[marianozz]

Hi guys, first of all, i hope this is in the right section, i was going to put it in "film SLR" but i figured it was better here.

I took my 1st shot at home developing, and its been cool so far. My 1st roll however came out kinda wrong... About half of it is like the pic i linked. A couple of good shots, and the rest, nothing but the left side edge of the picture. I have 6 strips like this, and 6 perfect ones.

Now, im not sure whats wrong here, If i exposed wrong, or whatever, shouldnt the whole pic come out wrong (including the "good" edge")?

And if it was something in the developing process, i guess it should all be bad, not just some shots, and certainly not "all but edges".

Im asking before i go on developing (10 more rolls to go!) just to be on the safe side. These are pretty important shots to me, and so far im starting to freak out.


BTW, this is all Ilford HP5 taken with an MX and different filters (orange, yellow/green, polarizer). The camera and polarizer had been used before and never had a problem. This was the MX's 1st B&W shoot.

So, sorry for the lengthy post, and if anyone can enlighten me as to what went wrong here, ill be most grateful


BTW heres the image:

[stevebrot]

It doesn't look like a processing issue.

Do you recall the shutter speeds for the bad frames? Shutter speeds up to 1/60s are handled differently than speeds above that point. I suspect that the leading curtain is sticking at speeds greater than 1/60s.

This is probably a camera issue. I will ask the moderator to move it to the film SLR section.

Steve

[Christemo]

Yeah, that looks like more of a camera issue than a film/processing issue.

[HGMonaro]

not a film processing issue, solidly developed edge markings indicates processing is ok, looks like a slight light leak happening somewhere on the top strip (bottom edge) which is weird for 35mm unless bulk rolled in dodgy canisters. no density means film didn't see light, so either the shutter misbehaved or you didn't allow for the filters (metered without filters, then added them) but the simlar pattern points to a shutter problem (not good news for your other 10 rolls). Don't understand what you mean by 6 strips ok, 6 bad... are you processing by reel in a small tank or something else?

I'd proces the other films (maybe reduce your time slightly as the good frames look pretty contrastry to me) but not use camera for anything important (at all) until you sort out why it's doing it.

Does this camera have a horizontal shutter travel? (yes it does according to some specs I just googled). Open the back -with no film in it- and cycle through the shutter speeds (wide open aperture on lens if have one on camera), you should be able to see it operating (faster speeds hard(er) to see). Might be obvious at what speed it's going haywire.

[jzietman]

Wouldn't be a light leak, I think. Then the film would be dark, not blank. I agree with the idea that there's something up with the shutter. It looks like it just doesn't move at either slow speeds or at fast speeds (we can't tell which it is unless you can remember). Test it out and let us know. This is fixable, but it's possible that you've lost a lot of shots.

[goddo31]

At one stage I had an issue with an ME Super where the shutter was sticking, the faster the shutter speed the worse it was, with anything slower than 1/125 being pretty much OK. To my inexperienced eye this looks like something similar. Note that the ME Super has a vertical metal shutter, and the MX has a horizontal cloth one.
EDIT: after looking over my shots with the issue, mine seems to be the opposite of yours, ie. strip of underexposed to black, with most of the frame looking fairly normal.
Like this:

[JeffJS]

marianozz, add me to the list of those who say this is a camera problem.

Jason, that looks more like a light leak to me. Either in the camera or in the tank.

[Lowell Goudge]

it almost looks like the camera back was opened with the film on the pick up reel of the camera

hate to say this but it looks like "pilot error" to me

[tuco]

Yet another one saying camera problem. You have some good frames. Is there something in common with these good frames that you can recall? Or is there something in common with the bad frames?

[Nesster]

I have seen similar result when shooting with a flash, with the shutter speed higher than max sync speed. That is, there's only a sliver of image at the edge where the shutter managed to be open during the flash.

I would suspect a sporadic curtain timing issue, as you probably weren't using flash.

You can do a quick test with the camera - one, with back open try different shutter speeds and see if there's anything strange... two, shoot a roll of whatever color film you have around, and see if the minilab results are similar.

[gofour3]

I would take one of the 10 rolls that you have not processed, to a proper photo lab and have them develop the film. If the negatives look the same as your sample then you can rule out your home processing and it’s a camera issue.

Good luck,

Phil.

[goddo31]

I would also suggest taking a test roll of cheap film, and recording your exposure settings for each shot. That way if you reproduce it you might have a clue to what's making it happen. This is how I eventually identified my issue mentioned above.

Jeff, I appreciate that it might look like a light leak, but I eventually had the camera repaired at a shop. The camera had new light seals, kept getting the issues at different labs, and I found that it got worse with higher shutter speeds by doing my test mentioned above

[titrisol]

No light leaks in there.. negatives would look BLACK not clear
shutter needs maintenance

[Lowell Goudge]

I have seen similar result when shooting with a flash, with the shutter speed higher than max sync speed. That is, there's only a sliver of image at the edge where the shutter managed to be open during the flash.

I would suspect a sporadic curtain timing issue, as you probably weren't using flash.

You can do a quick test with the camera - one, with back open try different shutter speeds and see if there's anything strange... two, shoot a roll of whatever color film you have around, and see if the minilab results are similar.

this is possible but it would need to be a horizontal cloth shutter, I wonder what type pf camera it is?

[Lowell Goudge]

No light leaks in there.. negatives would look BLACK not clear
shutter needs maintenance

good point, I am too used to digital to notice that myself now days.

I would agree, shutter in this case,