Eastern Railroad Discussion > Film breakage ^$^%#$^&

Anyone have a problem with film breaking at the end of a roll and failing to rewind into the canister. Excuse me, I need to throw something again.....there I feel better.

I'm currently fannin' CSX's Big Sandy Sub. Monday was perfect, I was shooting the remains of a roll of Kodachrome 64. The first 20 shots were NS near home so they didn't bother me but I had just shot some power at Martin Yard and my biggest loss, a mine run sitting under the loadout at Pike 29. Anyway, I shoot frame 36 at Shelby of a shifter leaving the yard, the camera makes it's usual rewind noise and I open the back up....suprise! There's the film. Close the back, of course, the damn camera thinks it's a new roll so it advances. Pissed, I pull the whole roll out and almost chucked the camera out the window. Anyway, calmed down and looking at the film, looks like it broke at the very end as there was a rip across a spot where a hole was centered in the film. The canister was very hard to rotate but finally rotated freely.

Question: Has this ever happened to you? This is about K64 roll number 300 for me and I've never had this happen. Just a bad roll maybe??? Could it be my camera??? I'm gun shy now to use the thing (Canon A2). Lucky it was cloudy today and I used my E100 & B&W cameras but I'm down here another day and then off to OH for a day or two. Should I keep using it and just hit the manual rewind at frame #35 next time and then have the camera checked next week?

Guess I'm just venting but thanks for comments. And please don't make this a Fuji vs Kodak think. I love Kodachrome and that's that. Maybe digital is in my future now............

Robby

Man that sucks! It can happen when the film does not catch properly on the sprockets (now we dance!) or prolonged exposure to extreme cold weather.

It happened to me many years ago (Kodachrome II in fact) but it was because I was hand cranking and simply wound it too tight. While I would not say it's common, there are such things as changing jackets you put your arms in and it allows you to rewind the film in the dark and put it in a film canister (black Kodak of course, not those stupid opaque canisters Fuji provides). I know one guy it happened to and we shut him in the trunk of his car so he could get it out of the camera and into a canister. So it does happen. I always try to listen to the film as it pulls loose in the rewinding process so I know it has fully rewound.

try this...it happened to me before...not with K64 though
go in a bathroom, put a blinket on the floor to cover the crack in the door. Take the film out and put it in a roll. I took mine to Wal-mart, and the people said they have a dark room (it was a super-center). They were able to process all the good pictures on the roll, no problems, no extra charge. That was really cool of them.

J.Gontero

Any photo lab worth half their salt will have a light box (actually a light-proof box) for those instances. I've jumped into a closet to change out film or to roll film. Just make sure you have the door marked that you're in there - one time my wife opened the door while I was loading 3200 ASA b&w onto reels for processing. Was able to salvage a roll-and-a-half out of six rolls. Sigh...

Yep. This has happened to me 3 times now, with three different cameras, Minolta X700, Nikon N90, and a Nikon Lite Touch pocket camera. My occurances have been with the Kodak Gold 100 ASA print film. I assumed it's a quality problem with the film, so I sent an Email to Kodak stating my problem and my disappointment with their product. I told them that I have been a religous user of their products since the 1970's, but was tired of having my photos destroyed at the end of the roll. I told them they had a QA problem, and if things did'nt get better, I'd have to try the other guys with the green box.

I recieved a quick and polite response, telling me that the film tore in the camera because I was winding it too hard. Both of the Nikons have motors for rewinding, and have handled hundreds of rolls of film before with no problems. The guy gave me a toll free number to call to discuss my problems further. He described the appearance of the tear in the film to me, and said that the rewinding was the problem. It appeared to me that the film came off the spindle inside the can, but he had me open the can to reveal that the film was indeed still attached to the spindle. I debated with him for a while about the tears, since it was 3 different cameras involved. He sent me 3 replacement rolls of film for my trouble. The Email address for Kodak was on the box. Fortunately, I have not had this problem with my K64 slide film(knock on wood).

I've had this happen a couple of times at the end of a roll in my 1956 vintage Argus C4 which seems to have a lot of torque on the winder knob.
Wondering if film in the '50s was stronger ;)

Gas station restrooms work OK for respooling after using paper towels to stuff up the crack around the door ;) but better yet is waiting till dark and then doing it inside a coat in shadows.

Dan

The lab I work in sees this happen all the time on all brands of film. We process literally millions of rolls of film per year and the cause of the film tearing off the spool is always the same, it was wound too far. There are always telltale torn sprocket holes on the film where the advance sprocket cranked away till the film ripped. 36 exp means 36 exp. 24 exp means 24 exp. Some people like to squeeze off a few extra but the risk isn't worth it. The advance before the first frame could also be the culprit. It the camera (or the user) is advancing 4-5 frames worth of film to make sure it catches, you can't expect to still shoot the full 36 exposures.

A couple thoughts:

1. The A2 doesn't have spockets. It has an infra red LED which counts perforations (sprocket holes) in the film.

2. The camera will automatically rewind after the 36th frame has been taken. You don't have the choice of trying to get a few extra free frames.

To test the camera, I'd set the custom function (I think it's CF2) to leave the leader out when it's rewound. That way you can use another roll to check the operation with just one roll of film. Leave the lens cap on, and set it to manual focus (or use CF4), and you don't even need to expose the film.

I've never had a film break in a camera, although I did have a problem with one roll of K25. The plastic spindle was deformed, and wouldn't engage with the rewind motor. Luckily, I realized there was a problem before I shot anything important. The fix was to open the camera back in mid-roll, clean up the spindle, and then re-load and advance past the first frames. I lost the first 18 frames, but the last 18 turned out fine. On my old Minolta with a defective frame counter, I wound past the last frame, but it didn't break, the spocket just slipped, and I ended up with a double-exposed frame.

Ahhh.....the joys of 35mm cameras! I'll tell you how I solved all of these problems. I went out and bought a Nikon Coolpix 990 digital camera! Now I can adjust the color of the pictures, include text, and print out whatever size picture I want! There is no telling how much money (and headaches) I've saved myself by taking this route!

....just my two cents,
rpc21

if you have a good size trunk...put a box in the truck with 2 holes in it large enough to get your hands inside it and one side with a hand hole large enough to get your camera body in and dark plastic sheet or bag.
if your flim breaks put camera inside box and cover it well with the plastic bag and then open the camera up and slowly remove the flim put inside flim can and close lead take to a good lab and explain that they need to load flim into reel in a dark room
use to use this all the time when in highschool photo class when some one did not tape the flim end to the spindle inside the cansister well enough save tons onf pictures that way
practice it a few times with ruined flim

for added protection pain the box black inside and out
portable light proof box that way

> Pissed, I pull the whole roll out and almost chucked the camera
> out the window.

Too bad you have such a short fuse. I know this won't help your mood any, but in the future, if you open the back of the camera and find that the film hasn't rewound, you should quickly close it. You will likely only have lost the photos on the part of the film that is visible, plus you might lose a couple more near the end due to flare from the sprocket holes. The rest of the roll will probably still be OK. On a 36 exposure roll, that's often 30 good photos.

It's always a good idea to load and remove film out of direct sunlight to reduce the potential damage. Shielding your camera from sunlight with your body is often sufficient.

In your case of the broken film, you would have to follow the procedures that others have suggested to then get the film out of the camera and into something light-tight. A changing bag or something jury-rigged will work. It's a good idea to wear cotton gloves when you do this to avoid getting fingerprints on the film, but in a pinch just avoid touching the emulsion side with your fingers.

Ive never had this happen to me in over 25 years of photography.
But it has happened to others I know of and the common denominator
was a power winder. I still use my left thumb.
A friend of mine has a Canon, I'm not sure of the model, but
when you load the film it unwinds the roll, and as you take pictures
the exposed film is wound into the cannister. This is such a simple
idea I dont know why all cameras dont have this. That way if
you accidentally open the back, the unexposed film is toast, while
all the good stuff is still in the cannister. You just have to
remember that slide #36 was the first shot on the roll.
I wonder about temperature too. Some people store film in
the fridge or freezer, and I've heard if its too cold it will
be brittle and tear. I've done snowplow chases up here in
Ontario where it was so cold you couldnt feel anything above or
below your nuts, and the film did just fine (K-64)
DJP

Run 8 is exactly right - I also did this once, chasing the Rio Grande Zephyr of all things. In the heat of the battle, I thought I had rewound the film, only to discover when I opened the camera back I had failed to do so. I quickly closed the back, rewound the film, and only lost 6 shots.

Hey guys,
Thanks for all the feedback. And yes, I did have a short fuse for various reasons that day but that was unusual for me. Had I been thinking I could have just switched to a second A2 that was sitting in the bag with no film in it at all and saved the broken roll. I've opened backs by mistake before and only lost one slide but I was just in one of those moods Monday. My loss! Now that I've thought about it, I did lose a great shot of a Rio Grande tunnel leading a NS SB at Sadieville that would have been frame 3 and easily saved. Again my temper, my loss. The only Canon camera that winds exposed shots back into the camera that I own is the Rebel which I use for B&W film. My EOS 1, A2's and Elans all wind the exposed frames onto the take-up winder but they may have custom functions to reverse this. I'm looking for the manuals today! The good news (or my saving grace so to speak) was that Pikeville got a few inches of snow on Wednesday and I took full advantage of this fact down on the SV&E and feel much better about my trip now. Thursday & Friday were spent in and around Piqua, OH and the old A2 performed flawless. Must have just been a bad roll of K64 or statistics just caught up with me.

As a side note, what's the deal with trains on the Toledo Sub? Some crews just key the mic and don't call signals. The engine noise and bells come through great so I know the radios were working fine. And they seem to be able to talk with the disp fine and dandy. Other trains could be heard for miles away but two caught me by surprise up in Sydney, OH due to this. With the recent fatal rearender on this line, I would have thought CSX would be cracking down on this! Just my observation..............

Robby