How bad have you screwed up?

[larrydressler]

<p> I am surprised I even got anything from these negatives. I thought I loaded a roll of B&W Direct positive film in the camera I then shot it at ISO 6 .... OOPS it was Plus-X but I am not finished yet. I developed it in Litho A&B Developer for 5 minutes. Bullet proof is not the term These things would stop the sun in it's track. <br /> I am now amazed with my Epson V700 and Elements 5.0 because I was able to get these from it. I doubt I will ever worry about using ISO 400 film in a box camera again after this.<br /> Tell me about and show me your best screw ups.. don't be afraid to even tell me about the time you drank dark room chemicals. LOL<br /> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jokerphotography/sets/72157622181953850/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/photos/jokerphotography/sets/72157622181953850/</a></p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2441/3869996682_747dd30805_o.jpg" alt="" width="664" height="1000" /></p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>More than I can remember. I've lost track of the number of times I've dropped film on the darkroom floor and had to scramble around on my hands and knees. Or forgot to set the timer. A few that come to mind:</p>

<ul>

<li>A shooting foul-up, not processing, but while shooting my first wedding (I was 13 and very nervous, even tho' it was just candids for family) I opened the film door of my Miranda Sensorex without rewinding. Fortunately I was in a dark corner and only a few frames of the roll of Tri-X were fogged.</li>

<li>Fixed before developing. High school or college, don't remember. The classic newbie mistake. After that I clearly labeled my graduates. Now I usually don't even pre-pour the fixer. When I do I keep the developer and fixer on different sides of the room.</li>

<li>Forgot to pre-rinse some new Brita filters. Dust from the filters was permanently embedded in the emulsion of two rolls of some otherwise good street photos. Only way to salvage them was by scanning and meticulously spotting 'em digitally.</li>

<li>Mistook a normally exposed roll of TMX for a roll of Tri-X pushed to 3200. Souped the TMX in Microphen for 20 minutes. Darned negatives were still easily printable, not even excessively contrasty. That's when I switched from ID-11 to Microphen for normally exposed TMX.</li>

</ul>

[jim_gardner4]

<p>Developed a roll of film which came out completely blank. Spent an hour trying to think what I had done wrong. Got very frustrated (thats English for REALLY P***** **F) was just about ready to start kicking the cat then discovered I had deved an unexposed film and the good one was still in the camera.</p>

[brucecahn]

<p>Like Lex, have scrambled for film in the dark. Seems like I have drank stop bath, twice. It removes the dead taste in your mouth right quick. Have also forgotten to load the camera on a commercial shoot. Years ago when I had a high volume I did 3, 5 roll Paterson tanks at the same time. You can imagine the screw ups.</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>One really big one: In the mid-80's I had rinsed out my D-76 jug and left some standing water in it. Put it away. Two days later I'd just photographed Venus passing behind the moon. Got water jug mixed up with another that still had D-76 so I had clear negatives.</p>

[nickc1]

<p>To keep this short, lets just stick with my recent screwups OK? Like the time last month when I was loading a developing reel and as I wound it back and forwards I read the time on my luminous watch - funny I usually take that off before I start...... fortunately there was a bit of fog, but nothing worse - and in a similar vein the last time something like that happened (OK about 6 weeks ago) it was my mobile going off, and yes the screen lights up a treat!</p>

[dave_wilson1]

<p>Not enough time, ha ha. I seldom have trouble with chemicals. I do however have occasional problems with turning music on, having a few beers and chips, and then deciding to load the film reels. Hence, the classic moon shapes, film stuck together when removed from tanks, once I loaded the reels with the lights on, let's not get into that.</p>

[rustys pics]

<p>One Xmas I drank too much wine and decided to develop a roll of Plus-X. What I thought was fixer turned out to be D-76, AFTER I developed in Rodinal! Weird contrast & grainy, but the film actually was salvageable....<br>

Then there was the time in Grad School the lid came off my 4 reel developing tank the night before a big critique....I have a death grip on that b**** during agitation now!</p>

[willscarlett]

<p>My most famous screw up was when I was loading a roll of HIE in my changing tent and decided to get greedy and advance it as few frames as possible to get the most out of the roll. It had been discontinued, right? Anyways, I loaded the film to take some wedding pics. I was mostly using my 5D, but suggested the IR film as well and the people agreed. Anyways, I took a few shots, but the roll wasn't nearly finished, so I shot more over the next few days, but got suspicious when I'd taken 50 shots and the roll hadn't ended. I finally opened up the back in my changing tent and discovered that the film came off the take up side. Oops... luckily the people never asked about the IR film, but the friend who suggested I take the photos asked. I told her it was a lab error.</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>My "screw up" is like John-Paul's, but without the excuse of loading IR film in a changing tent.</p>

<p>On my first trip to England with my Significant Other, to visit her family, I took my trusty Nikon FTn. I shot one roll of 36-exposure color negative film and a roll of black and white without incident. I loaded the second roll pf color for our visit to London. For those of you not familiar with the FTn, the flash shoe fits over the rewind crank obscuring the crank; I could not see the film advancing. I took the usual tourist shots of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Horse Guard Barracks, Number 10 Downing Street. I sensed something was wrong when I shot fame 38 and 39 of the ball dropping at Greenwich. For the first time in the 30 years I owned the camera, I had mis-loaded the roll. All the shots were on frame 1.<br>

We were luck. My Significant Other had taken many of the same pictures with her Olympus point-and-shoot.<br>

</p>

[dweezil]

<p>Last month we got together for a friend's 40th birthday. Since it had been a long time since we had been together with most of the bunch, we're friends since the best part of twenty years, I wanted to get some nice BW pic's.<br>

Most of the others had some digital compact and slr's with them so I took my F100 and my Kiev.<br>

I shot 2 roll's of HP5 on the kiev and nothing on the F100. Back home the next day I decided to develop the film and because they where shot in the same light I put both on the same reel, its 120 film, and developed them together to gain some time.<br>

I did gain a substanitial amount of time as the orginal plan was to give those on the pictures a decent 'real' print of them selves, after fixing and rinsing it became clear that both films had shifted one over the other and all but 2 negatives where unusable, luckily one of them is the birthday boy and I never told any body about my plan.<br>

I 'll never develop another roll together with an other roll on the same reel</p>

[mjferron]

<p>Double shot a roll that I left the leader out on. Took a while to figure out what I did wrong.</p>

[jason_hall5]

<p>I exposed a roll of Delta 100 at ISO 800. I was useing my father inlaws Canon A2 and forgot that he set the camera to not read the codeing on the film canister. He likes to set it manually only. results were better that expected.</p>

<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3461/3384181623_f41e291361_o.jpg" alt="" width="429" height="600" /></p>

<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3655/3384181481_3bc9ebf635.jpg" alt="" width="348" height="500" /><br>

Developed in DD-X 1+4 20C 21min.<br>

Jason</p>

[john_robison3]

<p>Can't show you my major screw up. Film is clear. What happens when you rinse and reuse old bottles and put the film in the fix first. After that I made dang sure the fix said *FIX* and talk myself through the development process out loud. I also have two bulk loaders.....now what one did I put the ISO 50 film in and what one has the 400? Oh great! Now I gotta do a clip test.</p>

<p>One more thing. Why did my OM-1's have an FP sync setting? And more to the point, why did I have it set there when shooting with a Viv 283 flash at a friends wedding? (fortunately I wasn't responsible for the wedding pics), still, a major foul up.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>You know You guys are making me feel a lot better.</p>

[bill_lapete]

<p>Hi Larry,<br>

My favorite mess up was developing a roll of Tri-x in Fixer cut 1:1. It was late in the evening and I was tired, not an excuse, just an explanation! The developer (D-76) bottle and the fixer bottle were the same kind and the label was too small. I've now use very large labels on all my chemistry containers.</p>

[johnw436]

<p>How about traveling from Florida to New Mexico, then a day more out into Nowhereville before you check to make sure you packed a changing bag? Or an empty film box to put exposed sheets in?</p>

<p>No sweat. I'll crawl under my sleeping bag and load my film holders. I'll use my body to hold the heavy sleeping bag off my hands. I'll put the exposed film under the cardboard with unexposed film on top of the cardboard. </p>

<p>Boy, it sure is hot under this thing but at least it's dark. Wow. My hands are all sweaty. Dang it, the film is sticking to the holder! And together! Ouch! There's a rock under my tent that is now under my knee. If I move my knee slowly my sleeping bag won't move too much and.. dammit! I just kicked over my pile of film holders! @$#@#$%$ Calm down, John. Ok. Let's open them all one by one and see which ones have film in them. Ok. Two separate piles again. Damn it's hot under here!</p>

<p>@W#$%## Where's the film box?! I kicked it, too! Here it is. #$##@# Where's the film sleeve?! Here it is. Ok. Exposed under the cardboard... wait. Is the bag upside down? Which way were the notches when I separated the film?</p>

<p>Hand to God. I actually got some decent pics from the trip. Yes, many of them have ghostly outlines and random lines in them and only a few did the film end up backwards in the holders.</p>

[johnw436]

<p><a href="http://s791.photobucket.com/albums/yy192/johnw436/?action=view&current=NMadobe.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy192/johnw436/NMadobe.jpg" border="0" alt="New Mexico adobe" /></a> Random lines. Ghostly shapes. Some dirt. Is that hair?</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Oh keep them coming folks. John I must say that is a good one. I be there are many more LF Screw-ups out there. Oh BTW I found out a few years back a Sleeping bag and a leather jacket won't make a dark bag in day light... but it works in the Arizona desert at night.</p>

<p> I know there are more out there we have a few million years of experience out there.</p>

[bobmichaels]

<p>Recently while loading 5 Paterson reels with 35mm in my tent, I finished and unzipped the tent. Removed the big tank and found one loose 5' length of film laying loose in the bottom of the tent. Apparently I ratcheted it right through the guides and out the other side instead of it loading onto the reel. When I finished developing / fixing, sure enough there was one empty reel in there.<br>

Still have not poured the fixer in before the developer but I know if I live long enough that eventually I will.</p>

[maris_rusis]

<p>The worst possible technical error is to double expose a 36 exposure film. Any other "fatal" error means the loss of 36 pictures. Double exposure ruins 72. Ouch! I've only done this once....and never again, so far.</p>

[johnw436]

<p>Good stuff so far! It does make me feel better...</p>

<p>My other favorite goof - tray developing six sheets of 4x5 using the shuffle method. I get all of the sheets into the developer tray and I go to start the timer and can't find the timer in the pitch blackness. I use a tiny little digital egg timer. It was nowhere to be found. What to do? Time is a-wastin'! So I did what I could. I counted to 60 out loud 8 times while trying to shuffle negs every 30 seconds. I realized that it wasn't going to be perfect so my best chance was to simplify. I just shuffled slower and continuously so that I could count the minutes off without having to think about agitation timing.</p>

<p>Trying to count out loud in total darkness while staring into space you can imagine my screen saver kicked in a few times and I woke up not knowing where I was in the count or which minute I was counting.</p>

<p>Then I did the same thing for stop. Then again for fix. I'm glad nobody was around to hear me.</p>

<p>Wonder of wonders the negs all printed. I can't say they turned out great. </p>

[johnw436]

<p>BTW, Larry. I cannot believe you got that quality of an image from negs botched that bad! Excellent work! Very cool photo, too. You might want to do that again.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Well at thick as they were i had plenty to work with...</p>

[dennis_oconnor5]

<p>A good friend of mine, who has unfortunately passed away since this incident, went on a trip to America from England. He took his camera, he was a 'holiday' photographer. He went all over various states and being a 'jazz' fan he spent a lot of his time in New Orleans. He took loads of photo's he told me on his return. When he took his camera to get the film processed. The shop assistant opened the camera 'No Film'. What a disaster! I hope he doesn't throw a thunderbolt at me for sharing this with you.<br>

Dennis</p>