Lost film! Who else has this happened to?

[djhurley92]

Hey,

Shot my second ever roll of Velvia on a nice seaside holiday a few weeks ago, was really excited to see the results. Sent the film Royal Mail 1st class and... nothing received by the lab, almost 4 weeks later now. I have proof of postage, the address was read correctly by the postal worker I gave it to, everything should have been fine... next time I guess I'll use tracked delivery.

Has this happened to anyone else? - so I can share in my misery.

I think the lab have got tired of me calling every day to see if it's arrived...

 

[Roger Hicks]

Just about everyone.

I have no pictures of the girl I was madly in love with in 1967, thanks to a lost roll of Kodachrome, lost somewhere between Bermuda and New York, in one direction or the other, or at the lab. We were both at boarding school in the UK so I didn't see her again for 10 weeks . . . by which time I was madly in love with someone else. But she was a very pretty girl and I'd like to have a souvenir, even though I stayed in love with the "someone else" for 4 years and have now been married to Frances for 32 years.

An old trick is to shoot your name and address on the first frame of the film.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sreed2006]

A friend of mine switched from film to digital because of the issues with film getting destroyed by the lab or lost in processing.

Then, one day, he reformatted his camera's memory card before he had downloaded the pictures, and could not recover the images. :bang:

Yes, labs have lost some of my film with images that cannot ever be replaced. It's very disappointing. It is something you learn to deal with and to say, "At least I tried."

 

[jschrader]

develop yourself

develop yourself

but you will surely also spoil some films.

I remember I had used up the developer stock bottle and filled with water; and in the routine taken that water 1:3 diluted for the next two films.......

:bang:

 

[nikon_sam]

Never lost any in the mail but I know there are many rolls out there somewhere that I've lost...I've even run one roll of film through the camera three times...it's also interesting to find an exposed roll that you have no idea where it's from then get to develop it...

 

[Lauffray]

My latest mishap not exactly lost film but destroyed an entire roll. There are 2 evenly spaced scratches that run in parallel straight across the whole roll (way to make sure to really nuke it 😀 )
I had some good pictures on that, but none too bad to lose

 

[sailor]

Out for a walk I came across a mountain rescue team on an exercise. The weather was perfect because there was a temperature inversion and we were looking down on the clouds in the valley. I had my Hasselblad with me and I took two films of one of the team and his collie dog. I used to do a lot of dog photography, particularly greyhound photography and I was amazed how much easier it was to photograph an obedient collie compared to a hound. So convinced was I of the excellence of my pictures that I sent them off to a pro lab rather than my usual one and waited and waited and waited. When I finally contacted the lab they admitted that something had gone wrong, agreed that they were liable and sent me two films as compensation. I was gutted.

 

[Particular]

Kodak once sent me someone else's roll of Kodachrome instead of mine. I checked out the pictures to see if I liked. They were badly focussed and underexposed pictures from a rafting expedition, so I sent them back with a note. I got my own pictures back a week or two later.

 

[Vics]

At age 69, I can truthfully say that I've never had anything lost in the mail. Lucky, I guess.

 

[David Hughes]

There's worse; I once spent four weeks waiting for a Leica lens to arrive after it was put in the post...

Regards, David

 

[btgc]

I'm waiting for a package with TWO vintage digital compacts...so far nothing was lost but now this is too long....but I still hope.

 

[danielsterno]

me- now! The Darkroom.com, happened once before BUT the rolls appeared. This time its 3 rolls of TMax-36 exposures- I mailed them on 7/21 thus there is still hope that they pop up- this was two days in NYC and the film was on top of x100 images I took- I am very very disappointed- checking email few times a day….. please keep the develop it yourself remarks, to yourself-thats cruel.

 

[Godfrey]

All original exposures, at one level or another, are irreplaceable masters.

Everyone doing photography for any time at all has lost some original exposures at some point along the way. Film or digital, through their own fault or caused by others.

It's inevitable.

G

 

[danielsterno]

me- now! The Darkroom.com, happened once before BUT the rolls appeared. This time its 3 rolls of TMax-36 exposures- I mailed them on 7/21 thus there is still hope that they pop up- this was two days in NYC and the film was on top of x100 images I took- I am very very disappointed- checking email few times a day….. please keep the develop it yourself remarks, to yourself-thats cruel.

regarding the above- just received an email- the 4 rolls just appeared! so this movie had a happy ending after all!

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

To whom else? All of us. Happens with film. Happens with any media. Lost in the mail. Power-outage at the processor. Wrong chemicals. Left the camera on the airplane. Card read error. Accidentally deleted. Now, where did I put that file?

Risk reduction measures can help. With digital, we can be less dependent on performance by others (mails, labs, etc.)

 

[drewbarb]

In 1999 I traveled around the south of England photographing houses, gardens and other sites associated with the Bloomsbury group, to accompany an article my sister was writing. I shot 30 or so rolls of 35mm and 120 film. On the last day of our trip, our car was broken into while we were on a walk, and all the camera gear except the one body and one lens I had around my neck on the walk- but the worst part was all my shot film was among the bags taken (and of course it was most likely just trashed). Broke my heart.

 

[bobbyrab]

Never lost in the post, but I once lost a film that I knew I'd left in our kitchen. It was Autumn when I lost the film, and spring when I found it under a tree in the garden alongside a number of teaspoons.
I worked out that our cat's magnetic devise on her collar that activated the cat flap, was carrying small metallic items out to the garden that would then be deposited below the tree as she jumped up into it.
I had it developed but alas nothing came out.

 

[MrFujicaman]

At one point or another,this happens to everybody. I had a roll of color print film crushed by the post office. I'd shipped 3 rolls to the lab and they tore the package open. I got 2 rolls back but the 3rd was destroyed. I always stick a small return address label on any film I mail off for processing-that's the only way I got my film back with they tore open that one shipment.

The best labels to use are made by Simon..they aren't paper-they seem to be some kind of plastic and they are very hard to tear up.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

In the early days of owning my Hassy 500c/m, I wnt up to the Isle of Skye (Sligachan Bridge) and shot a roll of Acros in stunning late afternoon light. I wouund it off only to find that I'd loaded it backing paper side forward. Quickly, I loaded another and re-shot the scenes I'd just shot. Same end result. Re-loaded. Light had gone. Went to B&B in a VERY bad mood due to my own lack of expertise.

It happens. Hopefully, we learn from it.

 

[Thardy]

In the early days of owning my Hassy 500c/m, I wnt up to the Isle of Skye (Sligachan Bridge) and shot a roll of Acros in stunning late afternoon light. I wouund it off only to find that I'd loaded it backing paper side forward. Quickly, I loaded another and re-shot the scenes I'd just shot. Same end result. Re-loaded. Light had gone. Went to B&B in a VERY bad mood due to my own lack of expertise.

It happens. Hopefully, we learn from it.

The ' blad is not the easiest camera to load in a hurry if you're unfamiliar with it. 😡