The camera you bought arrived with film in it. Do you process it?

[ableforensics]

Return it to the owner or in the alternative trash it. The downside risk far outweighs the upside potential.

 

[KoNickon]

Definitely. I did this recently and I think the guy was pleased to get the slides back. Only works if you know who might have taken them, of course.

The other day I got a camera with half the roll already exposed. Being cheap, I figured I'd test the camera with what was in there already. Turned out the frames that had already been shot were blank -- someone must have just been fiddling with the camera to be sure it wound correctly (but you don't need film for that).

Recently there was a highly publicized situation hereabouts of child porn turning up -- only in this case the new owner of a house was remodeling and uncovered a closet filled with thousands of images. The previous owner (now deceased) was a doctor who'd faced charges for this, but no one knew he had a stash of slides. Now lots of adults are coming forward, believing they might be in some of these slides that the good doctor took while he was examining them.

 

[crawdiddy]

In this case I don't understand the whole child pornography craze.

Firstly, you're protected by statistics. Let X be the number of unprocessed rolls of film floating around in the world. Let p be the percentage of X that contains child pornography, and let q be the percentage of X that is forgotten in cameras that are sold to thrift stores. Both p and q are rather low obviously. Your likelihood of hitting child pornography is at the most X * p * q. Probably less, because child pornographers are careful people who tend not to forget film in cameras.

Secondly, I don't know what countries you live in, but isn't there something like the "benefit of the doubt" or something, that if you can prove that you bought a camera at a thrift store that had film in it (to which the thrift store owner can testify because he saw you open the camera at his shop), and if you have this roll of film that is as old as yourself, that it's quite unlikely that you were the person who took this? On the contrary, I guess if there was child pornography in there, I guess police etc. would be quite grateful at the opportunity of getting some evidence for a 20-year-old case.

And if you're that paranoid about the country you live in, you can always get a C41 processing kit and use the film as an excuse to start processing at home.

Philipp

I agree 100%, Phillipp. These people are paranoid.

...sort of makes me wonder if they're not guilty of the offenses they're afraid of being accused of....

 

[fidget]

In the last year I bought a vintage Ilford Envoy camera. This is a bakalite 120 job from the late 50s. It had a film in it which looked like it had been wound up. i dev'ed it in ID11, the throw-away used part after developing a couple of my own films, so it didn't cost much in materials.
It did have a few images on it and was fun to see what it might have had. It's not a good lens on this so the poor image quality might not be entirely due to age.
Surprisingly, this looks to be from the late 50's to early 60's so is a real testament to the films abilities to keep an image...

i did ask the seller if he wanted it, he said it was part of a job lot purchase and didn't want it...
So I voted yes, but not if it were colour and i had to pay for the development........

Oh, if this is you in the picture, I've got yer dad's camera 😀

 

[Spider67]

I would do it! Lst time I did not have the chance as the film in the camera - a Zorki 4 with engraved speeds - had no cartridge!
Just a word to paranoia....strange things can happen to you even if you lead yor social life by the book, so develop them have them developed or return them....I manage to find relinquished negatives all the while (on the street, in rubble containers etc.)

 

[luketrash]

I always develop them. 90% of the time the films are ruined from light or age. A lot of times the more recent thrift store cameras will have C-41 in them that I just develop in Diafine. Usually pictures of birthday parties, vacation, prom, etc...

Graduation Day, 196x?? From an Agfa Chief 620 camera:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/119/253820990_b718ffea05.jpg



You could just right 'naughty pics' on the canister in black Sharpie and put the undevleoped roll on ebay as a grab bag. They usually get up to about 30 dollars thanks to peoples anticipatory perversions.

 

[rxmd]

The downside risk far outweighs the upside potential.

Risk of what?

Philipp

 

[BJ Bignell]

In this case I don't understand the whole child pornography craze.

Firstly, you're protected by statistics. Let X be the number of unprocessed rolls of film floating around in the world. Let p be the percentage of X that contains child pornography, and let q be the percentage of X that is forgotten in cameras that are sold to thrift stores. Both p and q are rather low obviously. Your likelihood of hitting child pornography is at the most X * p * q. Probably less, because child pornographers are careful people who tend not to forget film in cameras.

Secondly, I don't know what countries you live in, but isn't there something like the "benefit of the doubt" or something, that if you can prove that you bought a camera at a thrift store that had film in it (to which the thrift store owner can testify because he saw you open the camera at his shop), and if you have this roll of film that is as old as yourself, that it's quite unlikely that you were the person who took this? On the contrary, I guess if there was child pornography in there, I guess police etc. would be quite grateful at the opportunity of getting some evidence for a 20-year-old case.

And if you're that paranoid about the country you live in, you can always get a C41 processing kit and use the film as an excuse to start processing at home.

Philipp

I strongly agree with you, Philipp.

I am very surprised about the number of people who have written that they are afraid of finding such objectionable material. Why so much fear, boys and girls? Do you really, truly believe that you'd find child pornography on a long-forgotten roll? And do you really, truly fear yourself enough that you need to worry about such an infinitessimally small chance of having this type of bad luck? Honestly, ask yourself these questions.

😕

 

[arbib]

YES 😀 😱 😱

 

[Terao]

I always develop them. 90% of the time the films are ruined from light or age. A lot of times the more recent thrift store cameras will have C-41 in them that I just develop in Diafine. Usually pictures of birthday parties, vacation, prom, etc...

Graduation Day, 196x?? From an Agfa Chief 620 camera:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/119/253820990_b718ffea05.jpg



You could just right 'naughty pics' on the canister in black Sharpie and put the undevleoped roll on ebay as a grab bag. They usually get up to about 30 dollars thanks to peoples anticipatory perversions.

Blimey, they could use that shot as a scene reference for the next Hollywood psycho slasher movie 😀

 

[Terao]

I recently developed an old roll of 127 found in my Mum's old Brownie. She had no idea what was on there, fortunately it wasn't anything "candid" between her and Dad 🙄 and turned out to be shots taken by my late grandfather c.1970. Cool to find as he's been dead for almost 20 years.
Personally I'd always develop a found film, but them I'm an inquisitive soul who also buys the romance of film. Certainly couldn't toss it.
The paranoia is interesting, good basis for a movie script a la Blowout 🙂

 

[David Goldfarb]

I love Gene M.'s found film stories. I've never bought a camera with old film in it, but if I did, I'd absolutely process it (myself of course).

 

[M. Valdemar]

I buy lots of digital cameras on eBay, flea markets, and I also buy used memory cards too quite often. Most of the cameras have memory cards in them.

On a Mac, there's a freeware program called "EXIF Untrasher" that will recover 99% of jpgs erased from a card.

I always run it to see what can be seen.

You would not believe, and I would not even mention or post here, some of what I've found. Some was so bad I secure erased it from my hard drive and triple erased/wiped the card.

The big lollapalooza was a bunch of used Mini-DV tapes I bought for a buck apiece from a guy selling at the flea market. He had hundreds of tapes, marked with dates from 1997 to 2003, and I bought ten.

Someone almost all of you would know was on three of the tapes. Holy Moly! Not even erased. I tossed those in the trash after smashing 'em up. No need for me to wake up one day in Guantanamo.....

 

[M. Valdemar]

In this day and age, bringing unknown film into a lab to be processed is a dangerous proposition.

Paranoia and snitching is encouraged by the powers that be. One could easily imagine oneself embroiled in a nightmarish Kafkaesque situation that spins wildly out of control should something even mildly questionable be found on the film.

There have been recorded incidents in the news of grandparents being investigated when a 21 year old clerk decides that totally innocent naked baby pictures on a roll of film are "objectionable".

The post 9/11 world is a bizarre world.

I strongly agree with you, Philipp.

I am very surprised about the number of people who have written that they are afraid of finding such objectionable material. Why so much fear, boys and girls? Do you really, truly believe that you'd find child pornography on a long-forgotten roll? And do you really, truly fear yourself enough that you need to worry about such an infinitessimally small chance of having this type of bad luck? Honestly, ask yourself these questions.

😕

 

[payasam]

It would seem like an invasion of privacy. Besides, if the earlier owner couldn't be bothered, it's probably not worth it.

 

[pesphoto]

Someone almost all of you would know was on three of the tapes. Holy Moly! Not even erased. I tossed those in the trash after smashing 'em up. No need for me to wake up one day in Guantanamo.....

You're gonna leave us hangin'?

 

[M. Valdemar]

Yes, the whole affair is now dead and buried, as far as I'm concerned.

You're gonna leave us hangin'?

 

[literiter]

If I were to find a very old camera, perhaps from the '30s, '40s, or even the '50s I'd most certainly process the film, purely out of curiosity.

I did purchase a nice old Olympus XA a few years ago with film in it. I pitched the film because I really didn't care what was on it.

Then a friend found me 6 Mini DV cassettes at a garage sale for a buck (at the time they were $25.00 each at the store). He let me have them for my video camera. One contained some really naughty stuff. It would have been a little problematic if the same material were on a roll of film that the nice ladies at the local lab had processed for me. They'd never look at me the same.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

I got a Kodak Medalist with an exposed roll of 620 in it. Asked the seller if he wanted it back. And he did. So I shipped it.

I got my Zeiss Super Ikonta with a partial roll in it. Asked the seller. He couldn't be bothered so I finished the roll and had it processed. There were some boring test shots on it the seller made to see if it worked.

I recently picked up an Agfa Clack at a jumble sale with a partially used roll of Kodacolor II in it. No way to get back in contact with the seller...hmmm.
What to do with it....?

 

[blw]

I have done it twice and would probably do it again.

The last time was some Kodak Gold and the contents were anything but (gold).

The first time however was interesting. It was a finished roll of 120 in my TLR I won on fleabay. I had it developed at a nearby hospital's photo lab. The contact sheet had 3 or 4 semi-nudes (presumably of the prior owner and spouse?) and some other less interesting shots around the house. The couple were in their 40s or 50s so I obviously didn't have to worry about the kiddie police crashing my door. If I can find the contact sheet, I might have to scan and post it.