Pentax 17 rewind knob not turning when advancing

[Hayli]

hello everyone. i'm grateful for y'all's help throughout my journey of film cameras, i figured you guys would be knowledgeable on this as well.

per recommendation, i got the pentax 17 recently. it's my birthday gift to myself and i did good on my 5 1/2 page college math test, so i thought might as well bite the bullet and purchase it. i've loved it so far, still on my first roll so i haven't seen the images yet but it's been a blast to shoot with.

i've always been paranoid about the film not advancing. the main reason i try to run away from film cameras. i've been told that you just need to make sure the rewind knob is turning a bit when you advance it, and it was doing that correctly at first. now, halfway through this roll, the knob will sometimes turn and sometimes won't. not sure if this is because it's a half frame camera therefore the film doesn't move as much (i have no idea what i'm talking about, just theorizing).

i attempted to rewind it a bit to see if it stops at a certain point and it really doesnt. it does get tough to turn so i stopped, but wondering if i broke the film inside. the knob has turned since then, but again it does not turn every time i advance it.

looking for advice from you guys. does this sound normal or should i be panicking?

 

[shawn]

You should be fine. It is just the slack in the film canister itself. When you tried rewinding it a bit and it got tougher to turn you basically took out the slack of the film spooled in the canister.

 

[Muggins]

Welcome to the world of all the things us film users have forgotten we ever learned, Hayli! Hopefully the learning curve won't be too steep and you'll enjoy the camera.

I'm with Shawn - I think this is just slack in the film canister. If you broke the film (which takes some effort, guess how I know...) you'd have no tension at all whether with the rewind or the wind lever. You will find, especially if you don't shoot a whole film in a few hours, that the tension on the film will slowly slacken because the core of the cassette isn't fixed, but turns. We oldies just gently wind the rewind back until it's tight enough to turn when wound again each time we use it.

Enjoy your new baby and don't forget to show us the pics!

 

[Rick Waldroup]

Yes, it has to be slack in the film. It is a bit scary, though, to look down there and not see the rewind knob turning when you cock the shutter, isn't it? 🤔

 

[nightlight]

Welcome to RFF and the wonderful world of half-frames.

I echo the others. It happens with one of my half-frame cameras as well (an Olympus) but has no material impact on the exposed film. Like @Muggins wrote, just gently ensure the winding lever induces just enough tension in the film. In any case, enjoy the camera (and post some pics)!

 

[Archiver]

Hi Hayli, happy birthday, and congratulations on the Pentax and the math test, not necessarily in that order. Yeah, it sounds like the film has some slack, it should be a problem. If the film had snapped, you would have had to wind it VERY hard and there would have been a physical feeling of something snapping inside.

 

[Malcolm M]

One remote possibility, but it happened to me once, the film isn't connected to the spool in the cassette.

 

[Hayli]

thank you all so much, i will keep taking photos and hope for the best! i'll be sure to share some when i get them developed! <3

 

[Godfrey]

I could go on about young people and the first forty years of my life as a photographer before getting a digital camera, but you'll all be bored by that. 😉

What I always do with any 35mm film camera is, when loading the film, snug the film in the cassette lightly using the rewind knob or crank, and then watch as I wind on the first two-three frames to get the camera to exposure 1. If the rewind turns then, showing film is feeding out of the cassette, I'm done with that—I know the film is loaded correctly and there's no need to look at the rewind again until it's time to rewind the film. What it does in the meantime is exactly what you're seeing: sometimes it moves in conjunction with the film advance, and other times not, depending on how the tightly the film is on the spool in the cassette at any given point in the roll. Absolutely nothing to worry about or even think about.

In those forty years of only shooting film, and since, I don't think I have ever once had a camera's film transport break without it being absolutely obvious from winding on to the next frame. I had two cameras' film transport break (both Olympus XA cameras that I'd bought cheap and in rough condition) and on both of them the broken film transport was painfully obvious when the advance mechanism jammed, and I had to open the camera in a changing bag to wrestle my film out of it and not lose the photos I'd already made.

Good luck with your new Pentax!

G