Strange shapes on film

[ametryn]

Hello all,
This forum was recommended to me by one of my colleagues; I'm new here.
I was wondering if any of you can solve my student's film mystery. There are strange absences at the bottom of most (but not all) of her frames. I thought maybe she'd put her camera on a table and it was the edge of the table showing up in the frame, but she says that for many of the shots she was holding the camera and there is a vertical shot with the "table" in the same location as her horizontal shots.
Anyone want to take a stab at this?
thanks!!!

 

[pvdhaar]

Depends on the camera I guess.. and whether flash was used (sync-speed?)..

For an SLR in particular I would think of a sticky shutter/mirror combination..

 

[michaelwj]

Looks like a shutter issue. We need more details though, like the camera, flash? shutter speeds?

 

[sepiareverb]

Looks like a shutter blade stuck to me as well.

 

[Larry H-L]

If the film was self-developed in a roll canister, it looks like it could be from an insufficient amount of developer in the tank. The developer covered most, but not all of the film. If it was a two-reel tank, was this the "top" roll in the tank?

 

[Larry H-L]

Looking more, if the camera used had a vertical-travel shutter, I agree that a blade could be sticking or is slow.

Was the scene shot under fluorescent lighting?

 

[Argenticien]

I have same issue on an SRT102. I posted the question over at photo.net; opinions of the wizened elders over there are at http://photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00e6SX. I still have a part-used roll of film in the camera so cannot open the back and watch the shutter work. Really must get through that... --Dave

 

[ametryn]

Thanks guys! I didn't think about the mirror...I bet it's the mirror. Just to answer some questions, the shutter moves from side to side (it's one of those cloth screens) and she is not using flash.
I do get people who don't fill their cans with enough developer...that's not what this looks like, though, because this is an angular shape that is different from frame to frame.
Thanks so much for your insights!!

 

[Dwig]

Thanks guys! I didn't think about the mirror...I bet it's the mirror. Just to answer some questions, the shutter moves from side to side (it's one of those cloth screens) and she is not using flash.
I do get people who don't fill their cans with enough developer...that's not what this looks like, though, because this is an angular shape that is different from frame to frame.
Thanks so much for your insights!!

Horizontal cloth curtained SLR rules out a lot of guesses.

One thing that I've seen that could be present here is some obstruction trapped behind the mirror and in front of the shutter. I've seen scraps of film (broken off pieces of the leader...) trapped there. I've also seen cameras that used some applied material on the back of the mirror to reduce reflections during the exposure which would become partially unglued and hang down into the image path.

BTW, you should teach her to load the PrintFile pages uniformly, with the edge print orientated the same way on all strips. It helps when judging a wide range of issues, particularly things like this.