Opened up Leica M3 with film inside :(

Has happened to me (once) too! On my M6.
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I guess two tricks would be helpful , i.e., first, look at the film counter & see if it's reading something less than "40." If it is, then there's film in the camera. Or pull up the rewind knob,give it a twist & check for resistance.

Of course, with a M9, you don't have this problem opening up the camera (unless the film card drops out.)
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I bet most of us have done this once in a while. Always check your rewind to see if there is film tension before opening the camera, that's the lesson. I tell myself this often enough, but still manage to open a camera with a partly shot roll once or twice a year. Sigh.
 
adamjohari said:
Do any Leica's have some kind of warning before opening the bottom plate? Something like "DON'T OPEN IT BEFORE YOU REWIND YOUR FILM". Fail 🙁
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I'm sure there's a purpose of the counter being something other than 0. But that's just me.


Seriously, I did it once. Kicked myself. I didn't look at the counter, of course. Nor felt the tension in the rewind knob.

I guess this is why they have that big warning on glass cleaning bottles: Do Not Use In Eyes!
 
Had it happen with a Pentax SLR once. Was taking photos of flowers, and had just finished a roll of film. A friend asked me a botanical question, and thinking about the answer to his question interrupted and distracted me from the film-change process enough for me to forget that I had not yet rewound the film.

It certainly is a horrible feeling to open up a camera and see the unwound film looking straight back at you. Fortunately, most of the roll had been shot in that same area, so I was able to retrace my steps and retake most of what I had just ruined.
 
Happened to me several times, because I have a huge collection of cameras and often I just forget which one is loaded. Since not all of them (actually only a few) do have this little film window, I often can't tell which one I can open without destroying some shots.
If the counter is on 5 or 6, it could also be because of some test clicks...
 
zauhar said:
A couple weeks ago I was rewinding and felt a sudden change in resistance - assumed the film had come off the spool. It had not! I was close to the start of the roll though, only lost a couple frames.
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I tend to be semi-paranoid about making just such misjudgements and thus don't stop rewinding until I hear the end of the leader making a little "tick-tick-tick" sound as it rotates inside the canister. I've sometimes thought I was being a little silly and overly cautious, but after hearing your story, I'm not about to change that habit now.
 
I did this with my first roll on my M6. I've been super careful about it since. I was surprised at how well the film held up despite being blasted with sunlight. A couple photos near the front of the roll were completely unharmed.
 
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