What the?!

Alright this one is a bit of an odd one. I shot a role of regular black and white 36 shot on the old Exakta. Everything seemed okay-it loaded alright, the counter kept accurate count, shutter released, lens worked, and it seemed to wind back up normally. I take the film to be developed and nothing comes out! Well to be more precise something came out but not much. There is the leader, then the first few shots on the negative are weird- they have lines through them and no real elements of any of the exposures I took. The other thing is they don't seem to really be spaced out normally on the negative strip. Normally I know there are the lines between each shot, but here that doesn't seem to be the case. After these few blobby and liney images on the negative comes a stretch of pure blackness (over exposed or something?). After the stretch of pure blackness ther est of the negative roll is transparent (not used at all?). Most of the roll is transparent, except for the blobby attempted-shots and the black set. Anyone know what this might be? I think the film was about a year old and was Kodak black and white (I don't think that's too old).

A year old for b&w film is nothing - several years past the expiration on Tri-X might even be hard to tell from in-date film! Something's obviously wrong with the camera. Since you're looking at negatives, black = completely exposed (shutter stuck open?) and clear is unexposed, just like the edges of the negs where the word Kodak is and the frame number.

If you have a locally owned photo store that does service, check with them first. Otherwise, KEH might be able to do it.

Hmm is there some way that I could check that?

What I did a little while ago was to open the camera's back and put the speed on manual. I hit the button once and the black cloth curtain went by and made an opening through to the lens. When I hit the button again the second curtain came by and blocked it out again. I wound it up and the curtains went by together blocking the opening hte whole time. I then tried a speed setting and (I think) one curtain went by quickly, the opening shot by, then the other curtain blocked out again.

The above test is something someone told me about awhile back to check the shutter. Does that sound about right? He said a stuck shutter would behave oddly in the movement of the curtains and leave the opening exposed. Any thoughts?

This is all a bit frustrating the previous roll of film seemed to work out all right. Moreover I've just gotten my Zeiss lens back on the camera and am nearly done putting a nice outfit together around this Exakta (period leather camera bag, a Zeiss exposure meter, going to buy a period german metal tripod shortly as well)

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Originally Posted by SirMike1983

The above test is something someone told me about awhile back to check the shutter. Does that sound about right? He said a stuck shutter would behave oddly in the movement of the curtains and leave the opening exposed. Any thoughts?

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Well, that sounds right. The "manual" shutter speed was probably B for bulb or something like that. With a normal timed shutter speed, it should do exactly what it did. When you advance the film, you also cock the shutter by re-setting the curtains.

Hard to tell with older mechanical devices, not unlike cars in this way. Have you checked it again since you got the film back, and does it seem to be working properly? It could have just been having a bad day. :)

I shot 20 rolls of film over the past Christmas Holiday season, and I had 4 rolls that came back from the developer completely clear. I think the lab messed them up! I'm glad none of the primary wedding photos were on those 4 rolls!

Could it have possibly been the development process that messed your film up?

Tim

Hmm someone else suggested maybe the film wasn't advancing properly. I'm not sure whether it was that, the lab, or a bad day.

Someone else suggested using a junk roll of film to see if it was advancing right. Maybe I'll give that a try and see what happens. Maybe I just loaded something wrong. Loading the thing is quite a task as there's a difficult spring tongue on the spool to slide the film under. Hopefully it was just something little I did wrong. I'm a little afraid of what a service quote on this thing would be. :eek:

I think the film advance is worth looking into. The pure blackness could be from you continually (over)exposing the same area, if it's not winding properly...then the clear part may have never made it out of the film casing. I have an old Minolta X-370 that has that problem.

With the back open, turn the lever and see if the spool turns. Try applying a light amount of pressure to the spool with your finger and see if it still turns. My Minolta will turn on it's own, but when there's any resistance, it won't.

What kind of camera is it?

Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by photophorous

I think the film advance is worth looking into. The pure blackness could be from you continually (over)exposing the same area, if it's not winding properly...then the clear part may have never made it out of the film casing. I have an old Minolta X-370 that has that problem.

With the back open, turn the lever and see if the spool turns. Try applying a light amount of pressure to the spool with your finger and see if it still turns. My Minolta will turn on it's own, but when there's any resistance, it won't.

What kind of camera is it?

Paul

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Hmm I think you're onto something. I noticed the take up spool has a slot that has to engage the winder mechanism. Unless the spool is perfectly engaged: the shutter shoots, the winder winds, but the spool doesn't go anywhere because it isn't engaged to the winder via the slot. Perhaps when I loaded the camera I wasn't careful to make sure the spool was engaged and it just sat in one place even though everything else seemed to be working. I hope that solves my issue as it's the only film camera I own, so I'd be camera-less for a period (and probably would be a little costly to repair).

The camera is a 1938 Kine Exakta from Dresden Germany. Took me a little while to figure everything out on it (and apparently I'm still learning new things) because all of the settings and controls use German abbreviations. A fun little machine that takes period 1930s style photos. I think a couple are still up in the photo critique area.

Ah Exacta !
I have two RTL1000 one with waist level finder and one pentaprism head.
Both still working - just no lenses for that mount apart form 50mm :(

Ah yes, the 50mm lenses seem the most common of the Exakta lenses. I use a Zeiss tessar in mine. I have found, however, that ebay has telephotos or (even more rarely) wide angle lenses for the exakta mount. Ebay is hit or miss though sometimes and you can't examine the lens before buying it. I suppose it's better than having nothing though.

Update: Well I headed to the drugstore today to pick up what I thought to be an old roll of film. Turns out the roll I picked up before that was weird WAS the old roll. The roll I thought to be the old roll (one I got today) turned out to be the shots I took on the Exakta! I guess it WASN'T loaded improperly after all. Most of the shots are a little disappointing (woods in black and white just isn't as nice as color) but a couple of them came out somewhat interesting. I think I have a pair I'll post at the photo critique to show everyone (one is the oddest tree I've seen in a long time).