It was not meant to be (film tore off inside the SWC)

gustavoAvila said:
Raid, I am not so sure that your film was "torn".

In the past year, I have had three rolls of Ilford XP2 (35mm) detach from the pickup spool.

The first time, I had no idea what had happened and removed the base plate thus ruining the roll.

The second time, I retrieved the film in a dark closet and placed it into the film canister (not the cartridge!) and explained the situation to the lab tech. This roll was "salvaged".

Last week, the same thing occurred for the third time! Again, I recovered the film in a dark closet and explained the situation to the front desk at the lab. Unfortunately, the customer rep did NOT convey the message to the lab tech who opened the canister and ruined the film.

If this situation had occurred once, it could be passed off as an unfortunate event. Twice, maybe it was just a bad coincidence, but three times indicates a pattern. And now I hear that Raid has had similar problems...

In examining the ruined film, I noticed that the end of the XP2 roll is "hooked" to the pickup spool. (Film from other manufacturers is taped.) This "hook" technique is either insufficient (i.e. a design flaw) or was never "notched" into the pickup spool in the first place (i.e. a manufacturing defect). FWIW, I felt NO resistance at the end of each of the three rolls.

My interpretation is that Ilford recently changed the way their film is attached to the pickup spool. (Most likely in the interest of manufacturing cost savings.)

FWIW, in fifty years plus of shooting film, I have never had a roll detach from the pickup spool, until recently.

I am in communication with Harman Technology with regard to this matter and should be hearing more from them shortly.

In any case, going forward, I will NOT be using any Ilford film until they have provided solid assurances that this manufacturing defect has been resolved.
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Raid's situation would be different than yours. You shooting 35mm & him 120.
 
raid said:
In my case, the film/backpaper was torn. I had twp pieces.

Raid
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I'm assuming the paper tore when you were winding the film to frame 1? You mentioned you normall do not put the paper under the side bar when you load but this time you did. A side note it's very important to put that leader under the side bar when loading. It helps insure correct tracking of the film and flatness. I've loaded Hasselblad magazines thousands of times so I'm quite familiar with them. I don't think there's any way to improperly load the feed spool / fresh roll and get the back closed. Something had to hang up involving the leader. I suspect you only partially got the leader under the side bar causing part of the paper to crease against the bar. Part of the paper would be under it and part on top or to the side of the bar. When you placed the insert in the magazine and latched ti with the key then started to wind it the side bar caused it to tair. I've seen the leader load this way but always caught it. If you tore it from the side like that you might not notice the extra force needed to tair the paper. If somehow the fresh roll was binding it would take enormous force to tair it. Is it possible the leader wasn't totally under the rail?
 
You may have explained it very well. I am now very careful in how I place the film under the side bar without such tearing happening.
 
Rob-F said:
If you don't know your camera malfunctioned, then you don't know you need to get out the backup.
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I KNOW SOMEONE WHO WAS tasked to photograph the royal family.

He used several cameras and multiple rolls in each. The film was sent to process in batches.

Leica makes a few nice digital cameras. Check exposure, camera function, and composition as you go along.
 
On major jobs I've always shot a backup on another camera and its paid off. One job involved paying a major grocery store to close over night so we could restock the shelves with a clients new product. It was a top secret new product they didn't want the competition to know about. This involved a good size crew, clients from Bristol Meyers, art directors and models we flew in. Durin the nights shoot I shot over 100 sheets of 4x5 ektachrome and backed it up with 20 rolls of ektachrome 120.

We finished the shoot at 4AM and I went back to my studio to unload the film. When I took the film to the lab that morning I instructed them to run 1 sheet and hd until I evaluate it and give I structions. Unfortunately the ran all the 4x5 at once. 7 sheets came through ok and the first 50 were pushed 2 stops and the second 50 pulled 2 stops. The processor malfunctioned. Fortunately my backup was held. After repairing the processor the 120 was run in small batches and was ok. The cost of this shoot today would be over $50,000 so you can see the importance of backups.
 
I know but if it's important to you take a backup of some sort. Just a pocket camera or even your phone. At this guys age you don't know if you'll get another opportunity to photograph him. Another bit of advice, learn the feel of your equipment and everything about it. Having owned a SWCM for years I could have told by feel that it wasn't transporting film. There's a different feel when winding in most any manual camera. Just my 2 cents and experience. The more you know and more familiar you are with your equipment the higher the probabity of success.
 
I already have photos with him and of him from my last visit with him in April this year. I wanted something special this time.

I know that you are right here, but I am trying to convince myself that meeting the man was most important. I am now working on getting him to visit UWF in pensacola. This will give more chances!
 
It is weekend here in the USA. In fact, it is already Sunday.
I used my SWC for some close-up portraits to test how such portraits will look like. I also used this camera outside Joe Patti's Seafood for some fishing boats images on XP2. Today, I may try out some real B&W film in the SWC.

What have you been doing this weekend?
 
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