Stupidity. Stupidity. Stupidity.

[Goodyear]

You thinkt here's things that you do so often you do them without thinking.

I say it's best to always have your mind on what you're doing.

Just now, developing a couple of tanks'-worth from the last few days. I pick up the last tank, carry it over to where the chemistry is sitting waiting. My mind is elsewhere, so instead of pulling off the top, I unscrew it. The whole thing. When I see the reels sitting there looking at me :bang: , I think "Hang on a minute...", slam it shut and let out a stream of invective that would give my mother palpitations.

Then I have to stop myself pouring the dev in anyway in case I got the lid on quick enough

/shrug.

 

[markinlondon]

Never quite done that one, Mark but I've been close a few times. The last time I fogged anything like that was when I'd loaded the reels in a changing bag then looked up to see the tank and lid sitting on the table outside the bag :bang:
There is just no way to fold a changing bag to keep out light while trying to insert a whole two-reel tank.

Commiserations on your disaster.

Mark

 

[bobofish]

Goodyear,
Anybody who says they haven't done exactly what you did, at one point or another, is lying.

If you do it again, and your wife catches you, just tell her you are "solarizing" your neg's.

 

[hiwatt]

Speaking of wifes.... :bang:
most notable moment in the long series of neg fogging accidents:
midway through the honeymoon, my wife picked up the camera and noticed it wouldn't shoot...so she figured out that the film must be finished and opened the camera to change it :bang: if only I had spent more time on explaining how not every camera in the universe rewinds the film automatically...

anyway, there went the 36 best shots of my honeymoon (murphy's law?), and yes, I lost my temper with the wife on the honeymoon, but just for 10 minutes or so...
Gus.

 

[Socke]

I just ruined a roll with the help of a Jobo Cascade. I thought I had a sensible temperature from my water tap and then I came back into my bathroom and saw the steam coming out of the tank ....

Anyways, I hang the film to dry and could rescue one frame from the roll

 

[GeneW]

A couple of weeks ago I loaded a test roll into my Paterson tank and noticed a peculiar clunking sound when I inverted the tank. Just as I started pouring in the developer my lagging brain said, 'maybe you should have put it back in the changing bag and checked the setup'. Too late. I developed and fixed, and found that, for the first time in 30 yrs of using Patersons, I had not locked the reel tightly into 35mm position and it opened up to 120 position, leaving a little spindle of greyish matter in the middle. No negs at all. Doh!

Gene

 

[oftheherd]

Speaking of wifes.... :bang:
most notable moment in the long series of neg fogging accidents:
midway through the honeymoon, my wife picked up the camera and noticed it wouldn't shoot...so she figured out that the film must be finished and opened the camera to change it :bang: if only I had spent more time on explaining how not every camera in the universe rewinds the film automatically...

anyway, there went the 36 best shots of my honeymoon (murphy's law?), and yes, I lost my temper with the wife on the honeymoon, but just for 10 minutes or so...
Gus.

Over twenty years ago, not too long after we were married, my wife and I were at an office party. My wife has never doubted she knows everything about everything, and even if she didn't before, once she has seen somebody do something, she then knows. So she decided to take a couple of photos at the party as she had seen me do. How hard could it be, right? She had seen me crank the film forward on the film back on my Super Press 23. What she had not seen was the little release you have to move before you attempt to crank it. Persnickity camera lever won't move? She knew the answer. Of course, damaged beyond simple repair. Required all new "guts." Arrrrh! And at that time I only had the one back. sigh.

 

[schmoozit]

I just ruined a roll with the help of a Jobo Cascade. I thought I had a sensible temperature from my water tap and then I came back into my bathroom and saw the steam coming out of the tank ....

When we talk about "souping" our film, we don't mean to actually cook it, Socke!

LOL! Sorry to laugh at that, but the picture of steam coming out of the tank is just too freakin' much, man.

 

[taffer]

Heh Someday I have to tell you how trying to leave the film leader out when rewinding can cause fogged negatives, that's one good story

You just open the back door and look, then you say 'oops', and close again to rewind a bit more, hoping nobody around noticed it

 

[Socke]

Or leaving the leader out and putting the film back into the camera the next day

Now I usualy fold the leader so I know I've already exposed it.

 

[VictorM.]

On the rare occasions (lol) that I do something stupid, I remind myself that I'm lucky not to be in the middle of brain surgery or flying an airbus.

 

[Nick R.]

Never quite done that one, Mark but I've been close a few times. The last time I fogged anything like that was when I'd loaded the reels in a changing bag then looked up to see the tank and lid sitting on the table outside the bag :bang:
There is just no way to fold a changing bag to keep out light while trying to insert a whole two-reel tank.

Commiserations on your disaster.

Mark

I've done that myself. Luckily, at a camera show last year, I bought a changing bag that had another smaller changing bag sewn inside it. (It's really a pouch as it has no arm holes.) If you need to open the bag for some reason after taking the film out of the can, you can shove everything into the inner bag, double zipper it up, and open the outer bag. Pretty neat!

 

[Goodyear]

I've done that myself. Luckily, at a camera show last year, I bought a changing bag that had another smaller changing bag sewn inside it. (It's really a pouch as it has no arm holes.) If you need to open the bag for some reason after taking the film out of the can, you can shove everything into the inner bag, double zipper it up, and open the outer bag. Pretty neat!

Now that's a fine idea!

 

[jacema]

Ups - not good! I haven't done that, but it isn't long ago I reversed the developing proces and poured the the fixer in first - there was absolutely nothing on that film - not even the numbers.

Jacques

 

[Kyle]

I've done some of the things mentioned in this thread. I've also been the 'victim' of someone else's stupidity. Last Spring, when I was taking an advanced photo class at my university, I was sitting in one of the film loading rooms, putting a couple rolls onto the reels. There are signs that say "Darkroom in use" that you can turn on when you're in there. However, some hair brained Photo 1 student decided to ignore that sign and opened the door, exposing all of my negatives. Losing a roll of film is one thing, but losing a roll of film that I needed so that I could complete my photo assignment due in two days is a whole 'nother story. I was furious! I did not have time to re-shoot, so I had to use some frames from previously shot rolls that only loosely fit into the assignment. This was better than turning in nothing, of course. :bang:

 

[smiling gecko]

...youch!!!!!! mark, i have made my share of darkroom blunders when "putting mind in gear before before putting gear in mind", however that expression goes...lo siento mucho....

still after these many decades o' " darkrooming" i have to remind myself to focus-focus-focus-focus-focus -focus on what i am doing in the darkroom ....try to compartmentalize the other competitors for my attention like wife+grand baby+friends visiting+the 6:15 show at the godzilla-multi-hyper- metroplex-cinema 40+ what's for dinner+ oops , might not have enough paper/dev/fix/etc/etc can i get to the camera shop before it closes??!!+ on and on...

...hopefully, there were other rolls to be done that day - that is usually atleast some consolation when something like that happens to me... kenneth

hasta la vista, adieu, dazvidanya ,fino al prossimo tempo, auf wiedersehen, and later y’all
_______________________________________

"...patience and shuffle the cards" miguel cervantes
"nothing can be learned" herman hesse
"everybody knows everything" jack kerouac
"some memories are realities and better than anything" willa cather
" doo-wacka doo, wacka doo" roger miller
"we have met the enemy and they is us !" pogo

 

[Fred]

Whilst listening to my old neighbours from hell agueing (yet) again, I put the bleach fix in after the initial dev of an E6 slide soup, completely missing the colour dev. Got a totally clear Velvia test real I now use for checking out the pastic spirals before using. Lost some shots from a holiday doh!

Ho hum, lost track of the time once listening to the radio with a roll of HP5+ and Rodinal, very contrasty results

 

[PaulN]

I had something similar happen to me a few weeks ago. Apparently over the summer I pre-loaded my mixing tanks with film. I realized that one of them was full, but not the other. For some reason, the paterson tank felt extremely light. I went to open it up to grab the reels and noticed that there was film on them. D'Oh!

When I pre-load the reels for later development, I always leave a note on the tanks reminding me..

-Paul

 

[Dave H]

One of my darkroom "accidents" was souping tri-x in multigrade paper developer rather than D76, ( a bottle labeling incident was to blame). Didn't realize about it till later, but the results were useable and the effect was novel. I might try it again sometime !

 

[markinlondon]

(snip)

focus-focus-focus-focus-focus -focus on what i am doing in the darkroom

(snip)

Indeed, but after focussing remember to stop down the enlarging lens. This is my favourite way of wasting paper :bang:

Mark