The camera you bought arrived with film in it. Do you process it?

[RayPA]

Great question. I've been in this situation. I DIDN'T process the film. I was more worried that there might be something on the film that could be falsely attributed to me. I know... paranoid, huh?

I voted No.

 

[foto_fool]

Reason: privacy, and also, you didn't pay for the film, it wasn't part of the deal, and it isn't yours.

That's not necessarily true, particularly if the terms of sale specify "as-is". If there is a take-home message in this thread, it seems to me it is "check your camera for film in it before you sell it". 🙂

 

[Matthew Runkel]

If the situation arose, I certainly would not be worried about finding child pornography on someone's random old roll of film. Think through the likelihood that the creator of such images would fail to keep close tabs on them.

 

[RayPA]

If the situation arose, I certainly would not be worried about finding child pornography on someone's random old roll of film. Think through the likelihood that the creator of such images would fail to keep close tabs on them.

There are hundreds of different things that could be on a roll of film that I would not want attributed to me. Most likely the content would be harmless and mundane. However, it's not my 'harmless and mundane,' so I don't want someone else's 'harmless and mundane' attributed to me either. 😛 🙂





.

 

[ebolton]

Great question. I've been in this situation. I DIDN'T process the film. I was more worried that there might be something on the film that could be falsely attributed to me. I know... paranoid, huh?

I voted No.

That's carefull, not paranoid. Paranoid is when you realize they deliberately put the film with the bad images in there so you would be arrested or sent to Gitmo.

 

[RayPA]

... Paranoid is when you realize they deliberately put the film with the bad images in there so you would be arrested or sent to Gitmo.

LOL! No that's when you're f*ked. 🙂


.

 

[dazedgonebye]

Actualy, I have a roll on my nightstand right now from an old camera I bought.
I developed one roll and it had pictures of a small town fire truck parade.

 

[projectbluebird]

I would certainly develop it, just to exercise my development skills if nothing else.

When I was in school, the lab monitors (of which I was one) had drawers to keep their stuff in. One month I built up quite the backlog of undeveloped film, and there was one roll specifically shot for an assignment. In the course of looking for that roll, I developed everything I had. I never found that roll, but there was one in my drawer that wasn't mine, nor did it belong to anyone else.

No one knew the people in it, including the instructors.

It was an odd series, some sort of dramatic gothic romp through a cemetery. I like to think that my roll is waiting to pull a similar stunt sometime in the future, though as I recall it was a rather boring assignment.

 

[RayPA]

The guys at Flatiron in NYC once complimented me on my photos and I've been somewhat neurotic about what I submit ever since. The way I see it, kudos from the guy who monotonously scans the Fuji Frontier all day are probably more sincere than compliments from anyone else. (Of course it's possible that he was only greasing my wheels.) At any rate, there's no way I'd risk my minilab cred, whether real or imagined, over some pictures of another guy's cat. 😉

LOL! exactly! 🙂

 

[landsknechte]

In all honesty, only if it were an old roll. The historian in me drools at such an opportunity.

Modern film, unlikely. I had my fill of looking at other people's bad photographs when I worked at a minilab as a freshman in college.

 

[iamzip]

I recently purchased a Zeis Ikon 521/16 off of eBay and it had an old roll of film in it - on metal spools! The seller was not the original owner, he had picked it up at an estate auction and had no idea what was on the film. So I had it processed, and it came back with a number of decent images, surprising since I would estimate that they were taken no later than the 60's! Pictures of kids at Christmastime, and also a baby. I asked the seller if he had any idea about the previous owner, since I'm sure they would love to have them, but haven't heard back yet.

 

[jarski]

I would have probably opened the back of camera, not knowing there is undevelopped film inside, and ruined the film unusable 😛

but I answered: Yes

 

[Mr_Flibble]

I've only found film in one of my acquisitions before. It was a Kodak Medalist I . It had an exposed roll of Belgian PAN film in it.

I emailed the seller if she wanted this film returned to her. She said the camera had belonged to the grandfather of the people she was selling it for and they would love to have it returned. So I shipped it back.

So far the answer would've been NO on the poll I guess...Otherwise I would've shipped it to Gene M.

 

[kingjon]

The only camera I've ever purchased that had film in it was from an estate sale. I was just starting to soup my own so I developed the roll of Tri-X and got a few nice pictures of the late owner's spaniel.
Jon

 

[oftheherd]

I recently bought a camera at a thrift store, and it had a roll of color film in it. I thought about having it processed, then thought the same as others here have said. Suppose it was of child porn. Nope, not going that route. However, I might try cross processing it myself out of curiosity, as someone else mentioned. I have never tried that before.

If there was any clue about a camera's owner I would try to contact the owner, but in this case, no way unless one of the photos contained unmistakable evidence of the real owner; like a photo with a name and address on it. As others have said, from a thrift store or ebay, not worth the effort unless the seller states they are the owner.

 

[rxmd]

In this case I don't understand the whole child pornography craze.

Firstly, you're protected by statistics. Let X be the number of unprocessed rolls of film floating around in the world. Let p be the percentage of X that contains child pornography, and let q be the percentage of X that is forgotten in cameras that are sold to thrift stores. Both p and q are rather low obviously. Your likelihood of hitting child pornography is at the most X * p * q. Probably less, because child pornographers are careful people who tend not to forget film in cameras.

Secondly, I don't know what countries you live in, but isn't there something like the "benefit of the doubt" or something, that if you can prove that you bought a camera at a thrift store that had film in it (to which the thrift store owner can testify because he saw you open the camera at his shop), and if you have this roll of film that is as old as yourself, that it's quite unlikely that you were the person who took this? On the contrary, I guess if there was child pornography in there, I guess police etc. would be quite grateful at the opportunity of getting some evidence for a 20-year-old case.

And if you're that paranoid about the country you live in, you can always get a C41 processing kit and use the film as an excuse to start processing at home.

Philipp

 

[rxmd]

I recently bought a camera at a thrift store, and it had a roll of color film in it. I thought about having it processed, then thought the same as others here have said. Suppose it was of child porn. Nope, not going that route. [...] If there was any clue about a camera's owner I would try to contact the owner, but in this case, no way unless one of the photos contained unmistakable evidence of the real owner; like a photo with a name and address on it.

How do you know if there's unmistakable evidence of the real owner if you're, excuse me, too damn afraid to even have it processed?

Philipp

 

[Dogman]

Never had this happen. I did rent a car once ("Rent-A-Dent Deluxe") that had the trunk full of empty soda bottles and a Marlboro cigarette package under the front seat that contained five joints. This was back in the days of deposits on soda bottles so I cashed them in. I was too chicken to try the joints.

I'd process the film.

 

[Stu W]

Classic Camera magazine had an interesting article a couple of years ago. "A Leica for Rasmussen" was about an auction Leica that had a roll of fiml in it from the early 1930's. Anyway, it was developed and the roll documented an Arctic expedition. Stu

I answered Yes.

 

[peterc]

If it is possible to locate the previous owner, I'd make an effort to return the film unprocessed. Otherwise, process it and see what you got. I got six or seven (badly exposed) shots of a field full of cows once.
I also got a used digital camera with a memory card that had someone's holiday pictures on it. No way to trace it back to the owner.