Talk about feeling like an moron....

[andydg]

Was out walking my dog this morning, taking a few shots with my M6. It's been a while, thought I would blow the dust off and put it to use. The roll finished and for the life of me I failed to toggle the lever to allow the take-up spool to release. Trying to roll the film back into the canister it broke.
Banging my head against the wall repeatedly. Tried to pull the film out in a dark area, to no avail.

Maybe I should stick with my Q instead. sigh.

Did load a new roll of B&W and will write myself a note to not be so.....:bang:

 

[charjohncarter]

I haven't done that but I almost did a couple of times. You do forget the little things with disuse.

 

[Horatio]

I feel your pain! I can remember the R switch on my M3, but last week I just didn't pull the rewind knob out far enough to engage. Lost about a third of the roll to fog. This did not happen on the very first roll I shot a couple months ago. I guess I just need more practice, or maybe a checklist. My other film cameras (and ones I've used since my teens) use the conventional flip-out crank, like your M6.

 

[SolaresLarrave]

You wanna feel smart? I'm in a nice trip in Nuremberg, shooting one of my last rolls of Kodachrome 64 in my M6TTL with a 'lux 35. Plenty of sun and a street dance, folk music festival in progress. I'm happily shooting away and finish the roll with my 'cron 90 and some nice portraits of the dancers in motion. Then I make it to exposure # 37. In my excitement to replace the roll I just forget to rewind and open the camera... in the middle of the day, in the middle of the plaza, out in the sun.

Even though I closed it immediately, my very last shots were gone. And I didn't stop cursing myself for a good part of the day.

Needless to say, it's never happened again. 🙂 There you go. Hope you feel better! 😀

 

[KoNickon]

Haven't done this -- but have had film fail to wind on at all, so I lose a whole roll of pictures because they never were captured on film at all. Usually you look to the rewind knob turning to ensure the film is advancing, but with the M5 rewind knob being on the bottom (and it doesn't spin the way the other Ms' knobs do) you can't tell, as I found out to my chagrin.

 

[GarageBoy]

I almost shot an entire roll at 1/4000 of a second instead of AE on my FE2

I set it to 1/4000 because it was a partially shot roll, so I advanced to where I left off, forgot, and went to blow off the remainder - didn't notice until I went to rewind... was wondering why my shutter speeds were so fast indoors

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

Ouch.. I've never done exactly that on a Leica, but I snapped a couple of rewind levers and once ripped off part of the sprocket holes, while attempting rewind in my Lomo LC-A cameras that would have benefitted from a CLA.

 

[Bill Blackwell]

After shooting Leica digital for 10-years I've removed the base plate on my film camera after shooting a roll - more than once. I'd say virtually every time I don't remove the base plate prior to rewinding my film I almost do it!!

 

[Ccoppola82]

I once shot an entire “roll” over the course of a couple weeks. Hit about the 38 on my M2. Figured I better rewind it and develop. There was strangely very little resistance....none actually. Lol. I’d been shooting for 2 weeks with an empty camera. Lol.

 

[oftheherd]

You wanna feel smart? I'm in a nice trip in Nuremberg, shooting one of my last rolls of Kodachrome 64 in my M6TTL with a 'lux 35. Plenty of sun and a street dance, folk music festival in progress. I'm happily shooting away and finish the roll with my 'cron 90 and some nice portraits of the dancers in motion. Then I make it to exposure # 37. In my excitement to replace the roll I just forget to rewind and open the camera... in the middle of the day, in the middle of the plaza, out in the sun.

Even though I closed it immediately, my very last shots were gone. And I didn't stop cursing myself for a good part of the day.

Needless to say, it's never happened again. 🙂 There you go. Hope you feel better! 😀

Sadly I did that once in Korea. Embarrassing to say the least.

But contrary to popular belief I am proud of my collection of photos of the inside of various lens caps. Although I could number the prints if anyone wants to buy some I ... No, I don't think I want let people know how high the numbers would go. :bang: 😀 😀

 

[Rob-F]

OK, I was taking pictures in the zoo in Palm Desert, shot a roll of Kodachrome in my Leica; in the desert heat I pulled the baseplate off without rewinding.

I feel I should know better. I've been shooting with leicas all my life (since age 12). It was the desert heat, I guess.

OK. Alfred Eisenstadt photographed Marilyn Monroe with his M3. When he went to turn the film in to Life magazine, he realized he had forgotten to load his camera.

He went back and shot it over.

 

[BillBingham2]

Not sure if that is worse than shooting what you thought was a complete roll only to find that there was no film in the camera. Did this twice. Once in High School with the Yearbook's Miranda (left my cameras home that day) and once about 12 years ago when we had a crane that lifted so we could cut the legs off and then lowered a Three Story Tree House that I built to the ground four feet back from it's location.

Perhaps I'm up for the village idiot award.

B2 (;->

 

[Horatio]

I once shot an entire “roll” over the course of a couple weeks. Hit about the 38 on my M2. Figured I better rewind it and develop. There was strangely very little resistance....none actually. Lol. I’d been shooting for 2 weeks with an empty camera. Lol.

Did that last spring with my Nikon F. I could have sworn I put film in it. I got some great images too!:bang:

 

[Pál_K]

A story I've told before...

About 20 years ago I drove from Portland to Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula; it was about 500 miles as a round trip. I drove up I-5 and then to 101.

For this trip I took one of my F2's and two rolls of film. Having got there and shot the first roll, I rewound it and dropped it into my camera bag. I probably changed lenses at that time, because apparently I didn't load the second roll immediately.

I should mention that I never rewound film entirely into the cassette. In fact, I didn't know people did that - I thought you had to leave some of the leader sticking out.

So you can see what's coming, right?

I loaded the second roll, which was same type as the first because I always used the same color film.

After shooting that, I made the long drive back. Overall, it was a 12+ hour trip.

After getting my negatives back, yep, one double-exposed roll and one unexposed roll. No usable photos.

I've not been back there since. By the way, I still don't rewind film entirely into the cassette, but I'm a lot more careful.

 

[peterm1]

We have all done something like this. Years ago I bought a new camera just before going on holidays over seas. I managed to load a few rolls correctly then somehow had brain fade and thereafter loaded some 20 rolls incorrectly - they came out blank as they never wound on. So out of perhaps 22-25 rolls on a 3 week holiday I got maybe 3-4 rolls. Still it gave me the excuse to go back and do the same holiday the next years 🙂 . Only cost me about $8,000. 🙁

I have also managed to cut the film leader improperly and misload a Canon screw mount camera resulting in the film tearing longitudinally as I wound it on. I was left with the task of getting a mess of torn film out of the guts of a camera with no back door only a removable bottom plate.

And now that I think about it I have managed to rewind a film partially thinking it had completely rewound. (Sometimes if the film leader is not held tightly by the take-up spool it is not obvious when the film rewind is complete and it is easy to get fooled). If truth be told I have done this a few times with certain cameras. Fortunately some images were usually recoverable.

 

[ruby.monkey]

You wanna feel smart? I'm in a nice trip in Nuremberg, shooting one of my last rolls of Kodachrome 64 in my M6TTL with a 'lux 35. Plenty of sun and a street dance, folk music festival in progress. I'm happily shooting away and finish the roll with my 'cron 90 and some nice portraits of the dancers in motion. Then I make it to exposure # 37. In my excitement to replace the roll I just forget to rewind and open the camera... in the middle of the day, in the middle of the plaza, out in the sun.

Even though I closed it immediately, my very last shots were gone. And I didn't stop cursing myself for a good part of the day.

Needless to say, it's never happened again. 🙂 There you go. Hope you feel better! 😀

Haven't we all, at one time or another, opened the back of a camera only to stare dumbly at a length of unprotected film?

 

[Richard G]

Meanwhile, back at the coal face, this is something that could happen without so much effort. The M6 manual (I think) describes the rescue procedure. In the dark, with the camera baseplate off, hold the camera upright and gently toggle the advance lever back and forth to coax the film to slowly spiral off the take up spool into your lap.

 

[andydg]

Meanwhile, back at the coal face, this is something that could happen without so much effort. The M6 manual (I think) describes the rescue procedure. In the dark, with the camera baseplate off, hold the camera upright and gently toggle the advance lever back and forth to coax the film to slowly spiral off the take up spool into your lap.

I will definitely try that, should I temporarily lose my mind again. Thank you. I did try fiddling with it, but felt that the film held fast. A piece of film ripped off inside which jammed the film against the inside of the barrel that the take up spool sits in.

Also, thank you all for sharing.

 

[Rayt]

There were times in the darkroom finding myself holding a wet Paterson tank, blanking out whether I had fixed it or not. Or developing film timed by wrist watch meanwhile forgetting how many minutes had passed.

 

[Archiver]

That sucks, and I know the feeling.

In the mid 2000s, I was getting into film and I was given Dad's old Pentax ME and Minolta SR-T 101. I hadn't used a film SLR for at least 35 years, so I'd forgotten almost everything. Inside the Minolta was a half exposed roll of film which would have been at least 35 years old, maybe more. Who knows what family photos would have been on it.

But I didn't think of any of that. Like a complete doofus, I popped the back open and found this half exposed roll of film, pulled it out of the camera and tossed it. That was Dad's first SLR, and he set it aside when he got his Pentax in the late 70s, so the Minolta's images could have even been over 40 years old. I regret that unthinking action to this day.