my EF 24-105 F/4L today somehow. Won't auto focus to infinity. I've not had a good few weeks of photography...

Check for something physical/mechanical that is inhibiting full travel.

 

[Cholentpot]

Check for something physical/mechanical that is inhibiting full travel.

Such as?

It focuses fine up close and quite a bit out. The last 'lil bit it won't do. If I manually jog it it'll focus to infinity but when I focus back up close it won't go back. Normally I'd not care but this lens is my income lens, I use it for work. Can't have a malfunctioning piece of kit on the job.

Any ideas what to look for?

I took it down to the local camera shop and tried it out on other bodies and then tried the same copy of lens on my body. It's the lens. They had another used one in stock that I reserved but I might not get it in time for my next gig.

 

[MattKing]

Such as?

Tape residue, debris, tree sap, etc.
Something unintentionally added to the lens that impedes focus travel.

 

[Cholentpot]

Tape residue, debris, tree sap, etc.
Something unintentionally added to the lens that impedes focus travel.

Close visual inspection shows none of that. Any other suggestions?

 

[Helios 1984]

I feel a wee bit better each time I read this thread, you know, just knowing that I'm not alone to screw up.

 

[Helios 1984]

I didn't fail, it is Ilford who betrayed me! The tape snapped off the spool and the film never rewound inside the cassette.

 

[MattKing]

Is that HP5!!!??
How old is that roll?
I don't think it failed - it just got old and feeble!

I didn't fail, it is Ilford who betrayed me! The tape snapped off the spool and the film never rewound inside the cassette.

 

[Helios 1984]

Is that HP5!!!??
How old is that roll?
I don't think it failed - it just got old and feeble!

Yes, the original HP5, Ilford customer service said late 70's or very early 80's.
I just finished to develop it... with a 20 exposure length, there won't be much to salvage.
Oh well, I least I'll have a nice reloadable cassette.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Photographing in Saskatchewan last August a church in small hamlet of Courval... bellows sagged and cut off a good inch off bottom of image... grrr!

 

[Helios 1984]

As I was pulling the film from the reel, the emulsion started to peel off on the edges : /
Not a fiasco, not yet, but bloody close.

Update: 6 shots were savaged.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

As I was pulling the film from the reel, the emulsion started to peel off on the edges : /
Not a fiasco, not yet, but bloody close.

What film was it?

 

[Helios 1984]

What film was it?

HP5 circa 1980. Unknown storage condition, found at a flea market for 1$.

 

[grainyvision]

Took a 120 sized piece of Ilford direct positive paper and loaded it into my Mat 124G. Drove 15 minutes, walked 10 to get to a good looking overpass for light trail fun. Waited 20 minutes on the side of the road for the expose. Finally got it done, went home and developed it and.... nothing happened, the sheet remained white. I added a bit more developer thinking maybe it went off (it had been sitting for 24 hours in the tray).. still nothing, tried another (precut) piece out of the package. It remained white... tried another and it turned black (ie, unexposed). Vaguely remember that I was doing some flashing tests and apparently way overshot it... and never threw away the slips of paper I did it with. Some people say the latent image fades with time.. apparently not enough. On the plus side though, I did a test exposure at my house for 30m and it came out almost completely black, so it probably would've been badly under exposed at 20 minutes anyway.

 

[Svenedin]

Had my Olympus OM4-Ti in my work bag yesterday. I don't usually carry my camera in that bag. As I was leaving work tired and in a hurry I put my water bottle in the bag but I didn't screw the top on properly. I put the bag in the back of the car. Fortunately, I had a reason to stop about 5 minutes later and I went to the boot of the car to find water all over the place. Horrified, I opened the bag to find 2 inches of water (it was a 2 litre Sigg bottle) in the bottom of the bag. I immediately whipped the camera out, dried it as best I could with a towel I happened to have and then took out the batteries. Just minutes later I was indoors in my room in barracks and could properly assess what had happened. I rewound the film, opened the back and took off the lens (a very nice, late, multicoated Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f1.4). A few drips of water issued from the base of the camera but there was no sign of water anywhere else. The lens had so much condensation inside it that I couldn't see through it but no visible large water droplets. All I could do was put the camera and lens (caps off the lens and camera with lens dismounted, motor wind and battery caps off and open at the back) on a radiator (that was only at about 40 degrees C so not much hotter than blood temperature which is 37). Had I been at home I would have had tools to take the bottom plate off the camera. Anyway, the next morning there was no sign at all of moisture in the lens or the camera and everything is working perfectly. A very narrow escape!!! I don't think water bottles should be in the same bag as camera equipment. Never again.

 

[Agulliver]

I screwed up on Wednesday.....went on a trip to Oxford with a photographer friend and shot three rolls of 135 and one 120. As the 135's were all Fomapan 200 I decided to get out my Jobo extension and process all three together. I thought I attached the extension to my 1520 tank correctly but when I poured in the developer it leaked out of the join between the 1520 and the extension!

At that point I kinda panicked. I realise I could and should have washed all the film and the tank(s) but I wanted to act quick to prevent fogging. I emptied the tank back into my chemical bottle and put the whole lot wet with developer into my changing bag under a blanket....separated the tank from the extension and replaced the lid on the tank.....processed the two films in the tank while hoping that the remaining film in the extension wasn't fogged or undergoing too much stand development while it waited!

First two films came out near prefect. I shave 45 seconds off the development time for the third on the assumption that it was slowly developing in the residual developer and that it might be slightly fogged (bag is not light tight when my hands aren't in it...and I still needed to retrieve that film and put it in the 1520 tank.

It actually came out OK, probably only people on this forum would recognise the dreamy change in the sky's density for what it is.....

Tonight I'm going to check the tank and extension again. I think one of the little flaps which seals the two together on the extension is damaged....which might be what caused the problem. I should have realised.

 

[MattKing]

Be sure to clean your changing bag!

 

[John51]

I rekindled my interest in film and did the usual ebay stalking to put a darkroom together.

For my first session, I decided to make a print from the last roll I wet printed 30 years ago. I choose a candid pic of my son taken from an upstairs window. Him on the pavement looking as gangsta as a 5 yo can be.

It was rubbish. Dull and fuzzy. Try again. Not much better. Spent over 6 hours and lots of paper but nothing that didn't deserve to go in the bin. I gave up in disgust.

Last week I had a tidy up and came across some prints from that roll. Hadn't seen them in almost 10 years. The beach shots, taken with a 50mm prime, were pretty good wrt sharpness and contrast. The print of my son on the pavement was crap. Dull and fuzzy. Then I remembered that it was taken with a dirt cheap 200mm wide open. In my memory, it was a sharp print with good contrast.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

As anyone with a Nikon L35AF (their first autofocus camera) knows, these cameras drain batteries quickly. When its batteries become weak, operation becomes erratic. Last month I put two fresh AA's in (measured at 1.6v, no load) and spent about two days shooting one roll of film.

Upon rewinding, I noticed the film counter didn't return to S, but was at 4. Yet it sounded as if the film leader had disengaged from the takeup spool. Ok to pop the back open, right? Doing that, I discovered that perhaps 10 frames still remained outside the 35mm cannister. Oops. So, yes, I lost 10 frames.

Had I been smart, I would've gone into a dark closet, popped the back open slightly, then close it again, and then perform the rewind operation a second time (the rewind mechanism resets only after the back is opened; it cannot be re-initiated at will). This can be repeated if necessary until one is certain the film has been rewound.

Afterwards, I measured the batteries at only 1.4v - and that's under no load!

Clearly I was too eager to remove the film from the camera and ignored what the exposure counter was telling me; I should have been more cautious.

 

[Vaughn]

Shot two 4x10s on a sheet of 8x10 Kodak Copy Film at ASA 100 (instead of 25) out in the redwoods yesterday. Note to self: Always double check the meter when I switch between films! (Kodak Copy Film and Acros in this case...at least it was not TMax400.) This was after I had to walk back to the van to get my meter which was in my 11x14 gear bag. And I forgot to get my phone out of the van while I was there (for the stopwatch feature). My internal timer runs a little slow, so I might make up for a little of the under-exposure there. Unfortunately probably not enough as I was needing more exposure than 'normal' to push the highlights on the Copy film. I had a 30 minute exposure I did not bother to time...I wanted at least 30 minutes -- 45 will probably be just fine, too.

 

[mark]

Been many years since I loaded film. So long in fact that I neglected to cover the seams around the bathroom door and lock it. Light outside the bathroom goes on, bathroom gets noticably lighter. 2 seconds later the 13 year old throws open the door and turns on the light looks startled and says "What the hell are you doing in the dark?" Brand new box of 8x10 x ray film dead. I checked random sheets and all had been partially exposed

I am thinking he was 3 the last time I was loading film.

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

Yesterday, my Yashica mat 124 g flew off my passenger seat when I slammed on the brakes the day after I got it back from repairs again.

I shot three frames afterwards and it seems to still be ok.

 

[Helios 1984]

I had an "Epic beer save!" moment, just a few minutes ago. I tripped on the stairs, fell flat on the floor and managed to save my Pen-EE.

 

[removed account4]

used too much washing soda and bleached a cyanotype almost completely to oblivion

 

[MattKing]

used too much washing soda and bleached a cyanotype almost completely to oblivion

But did you like the results?

 

[Helios 1984]

I almost screwed up yesterday. My setup was ready, the film was on the reel and the chemicals were warming up, but I decided to test the developer before starting (Hanging out on APUG gives wisdom loll). The test film came out green/brown :-/ 3 months might be a bit too much for the Unicolor press kit.