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I have tonight realised that at some point several weeks ago when I had the bellows off the camera I didn't make sure they were back on properly. Thus i expect a large proportion of the shots i'm just about to post for developing will be ruined by light leaks. And cos I can't remember exactly when I has the bellows off I've still got to process the lot to find out if any are ok. Aaaarrrgghhh! If this wasn't such a civil forum I'd be hitting the "F" key pretty hard now.

To make me feel like a bit less of a "richard head", does anyone else care to share any gargantuan LF faux pas?

Too many to list!

PAUL O wrote:Too many to list!

Choose one!

I did exactly what you described, Dave, and then, for added embarrassment, complained to the lab about their 'faulty' processing.

joolsb wrote:I did exactly what you described, Dave, and then, for added embarrassment, complained to the lab about their 'faulty' processing.

1) left a pile of four quickloads out on my desk and the sun got into the corner leaving nice diagonal orange lines across my picture .. very annoying (I thought it was my camera for a while until I realised that if the clip of a quickload isn't fully on, light 'can' sneak into the corner (although it has to be strong light at the right angle for a while by the looks of it)

2) held my hand in front of the lens to shade it, forgetting that the sun was actually in the picture.. DOH!

3) Taken a long exposure on boggy ground and done a little 'keep warm dance' whilst the shutter was open - lots of blur for some reason

4) set up my 4x5 to shoot a bird in a nest, spent a good 15 mins focussing and setting up movements (tricky with a tele lens) only to find out I couldn't reach the lens controls!

Tim

dave_whatever wrote: To make me feel like a bit less of a "richard head", does anyone else care to share any gargantuan LF faux pas?

Not yet, Dave. I've got it all to look forward to......

Gavin

1. Forgotten to remove darkslides when exposing film;
2. Removed the wrong darkslide when exposing film;
3. Spent an age setting up a shot on the coast only to realise that the tide had come in and my camera bag was just starting to float off into the sunset;
4. Thought I'd pocketed my meter only to realise that it had missed my pocket.... after stepping on said meter (last weekend!);
shall I go on?

dave_whatever wrote:I have tonight realised that at some point several weeks ago when I had the bellows off the camera I didn't make sure they were back on properly. Thus i expect a large proportion of the shots i'm just about to post for developing will be ruined by light leaks.

Just got the offending shots back from t'lab. Of the 20-odd shots only 2 or 3 seem to be effected by the light leak. I'm pretty astounded by this, since I was so sure they were all screwed I nearly binned them without developing 'em. Some are even quite decent shots I think I've learnt a few lessons here.

Just been out this morning taking a snow scene, set up, did my calculations, ¼ sec - f45, took a couple of shots, thought for some reason I would open up the lens check the focusing, all right then took another shot but did not close down the lens so setting was ¼ sec - f 5.6 so might be slightly over exposed.

Wonder if there is not a rhyme to check everything before you press the shutter?

Slightly

Richard

Hmmm, not exactly fine verse, but try this.

Before you take out that slide
Check the light meter has not lied
Set the f stop
And shutter too
Close the lens
Cock anew
Slide out gently and look a lot
The scene's still good? Then take the shot
Replace the slide the other way
Should you bracket it today?

For the avoidance of doubt, I will not be accepting nominations for the Oxford chair of poetry...

David

Just realised I got up at 6:15 this morning and shot 3 holders, i.e. 6 frames. Turns out one of the holders wasn't loaded. Epic fail on my part. And there I was thinking I had a watertight system.....back to the drawing board.

dave_whatever wrote:Just realised I got up at 6:15 this morning and shot 3 holders, i.e. 6 frames. Turns out one of the holders wasn't loaded. Epic fail on my part. And there I was thinking I had a watertight system.....back to the drawing board.

You think that's bad, I was up in the Lake District a couple of weeks ago and actually opened an exposed dark slide in broad daylight to see if it had any film in it. IT DID ! It must have been the altitude

I have found a way round wondering if my DDSs are loaded by using coloured round sticky labels on batches I've just loaded with the film loaded written on each coloured dot. When film is removed, so is coloured spot.

Eg: a yellow dot = b&w film. If using, say FP4, then I stick a yellow dot to my casing with FP4 and underneath the exposure setting I'm using for the film, thus for FP4:

FP4
100

I also load the darkslides so that the white side is infront for unexposed film and the black side shows for exposed film.

As for boo boos......

1) Removing the wrong slide
2) The bellows problem the first time, but have now learned to recheck if properly secure.

I use a "foolproof" method of identifying loaded film holders using rubber bands:
1. If holder is loaded but film unexposed then rubber band is stretched vertically around holder (locking darkslides in place);
2. If the holder has film that has been exposed then the rubber band is stretched horizontally around the holder;
3. If holder is empty then the rubber band is removed.

In fact. I'm thinking of marketing the system by writing "Ebony" on the rubber band and selling them for a small fortune

In reflection I don't think my system is the problem, its the organic unit that implements that system which is defective.