First roll of film through a Canon AE-1

[KevinBarrett]

I have become the repository of unwanted and undervalued cameras in my circle of friends, and this means when my future brother-in-law found his dad's Canon AE-1 with FD 50mm f/1.4, it came to me. Over the course of a year I casually used up a roll of film in it, until I got to around frame 28 and I realized something was wrong. My Maxxum 5 could be loaded very miserly, with just a single hole catching on the film advance spool, usually resulting in a few extra frames beyond the amount specified on the canister. My AE-1 never caught, however, and all the images I thought I'd captured had been recorded to the same frame of film that never advanced. So, I loaded the film properly and hurried through it, and you can see the results on my Flickr.

Here are a few I selected to share here:

[Dr. Harout]

Kevin, with what did you scan the film? I guess the settings were wrong. I even noticed some photoshoping, specially with the clone tool.

[KevinBarrett]

The lab rescued the film from the camera when it broke off inside the film canister near the end of the roll (did I mention I was unfamiliar with the camera?). They developed it and scanned the negatives, and I did not touch the files before uploading them. I noticed the horizontal line at right in the cactus image, but wasn't sure if it was a digital artifact or damage to the negative by my clumsiness, so I left it.

[pakodominguez]

the mark, like a tear, on top and mid left:

81140011 by Kevin_Barrett, on Flickr
is during processing, from the fixer.

[KevinBarrett]

Thanks Pako. That mark at left doesn't appear to be on the negative. Perhaps it was on the lab's scanner?

[pakodominguez]

Thanks Pako. That mark at left doesn't appear to be on the negative. Perhaps it was on the lab's scanner?

I believe is in the negative, it is not a physical "mark", but on the emulsion.

[KevinBarrett]

In your opinion, would this be a reason to look for a different photo lab? 'Cause I was actually kind-of tickled to get all of the wonky colors.

[pakodominguez]

is this a "real lab"? or just a pharmacy that offer 1 Hs photo?

Photo labs are becoming rear these days. if yours is a real photolab, they'll need your feedback in order to stay in business.

Feeble colors are due to underexposure of the film, or because they are processing the film "light" (yes, alas that exist) in order to print faster. Probably you can take a roll of slides and check if your camera is exposing properly.

Film is not dead!

[Dr. Harout]

Kevin, my advice, stick to digital.
Or, if you really want to shoot film, then try some B&W ones.

[pakodominguez]

Kevin, my advice, stick to digital.
Or, if you really want to shoot film, then try some B&W ones.

[KevinBarrett]

is this a "real lab"? or just a pharmacy that offer 1 Hs photo?

Photo labs are becoming rear these days. if yours is a real photolab, they'll need your feedback in order to stay in business.

Feeble colors are due to underexposure of the film, or because they are processing the film "light" (yes, alas that exist) in order to print faster. Probably you can take a roll of slides and check if your camera is exposing properly.

It's a real lab, one of the few left even in Seattle. I'm not ready to discount the possibility that it was my film that produced the strange colors. It had some difficult circumstances, first sitting in the camera for at least a year and a half, then getting torn while trying to rewind it into the canister. It had to be removed and developed in the lab rather outside of their normal procedure, I'm sure.

Kevin, my advice, stick to digital.
Or, if you really want to shoot film, then try some B&W ones.

I've got more film on the way, slow and fast speeds in both color and black & white, also some 120 for my Graflex Miniature Speed Graphic. I neglected to order any slide film.

[Greg Beetham]

Kevin, what I used to do with my X-700’s was rewind/rotate the rewind knob backwards after closing the back to take some slack out (but not too tightly as it might slip the advance spool clutch with too much drag).
You can watch the rewind knob as it rotates, then you know that the film is actually being dragged across onto a new frame.
After you have made sure that it is indeed advancing ok then you re-loosen the film in the can, otherwise you can get a partial clutch slip and a frame overlap.
I wouldn’t be very surprised at wonky colours from a film that’s been in the camera for a couple of years especially with processing now, a touch unpredictable possibly and lots of spots too by the looks unless those were from the scanning, I have lots of trouble with dust when scanning negs, the whole thing seems to attract dust like a magnet, so I gave up doing it.
I see Jobo have decided (since film related sales have picked up again) to go back into production with their wonderful film and paper drum processor with a new model, CPP-3, it still looks the same except for the missing control knobs that the CPP-2 had, I’m guessing it must be push button now. Not totally cheap at $3000US kaf kaf. http://www.jobo.com/JOBO-CPP3.949.0.html
I see someone has a CPP-2 (same as mine) for sale but I don’t know how much it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJVBJlv2boE
Greg

[KevinBarrett]

Looks like all the 135 film I ordered was color, and 120 as well. I have a roll of black and white 120 film in the Graflex, and another roll besides that one, also black and white, but a bit faster. This should be an exciting summer!

[bfitzgerald]

Film scanning is a bit of an art and a tad more than most expect it took me quite a while to get "good at it". I've not been impressed with the scans I've seen from most labs, they bash it through on auto and it might pass ok for a 6x4" or a tad more but it's well off the potential of decent emulsion.
Colour neg is pretty easy though and I usually get it done as develop only leaving me to scan the photos.

Now that I have a gripped film 7 I'll have to get out a bit more and bash some rolls off.