Double Exposure

[JeremyLangford]

I have a Minolta SRT-101 and I really want to start trying some cool double exposures. There is nothing made with the camera to stop the film from advancing to achieve a perfect double exposure, so I have to somehow do I manually.

I have tried to advance the film, then press the rewind button and rewind the fiilm back to my previous exposure, but I found that this was harder than I thought to do, and I couldn't ever get it right. I kept getting the second exposure a little bit too far or too short of the first exposure, which pretty much ruins the whole idea.

Any help or tips will definitely be appreciated.

 

[nikon_sam]

Jeremy,

Try this...(I just did with a SRT102)
Once the film is loaded, take out the slack in the film by (Without pushing Rewind Button) rewinding the film...then take the first shot...now here comes the tricky part...keep tension on the roll by holding the Rewind Knob and then push in the Rewind Button...while holding in this button, Advance the camera like normal...as long as the Rewind Knob doesn't move neither will the film...
Try this with a test roll and the film back open to see what you're doing, once you feel comfy with this it's time to go out and shoot for real...
Good Luck,

 

[JeremyLangford]

thanx. Im starting to get the hang of it now.

 

[JeremyLangford]

Ok. I am starting to have trouble with these double exposures with my Minolta SRT-101 SLR.

Here is what I am currently doing.

1) Take up slack in the film roll by twisting the rewind knob (Without touching the rewind button)
2)Take the first exposure
3)Press the rewind button and advance the film while holding the rewind lever in place
4)"Step 3" only allows me to twist the film knob about 3/4 the way through before the rewind button comes back down and stops allowing me to keep the film in the same spot. So now I have to press the rewind button again and finish cocking the film knob.
5)Take the second exposure on the same spot as the first
6)Heres where my problem starts............. I have successfully taken my double exposure, and so now I want to advance the film to the next square, but my rewind button is still up from "Step 4". So in some cases, my film doesn't actually advance until the rewind button comes back down, and this means that sometimes my next picture is halfway on top of my double exposure picture.

This is vey capable of ruining pictures (I found that out when I got my last roll developed).

Any help will be much appreciated. I think something that might fix my problem is if I can somehow manually take down my rewind button without having to advance the film to make it come back to normal.

 

[rbiemer]

How about for the next shot after your double/multiple exposure, you put the lens cap back on, set smallest aperture and fastest shutter speed, advance film as usual, take shot of inside of lenscap(a blank frame) and then advance and shoot as normal. I mean put an empty frame between the double exposed photo and the next photo.
There is another way to do this, though. You could make double/multi exposures in the darkroom or computer by sandwiching/layering your negs.
Rob

 

[JeremyLangford]

I really want to have a real double exposure done in the camera. If I would have know it would be this hard to do, then I would have gotten a camera that allows it to work. I am very disappointed at this.

 

[rbiemer]

Fair enough, Jeremy. And you're right it is a pain to do it this way.
Try not to get too frustrated.
Rob

I really want to have a real double exposure done in the camera. If I would have know it would be this hard to do, then I would have gotten a camera that allows it to work. I am very disappointed at this.

 

[MartinP]

I recall doing this by physically holding up the rewind button during the whole of the second-exposure winding action. The problem then is that it will only pop down again (depending on the design of the camera of course) part way through the next, "real", wind on. That means that you will get overlapping frames (with one bit of your double-exposure perhaps ending up as a triple....) unless you put the lens cap on and shoot a blank frame between your double-exposed shots. That way you will have a big gap, but the exposures will be where you want them.

Good luck.

 

[stuken]

You could also consider getting something cheap like a holga for double/multiple exposures. It works just fine.

 

[JeremyLangford]

You could also consider getting something cheap like a holga for double/multiple exposures. It works just fine.

Wow. I really love your site. Pictures like the one above^ are what inspire me to do double exposures. I love to do them as much as possible.

I think I have figured out the best way for me to get around this. I think I should use all the same steps I have been using, except I will simply have to watch my film lever when I am doing the actual advance of the film after I have finished my double exposure and just make sure that it moves along even though the rewind button is pressed for the first part of the spin. I will just slowly advance the film until the rewind button is back to normal. If the rewind lever stays still, then it means that I am going to have an overlap.

 

[stuken]

Thanks alot, its good to hear. I'm looking forward to your double exposures, post them up when you get them.

 

[wolves3012]

Jeremy,

The semi-official method is as above, hold the rewind and press the rewind button whilst winding. After your last exposure, wind on twice, first time with the lens-cap on. This will give you anything up to a whole frame wasted but can't be helped.

Out of interest, the Minolta XD/XD-5 and XD-7/XD-11 cameras actually were designed to use the rewind button as a double-exposure feature. On these, the button only pops out at the end of winding, guaranteeing correct double-exposures with no wastage. Neat huh?