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  #1  
Old 7th January 2021, 04:16 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Default What is your biggest, or most stupid photo mistake

I have, today made most stupid photo mistake I have ever made, and I wonder if what big/stupid mistakes other members have made, here of goes for mine.
I spent a lot of time today working on some still life's using my Mamiya, window light and long exposures, and I went into the darkroom to load the film for developing, I already had 1 120 in the tank, so thought I might as well load the second film into the same reel, so, in the dark, wound the other film all the way in, then went to load the second film, something I must have done many hundreds of times over 60 years, I undid the film, and when loading a second film from the tape end, so tore the tape, or so I thought, put the backing paper down and started to load the ''film'', it simply would not go into the reel, no matter what I tried, after 1/2 an hour I put the reel back into the tank, and felt my way to where there were my other tanks/reels were, got another reel/tank and tried again, same thing would not start in the reel, I decided something must be badly wrong, so I put the light on, and found I had been trying to load the backing paper, which I had torn instead of detaching the film, which was sitting there looking at me still attached to the second half of the backing,
Beat that
Richard
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Old 7th January 2021, 04:58 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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Mine and it has only been once. It was the classic of fix then developer - as always there were some,I think, great shots on it of a Manx Norton with a great red fairing, some very large model aeroplanes, a couple of classic cars and comic pet dog racing. It was at a very lively village fete, complete with all the homemade cakes, jams and chutneys you could buy.

Mike
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Old 7th January 2021, 05:04 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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That was a sad loss, at with my film I can very easily take them again,
Richard
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Old 7th January 2021, 05:52 PM
John King John King is offline
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Default Mistakes

I may as well confess. About 22 years ago I was still photographing weddings and against competition from professionals, I won a contact for a wedding in a beautiful village church in Sussex. The wedding reception was at a large country house in a gorgeous setting complete with lake. A photographers dream location.

I was using a Mamiya C330F at the time, so to save time reloading I borrowed another body so when one roll finished I could swap my lens onto the other body and continue.

The weather could not have been better, and it all went very well. In all I used 8 rolls of 120 Fuji 100 Superia (the 100 iso was available then)

I was processing colour regularly by then and expected it to be a little tedious but well worth it (financially) I started to develop the films and did 5 the 1st night and started to do the remainder the following day. DISASTER with film 1 that day, I had developed it for the right time but had set or knocked the auto temp adjuster to 35C instead of 38.

It was only after I removed the film from the spool I saw that it was obviously under developed. The remaining 2 were ok because after realising the situation I corrected the temperature. I tried printing the underdeveloped spool but just could not get enough saturation and turned to a local Pro lab to see if they could help. Bless em, they worked a miracle and the couple had a full album of prints.

Getting a pro lab to print frames from that film made a dent in my profits but save me having to make abject apologies.It probably wouldn't matter to the couple but the paper they used was AGFA which I always found to be a little more saturated than Kodak

Last edited by John King; 7th January 2021 at 05:57 PM.
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Old 8th January 2021, 10:40 AM
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skellum skellum is offline
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Once managed to 'develop' a roll of film in plain, tempered water. The accurately measured developer sat smiling at me from the measuring cylinder sitting on the window-sill where I'd forgotten it.

Spent an afternoon doing Christmas street photography in Edinburgh. All good until I realised I was on about exposure 39. Yup, leader hadn't caught and I hadn't taken a single frame.

Took some lovely landscapes once, didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped as the 5x4 holders were empty.

Went out one lovely morning, and decided I'd leave my dark-cloth at home and try out my new reflex viewer on the 5x4. Took the cloth out but didn't quite get around to putting the reflex hood in. Didn't shoot much that day.
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Old 8th January 2021, 11:36 AM
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photomi7ch photomi7ch is offline
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Mine was thinking I had loaded a film because the film counter stated that 10 frames had been used. Went on a shoot to discover hours later it was empty
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Old 8th January 2021, 01:00 PM
MikeHeller MikeHeller is offline
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Interesting what everyone has managed to do (or not). I think I have done them all at one time or another and if I haven't probably will in the future!! (oh..... never used LF film so won't have done them and probably unlikely to as I haven't the patience necessary although did contemplate it at one time in a fit of forgetting my character limitations).

Mike
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Old 8th January 2021, 02:42 PM
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skellum skellum is offline
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Mike, one great thing about LF is that it offers so many ways to get things wrong you then feel like an absolute expert when shooting smaller formats.
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Old 8th January 2021, 03:07 PM
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MKCarberry MKCarberry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike O'Pray View Post
Mine and it has only been once. It was the classic of fix then developer - as always there were some,I think, great shots on it of a Manx Norton with a great red fairing, some very large model aeroplanes, a couple of classic cars and comic pet dog racing. It was at a very lively village fete, complete with all the homemade cakes, jams and chutneys you could buy.

Mike

Yeah me too. Didn't realize that's what happened at the time but is the on;y answer to a blank roll.
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Old 8th January 2021, 03:22 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skellum View Post
Mike, one great thing about LF is that it offers so many ways to get things wrong you then feel like an absolute expert when shooting smaller formats.
It is rare that I shoot large format, but I have an inherited Gandolfi 10/8, from before the last war, made for glass plates but adapted for film, and I remember happily shooting 6 portraits, and it was only after I developed the films that I found out I had put the sheets of film the wrong way round in the film holders, but with any format, small,medium and large it is easy to get blassy about how you do things and make beginner's mistake, a while ago, in 1919, I was shooting a daytime Christmas parade and I, without thinking about it, quickly loaded a film into the Retina I was using, I had done it a hundred, very simple, wound it to the first shot, I thought and shot away quite happliy, with retina's it all stops at 36 film in or no film, so wound it back, wound straight into cassette, I hadn't loaded it properly, another time, quite a while ago now, on my first Bronica I took some stunning landscapes, every one on the same negative, I had the douple exposure lever down.
, found out after I had taken 30 shots, I rely on the film wounding off and shutter locking, but nothing so far beats trying to load the backing paper into the reel
Richard
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