Dropped a P&S and the film door opened…

[thereabouts]

I dropped my Ricoh FF7 P&S camera, with some Tri-X in it and the film door sprang open. It was on about shot 28.

Can I assume that the film is completely written off, or is it worth paying to develop?

 

[John Bragg]

I would try it. May only have lost a few frames.

 

[ruby.monkey]

If the camera winds film out as it shoots then you'll probably lose five or six frames, but most should be ok*; if it winds the film back into the cassette with each frame then you shouldn't lose any.

*(speaking as someone who has opened his camera at the end of the roll, only to stare dumbly at the film stretched across the gate)

 

[Highway 61]

You cannot predict what to expect until you develop the roll. Many variable parameters involved and always different consequences when such a common thing happens, from only a couple of the last frames spoiled to the entire roll being DOA with sometimes the first frames (although being theorically safer) having been more severely affected (unfortunately, 35mm films have sprocket holes, and the photons use to travel quite fast...).

 

[sevo]

Much of it will still be good - after a wind or two, the film itself acts as its own light-proof wrap.

Also, many p&s cameras used a "load to the camera spool" logic where the unexposed film is on the static camera side spool and is transported back into the cartridge after each exposure - there you'll only lose the half frame still sticking out of the cartridge. IIRC the Ricoh R-1 does it, so the FF series (in many ways a plastics packed variation of the same innards) might do it as well - if the film counter counts down rather than up, it will!

 

[Dwig]

Much of it will still be good - after a wind or two, the film itself acts as its own light-proof wrap. ...

True, film is rather opaque so only the outer 1-2 layers will be destroyed if the film is wound tightly on the takeup spool but the images on lower layers will survive. With 35mm, though, the sprocket holes will allow light down a good distance and fogging in to the edge of the frame from a sprocket hole will be present for a number of layers.

 

[Godfrey]

Always process the film. You never know what might be there. 🙂

 

[sevo]

With 35mm, though, the sprocket holes will allow light down a good distance and fogging in to the edge of the frame from a sprocket hole will be present for a number of layers.

YMMV - in most cases, I have not found that to be an issue, if the camera door opens, the film tends to be exposed or fogged three or four images into the spool, but not more. If you are unlucky, the holes overlap, and if they do, it will depend on the base substrate whether that bleeds over into the image area. Most films have a "light piping inhibitor" i.e. slight tint to the base plastics itself, which attenuates light bleeding in from the edges, so that the damage is limited.

 

[thereabouts]

Well, most of the film survived – about two-thirds, I suppose.

One strip of six totally black. Another is... affected.

Could have been worse.

 

[wblynch]

Sometimes the 'affected' ones become your favorites! 🙂

 

[thereabouts]

Heh. I think this particular bunch will have to remain unscanned.