When was the last time you screwed up ...

[Rayt]

I looked at the film counter and said to myself hey lucky me this roll has 39 frames!

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

I just developed an empty tank

update- I tried again and remembered to load the film this time.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I looked at the film counter and said to myself hey lucky me this roll has 39 frames!

Advancing to 40 could have torn the film off the cassette post.

 

[abruzzi]

this past weekend. I got another Grafmatic, shot the 6 sheets to test it out, now time to develop. So I get out my 6 sheet Stearman tank. So I'm going to lay everything out so I can find it in the dark. I open the stearman tankpull out the three plastic film holders and they re all filled with fresh undeveloped film. For the life of me I have no idea what was on those sheets. I know they were Foma of some kind, and they were loaded at least 2 months ago, but I have no recollection of leading them. I usually have a rule that I don't load a dev tank until I'm ready to develop. I need to add a new rule--don't open a closed dev tank in the light--always open in the darkness just in case I forgot to follow rule number one.

 

[Pioneer]

Yesterday. I fixed 5 rolls of TriX with Blix.

 

[Helios 1984]

I ruined the Olympus ∞ Stylus that I bought yesterday, while attempting to fix it. While removing the outer shell, to glue back the loose front bezel, one of my screwdriver made a short circuit between the flash capacitor and something else which fried at least 2 semiconductors. Serve me well for not clearing my working area, while playing with an electronic device.

 

[drew tanner]

This uncensored version of this sign from Basecamp Printing hangs in my darkroom to keep me humble.

 

[John Wiegerink]

I read this thread title thinking, "boy, I haven't screwed up in a long time", but then I had a flashback. My wife and I went up to our cottage last week and at the cottage I have a makeshift darkroom setup in her laundry room in the basement. The second night I decide to develop a roll of Adox HR-50 in my Adox XT-3 replenished developer. Everything went just fine with developing so I hung the film to dry and went to bed. The next morning my wife went down to load the washer and came back up and said the laundry sink was leaking water all over the floor. I went down and sure enough the floor was wet. I removed all the chemical bottles from under the sinks cabinet and explored the plumbing. I couldn't find the leak, but tighten all the plumbing joint connectors anyway. As I was putting the chemical jugs back under the sink I notice the floor was wet where they were placed. Well, I found the leak. I keep both my active Adox XT-3 in a brown glass gallon jug filled to the top and my TF-2 fixer is in the same type jug. The developer was no longer filled to top and only had about two inches of developer left in the bottom. Must be when I put things away the night before I bumped the jugs together and cracked the XT-3R jug. Lesson learned and now I have to order a new bag of XT-3 developer and get a new jug. Could have been worse I guess.

 

[tcolgate]

- Went out with my MPP 4x5 the other day and pushed a film holder in the the wrong side of the back.
- Didn't check my notes when taking my Zero 6x9 camera out that I loaded 6 months ago and was certain was HP5 at 6x9, but turned out to be FP4 at 6x6, and also managed to use the wrong backing paper numbers so wound on some frames as for 6x45. Not a high point.
- Grafmatic, great way to ruin 6 sheets at a time if you get the dance wrong.
- I'm not very good at any of this.

 

[Kino]

- Went out with my MPP 4x5 the other day and pushed a film holder in the the wrong side of the back.

Yep. I loaded my 8x10 Calumet C1 from the wrong side, because I absentmindedly put the back on with the loading side to the left. Blew a few sheets of Delta 100; ouch.

 

[tcolgate]

Yep. I loaded my 8x10 Calumet C1 from the wrong side, because I absentmindedly put the back on with the loading side to the left. Blew a few sheets of Delta 100; ouch.

Thank you, some times my LF mistakes can make me feel like I am actually uniquely stupid. It's nice not to feel so alone.

 

[Steve Goldstein]

Yep. I loaded my 8x10 Calumet C1 from the wrong side, because I absentmindedly put the back on with the loading side to the left. Blew a few sheets of Delta 100; ouch.

I placed some pieces of Post-It note labeled “NO!” on the wrong edge of my 4x5’s back. The notes have been there for several years and I haven’t made that mistake since. It’s best to trim off all the unglued parts of the Post-It so the edges don’t curl up with time - this will help the notes stay put.

 

[Kino]

I placed some pieces of Post-It note labeled “NO!” on the wrong edge of my 4x5’s back. The notes have been there for several years and I haven’t made that mistake since. It’s best to trim off all the unglued parts of the Post-It so the edges don’t curl up with time - this will help the notes stay put.

Good idea, but at my current stage of life, it would be hard to identify the camera from the layer of cautionary post it notes I should have on the body...

 

[grant.goodes]

The "NO!" sticker reminds me of what was portrayed in the movie "Apollo 13", where Kevin Bacon put such a sticker on the switch which would separate the LM from the CM (apparently did happen)

 

[halfaman]

In the last six months I screw things up twice in the darkroom, and I only do C-41 and RA-4 99.5% of the time since almost a decade.

First, I develop a batch of two C-41 rolls with RA-4 time (45 seconds Vs 555 seconds or 3 minutes and 15 seconds). Of course I got a massive underdeveloped negatives, and it took an hour to realize what I did wrong. In my defense I must say that I print regularly but develop film sporadically.

Second, I use C-41 starter to mix RA-4 developer working solution. For those who are curious, it doesn't work well. While the color balance was much not affected, I got uneven development specially in dense zones of the print. I did it for a couple of sessions, not just one, until I finally understood my monumental error.

Lesson learned: Never get too confidence in yourself.

 

[Samu]

There is a small radiator in my bathroom-darkroom, with a small, red LED, which is on, when the heating element on the radiator is on. I forgot to switch it off when loading film in tank. The LED went on, and about one half of the roll was green after developing. This was of course color negative. With black and white. the last failure was somehow mixing the solutions when developing black and white reversal. I somehow managed to pour clear bath instead of first developer in the tank. This resulted in a pitch black film.

 

[Arthurwg]

View attachment 170288

Contax 139 Q​

Hang-on, that might be considered a brilliant artwork!

 

[Arthurwg]

Using my Hasselblad 500mm F8 lens, I forgot to change the f-stop setting on my metered prism finder to the correct f-stop.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I use Grafmatics instead of regular film holders for long exposures for obvious reasons. One image I've been trying to make takes about an hour one day a month, and I've been trying to get exactly what I want for many years. Always an airplane or clouds or wind mess it up. Got done with the six sheets in the Grafmatic and when I opened it to develop, well, I guess I didn't put my usual E label in the bag with it... That one hurt.

 

[pbromaghin]

10 minutes ago, while dumping presoak/prewash water into the sink, the top came off and 4 rolls of Fp4+ fell out into full light.

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

I did it again- this time, I forgot to pour my prewash and poured my developer into a full tank of water...

fortunately I rinsed the tank out, and started over. the film appears to have developed ok.

 

[Emily Cook]

I don’t remember exactly when, but recently I was developing some C-41 and spaced out. Accidentally “returned” fixer to the bleach container, overflowing the mix all over the counter

Fortunately my working solution containers are only 600mL, so that’s all I lost. It was still a stinky mess, though.

 

[Agulliver]

I came awfully close to screwing up a roll of 120 Delta 3200 on Friday. Not sure how, as this has only happened to me once before in over 40 years of developing film....but I somehow managed to load the backing paper onto the reel and not the film!

I realised at the end, when I noticed that the adhesive strip wasn't as I expected. Was able to unload the paper and load the film without too much drama and apparently without any damage to the film emulsion. Phew. The previous time I did this a few years ago I pulled what I expected to be backing paper out of the dark bag...and to my dismay I saw film in my hands.

 

[tcolgate]

Today I finally developed and fixed an empty sheet film sheath that i exposed to light 2 months ago (I'd labeled the holder as having a glass plate in it.
For the curious, anodized aluminium is not, as it turns out, photo sensitive.

 

[AnselMortensen]

I came awfully close to screwing up a roll of 120 Delta 3200 on Friday. Not sure how, as this has only happened to me once before in over 40 years of developing film....but I somehow managed to load the backing paper onto the reel and not the film!

I realised at the end, when I noticed that the adhesive strip wasn't as I expected. Was able to unload the paper and load the film without too much drama and apparently without any damage to the film emulsion. Phew. The previous time I did this a few years ago I pulled what I expected to be backing paper out of the dark bag...and to my dismay I saw film in my hands.

Wow...I applaud your ability to actually get the paper ON the reel!