Advance lever slack/no tension?

[madison_marko]

<p>I was out shooting with my Chinon CM-4 and some Portra 400 (36 exp.) and at frame 27 the advance lever went totally slack. It was working fine, it just suddenly lost all tension. I can move it back and forth with ease. The shutter won't fire. I'm not really sure what happened, do you know what could be wrong? Is there anything I can do to fix it? Right now I'm leaning toward rewinding the film and then seeing what the heck is going on.</p>

[John Seaman]

<p>My first guess was that this was actually a 24 exposure film and you had wound it past the end and perhaps pulled it out of the cassette. But if you are sure it is a 36, then yes, rewind the film (if it will rewind) so that you can try and find the problem.</p>

<p>They sometimes right themselves if you fiddle with the advance lever, film sprockets, and rewind button for a while, but if the lever still flaps uselessly the usual thing is to remove the base of the camera, usually easy on SLR's, and try and see if something has come adrift, is not latching etc.</p>

[glen_h]

<p>I have never known the tape on Kodak 35mm cassettes to break.</p>

<p>There are stories that some Nikon motor drives can do it, or break the spool and drag the parts through the insides of the camera.</p>

<p>But maybe the OP is using home spooled Portra.</p>

<p>But I suspect that some part in the camera failed. </p>

[Matthew Currie]

<p>Usually when that happens to me, and it's not actually a broken camera, it turns out to be an accidental activation of the rewind button. On some cameras that button can stick, especially if the film is near the end and tension has preloaded its linkage. (kind of like the steering lock on a car - actuates with ease, but often requires wiggling to disengage).</p>