The film holder nightmare we all dread and what to do

[David Karp]

For me, white or silver side out always means loaded and unexposed. Dark side showing means one of two things: 1) exposed film and 2) empty holder. To handle that issue, for 1) exposed film, I always put the holders back into their cooler darkslides down, tape side up. That tells me immediately they are unavailable. for 2) empty holder, I do not put them back into their storage bags, and leave them darkslides up in the cooler. I use insulated lunch coolers to hold my film holders.

I may have learned this procedure on the forum a while back.

I have never done what you did, in reinserting the darkslide light side out, so I guess that is one that I can look forward to. I regularly make all of the other mistakes!

If I was in your position, and I thought that I got something really worthwhile, I would just stop using the view camera and develop all the film. If there was nothing really grabbing me and I was just making photos to have some fun, I would use all the holders again and see what happened. There are always other photos.

[Bill Burk]

I'm spoiled by Grafmatics. They lock after you are done with them.

[Alan Butcher]

The things that I do:
1) All of my holders are numbered, both sides. Also I have notches cut in the holder that provides an identifying mark on negative.
2) I always expose the odd numbered side of the holder first. That way if I find a reversed darkslide on an even number, I assume that the odd side has been exposed even if the darkslide has not been reversed.
3) Always reverse darkslide.
4) I keep notes on all negatives, so this is also a check on which holders have been exposed.
5) Holders in Ziploc bags.

A few mistakes but fewer all the time. As for your session there is not solution except to quit taking pictures and develop all of the film.

[jeroldharter]

Does not help you now, but the Photobackpacker film holder bags are the way to go.

Don't you miss Readiloads for travel?

[Jerry Bodine]

As for your session there is not solution except to quit taking pictures and develop all of the film.

That's when Murphy would present me with a fantastic subject. Did you know that Murphy is an optimist?

[C_Remington]

Lots of advice but no answers. Well, one.

[Jerry Bodine]

Does not help you now, but the Photobackpacker film holder bags are the way to go.

Jerold, you got that right. Wonderful system. BTW (don't want to create thread drift though) good to see you're alive and posting, been wondering about you after what seems a lengthy dry spell.

[Lenny Eiger]

Lots of advice but no answers. Well, one.

There are no answers.

How many of us know when we have taken a great image? What about the next image? If you think it might be any good, would you trust your intuition on which holder would double-expose it? You simply have to develop all the film, and load new stuff for another day. So you wasted a few sheets. How many mediocre images have you taken - like all of us - isn't that wasted film as well. It's all part of the process....

Lenny

[Kimberly Anderson]

Process your film. Learn your lesson. Suck it up. Start again.

I write on the film holder processing instructions and location information for EVERY shot. I erase the writing when I clean the holder. Are you only shooting Normals? How do you know what holders have particular processing information?

[lenser]

This is no help to you now, but I always remove the dark slide, and unless it is fairly windy, I reverse it and then partially re-insert it into the holder frame. That solves three potential problems, it blocks any possible light from entering the holder through the light trap, and it means that I always have the slide ready to shove in with the exposed side out, and two, if there is a light breeze, I can see it happening on the dark slide and wait until that subsides, knowing that then I don't have a camera that is moving due to the wind. Of course, if it's a heavy breeze, I abandon that method and hold the dark slide over the light trap to block any stray light entering. At that point I pay particular attention to which side is out when I put it back in. (Way too many times that I've goofed that up.) As others have stated, make notes on each shot including the holder number and side A or B for both the added assurance that a particular side is exposed and for processing data.