Clicking sound when advancing

[Hayli]

Hi guys.. it seems more often than not I am on here for less than good reasons. Today when I loaded up a new roll, I noticed it was making a singular pop sound with each advance, nothing major just a little click or pop. Definitely not what I normally hear with this camera. It's a Pentax 17 for reference. I was confused and hadn't even reached the "0" indicator on the camera yet so I decided to rewind it back into the canister, and reload it completely. Does that mess anything up? It is still making the click but it's quieter with each advance. I am wondering if there was some slack and it's just the film getting situated in there. It's times like these I wish I knew someone in real life who uses film. You guys are very helpful to me since I don't have that. Let me know if I should reload again or what you would do.

 

[joe bosak]

Winding back and reloading is fine.

I would rewind/take the film out and do what I could to make sure the camera was operating ok without film. Does the shutter fire for example (I don't recall whether this camera only fires with film in it), and especially is that click the shutter firing when you wind on. Or does the click only happen with film in the camera?

After that I'd reload the film, and see whether the film was actually advancing (does the top left knob turn when advancing on this camera? I've only put one film through mine so far.

If the shutter is firing ok, winding on is working and isn't itself somehow tripping the shutter, I'd probably put another film through it and see what I get. If you have a duff film for testing this sort of thing, fire and wind it on with the back open to see if you can tell whether the click is the film transport (or just the film I suppose) slipping. If that's the problem you would possibly get narrower spacing and maybe overlapping frames for example if you used the camera for real. But with the price of film/processing the "use the camera and see what you get" test is probably the last step.

There's also a Pentax 17 flickr group where people seem to have shared hints and tips (and moans and groans). Maybe check there too.

 

[Hayli]

Winding back and reloading is fine.

I would rewind/take the film out and do what I could to make sure the camera was operating ok without film. Does the shutter fire for example (I don't recall whether this camera only fires with film in it), and especially is that click the shutter firing when you wind on. Or does the click only happen with film in the camera?

After that I'd reload the film, and see whether the film was actually advancing (does the top left knob turn when advancing on this camera? I've only put one film through mine so far.

If the shutter is firing ok, winding on is working and isn't itself somehow tripping the shutter, I'd probably put another film through it and see what I get. If you have a duff film for testing this sort of thing, fire and wind it on with the back open to see if you can tell whether the click is the film transport (or just the film I suppose) slipping. If that's the problem you would possibly get narrower spacing and maybe overlapping frames for example if you used the camera for real. But with the price of film/processing the "use the camera and see what you get" test is probably the last step.

There's also a Pentax 17 flickr group where people seem to have shared hints and tips (and moans and groans). Maybe check there too.

thank you very much! i will check out that group, hadn't heard of it til now. i did end up rewinding and reloading it, and after a few advances it stopped making the sound and seems to work as normal. the knob does turn when advancing as well, thank goodness. i may just shoot through this roll quickly, before Christmas hits and then hope for the best. what sucks is that this is the first time I bought more expensive film, I spent $23 on Portra 800. However I think and pray that it's fixed now, it seems to be acting normal. I'm gonna be crushed if it turns out blank LOL

 

[santino]

Therefore Joe advised you to check whether the shutter is firing or not… you already checked the film advance and if the shutter is firing your film won’t come out blank.

 

[Hayli]

That appears to be working as well. I didn't take the film back out again but I watched the shutter from the front side and it appears to be firing.