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Accidentally exposed film... Is it ruined?


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The other night I was shooting at my schools talent show. I forgot

that my camera's auto rewind was off and accidentally opened my

camera. I was wondering if only thae last few pictures that were

directly exposed are ruined or is the whole roll, will the pictures be

ok except for maybe some spots, etc.? The camera was a Nikon N80. The

film was Fujifilm Superia X-Tra 400 iso. The room was dark except for

the stage lights and the camera was only open for 2-3 seconds before I

closed it.

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Light travels at something like 186,000 miles per second, so 2-3 seconds is a VERY long time. And the room wasn't dark enough not to hurt film if you could see anything at all, literally anything. But as a practical matter, the pictures from the beginning of the roll may have been protected by the layers of film wrapped around them on the takeup spool. Definitely get it processed. You've lost some pictures but not necessarily everything.
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At this time I am glad I shot in High school with a Praktika and a Pentax that were totatly manual. Though I did lose a whole roll of film 1 time because a shutter locked up on the Pentax. I then from that point on took 2 cameras to every event I was tasked to shoot and used both because "Stuff Will Happen."
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I guess film is more opaque than you would imagine, so what is already wound on a spool won't get ruined as fast as you think. I accidentally popped the back open in full sunlight, lost some frames, but had some frames on the roll that were damaged and some that weren't damaged at all. Good luck. That's the kind of mistake you only make once. :)
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I did this once outdoors on a bright sunny day. I lost maybe 5-6 frames, including the ones with streaks. The felt on the canister keeps almost all the light out, so you'll only lose what was outside the canister and maybe the first one to three that were in the canister.
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Sorry, Josh, about the few lost frames, murphys law says they were the most valuable to you..... I know the feeling.

My first 35mm camera was a Kodak Signet 35 and the back was easy to release via a catch on the side. There wasn't a regular hinge and so the entire back would fall off after accidently bumping it. I remember holding the camera frantically and tightly againt my coat as I decended an escalator and hoping to not loose any more than a few precious photos.... until I went back up on another escalator and retriving my camera back. Yeah right.... nothing on that roll turned out. But I agree the subdued light will help your situation. After that I used to put masking tape over the latch so it wouln't happen accidently again.

 

I haven't had an N80 in my hand but had heard that one can rely on the auto rewind to rewind every roll for you, but when it doesn't, perhaps when the custom setting mode #1 is set, and you don't notice that it didn't rewind. You assume it did and open the back.. !!!!! Is this what happened to you?

 

Each of my children, when they were young, ruined a roll of film by opening the back of my camera.

 

I have mostly Minolta cameras, but one thing I really like in the Canon Rebel series is the idea of winding the roll out when film is loaded and as the photos are taken the film is wound back into the canister and safe from a premature back opening.

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The thing about light is, yes, it travels really fast, but it can only go in straight lines. It cannot go round corners, or under stuff... (unless your camera was next to an incredibly strong magnetic field, like the sun. If you were, that tan wont last long before all your skin falls off!) so any film on the spool will be fine. Get it developed and see what you get. True, you can't go and re-shoot, but at least you might have salvaged something of the night.
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