The Dangers of Camera Hopping...

kdemas

kdemas

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I got up this morning and was fortunate enough to have a nice free schedule so I decided to pop out and do some shooting at the coast. After hemming and hawing about which cameras to take I settled on a couple with rolls of film already in them which needed to be burned.

So with my Nikon FM2 with 45/2.8 P and Leica M5 50/2.8 in tow I took a great 20 minute drive to the coast. Parking at the Pillar Point Marina I set off walking through the commercial fishing area of the marina on what turned out to be a great photo morning with overcast muted lighting.

The FM2 had been sitting for ages and needed half a roll burned so I took it out first.

"Look, a beached trawler!"... Click.

"Aww, a seabird relaxing on a dumpster next to a funny sign"... Click

"Craggly old guys getting ready to go out to sea, looking like they just finished eating some fish heads or something, perfect!"...Click

Man, what a morning. Perfect timing and really some nice material, fun! The manual metering had me really in a nice little zone so I almost finished the roll but decided to leave the roll in the camera and take the final 2 shots of the reservoir on the way home. I gave the M5 a little workout as well.

Did I mention how smooth the film advance on the Nikon was? Man, I haven't used that camera in a bit, especially without the MD12 drive, and it really is buttery smooth. I swear I don't remember it being this smooth, what a little workhorse of a camera!

Had a great early lunch, cruised back over the hill and shot the last 2 frames from a spot I like near the shore of the reservoir. "Should I load up a little more film just for fun, maybe color?" I asked myself. Sure, why not, great day and I have some more time.

So...I pushed that little magic rewind button on the bottom of the FM2N, flipped up the rewind crank and started to turn and....

NO FILM IN THE CAMERA!! :bang:

But wait, how could this be?? I had the little box end on the back of the camera which said "BW400". Oh yeah... I have to remove the eye cup to get that thing out and sometimes I leave it there out of laziness, stunningly bad move.

So, as it turns out, that film advance isn't quite as smooth as I thought and I was so immersed in the pleasant shooting experience that I didn't even notice the rewind crank wasn't spinning when advancing the film.

So this is the little tiny price I pay for my incessant camera-hopping, on occasion. I really enjoy taking the camera that feels right "for that day" but, in so doing, I leave myself open the occasional wacky situation like happened today.

So I ask you... If you camera hop have you had and humorous experiences lately?

Happy shooting everyone 🙂
 
Yes, but not lately.

Shot an imaginary roll (36 exp) of Across two summers ago because I was jumping between three different cameras and thought that one still had a fresh roll in it.

The funny thing is that I clearly (even now) remember some of the imaginary photos I took...I mean I can see the framing, the light, the scene.
 
Convinced I had Fujicolor 200 24 exposure in the M6 I turned the ISO from 100 where I had obviously forgotten to reset it to the correct ISO. Must have been distracted after the last reload......Glad it was colour film as I was away with the family and some beautiful scenery etc etc. Click, wind: 25 shots, sure....Click, wind, 27: no way. So it's Rollei Retro 100 after all. Three junk shots to establish this. Return the ISO setting to 100. At least all of the shots were focussed, which, with the distraction of the recently acquired M5's metering system, is a sort of necessary step that I am now regularly leaving out after 30 years of practice. Does make you think of Mike Johnston's advice.
 
Paddy C said:
The funny thing is that I clearly (even now) remember some of the imaginary photos I took...I mean I can see the framing, the light, the scene.
Click to expand...

That's so true! I can do the same with this roll and even with a phantom roll I took some time back at a ChampCar race in the paddock. Too funny.
 
Been there, done that, learned the lesson. I twirl the film rewind knob to check for film tension whenever picking up a camera to use that I'm unsure whether it has film in it or not.
 
FrankS said:
Been there, done that, learned the lesson. I twirl the film rewind knob to check for film tension whenever picking up a camera to use that I'm unsure whether it has film in it or not.
Click to expand...

That's a seriously good idea, and a simple one at that.
 
It happens... i've been shooting an imaginary roll of HP5+ through my Pentacon Six then a month later I tried to load a roll of HP5+ through it, forgetting that I had half roll of Provia 100F through it! This kind of stuff happens 😀
 
Oh Yeah! -- funny you should mention. About three months ago, I was out in Ione, CA., at Preston Castle with a group of photographers on a field trip just shooting my you know what off. Went through three rolls of B&W film and was heading home when this other photog that was there says to me: "Leaving so soon, here, I have an extra roll of Kodak color film. You're welcome to it."

So I thank the guy, for his generosity, load up the film and commence to shooting again. Once the frame counter hits "36," I calmy rewind, remove the film canister, tuck it away into its plastic container and make my way home.

Now, I don't process my own film, and since Calypso in Santa Cruz decided to close-up shop, I wasn't sure where I was gonna have the film processed.

Besides, I generally shoot B&W and have it processed at a professional lab.

So, when I get home, all the film I shot that day goes on the kitchen counter . AND I had taken time to mark the Kodak plastic canister with a label which read: "Ektar 100"

The B&W was processed promptly but the color roll of film I had shot ... fast foward to last week:

Decided - Heck! I'll give Walgreens film processing a go - about $8 and all the negs will be on a CD ready for post-processing in Photoshop, or so I thought. About 2 hrs. after I had turned the film in for processing, I go back and the clerk in the photo section is just about falling all over himself apologizing:

"Sir, I really sorry he says. I ran your roll of fim through and there were no pictures."

I'm thinking wait a minute: I spent a good hour or so reshooting shots previously taken in B&W again in color. There should be images on that thar film!

Sure enough, the clerk pulls out the roll of film and it is TOTALLY BLANK! :bang:
 
Minolta Hi-Matic 9 spoils you. It has a "little wiggly thingy" that only moves as film pulls through the camera. Brilliant.

Other than that camera, I take up the tension on the rewind knob as Frank mentioned. Been doing that for 40 years. After getting an SLR that HAD NO WIGGLY THINGY!
 
Very funny story.

For the second time now ... I took a camera out of the cupboard the other day to run through the shutter speeds because I couldn't remember using it in a while. After blazing off about fifteen accuations at various speeds I noticed the rewind crank was turning.

Kind of the opposite of your problem! LOL
 
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Yeah after long sessions on the 135 I have had 120 film loading mishaps, last time I loaded the roll backwards 😀 got some fun results though
 
Left my MR-4 meter on ISO 1600 after I loaded some Acros on my M4, and I also forgot to change the filter factor when I removed a yellow filter. Shot two frames on my Contaflex exposing for ISO 400 when I was pushing to 3200. Nothing else apart from that.
 
It is so sad, but I have made every one of the mistakes listed above except not correcting for a filter factor. I've: opened a camera to load film while it had film in it, shot with no film, shot at the wrong ISO, clicked the shutter not realizing there was film in the camera, loaded the film improperly so I got a blank roll, and did not rewind the film all the way before opening the back. Once my wife took the Olympus OM-1 to a one-hour lab with film in it, and they were certain that if they just twisted hard enough on the rewind knob that the film would rewind. They broke the film.

Add to that I've opened the development tank before the fixing step, taken my film to a photo lab that swapped my film with someone else's (they lost mine for good), and I have done it all, I think.

But, a friend of mine accidentally deleted all the pictures off his compact flash from his digital camera, so there are drawbacks with digital, too.
 
It's worse to run out of gas after leaving your wallet at home.

Or to forget who you sent flowers to on Valentine's day (happened to a friend of mine 🙂 ).
 
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