Confess your Mistake Here!

[Jeff_3801]

For what seems like the umpteenth time, this weekend, I accidentally exposed a negative by forgetting to shut my lens before removing my dark slide. Argggh!

With so many variable involved in LF photography, I bet other people make, and repeat, many mistakes.

Please post and confess your most common mistakes. I am sure that you will be absolved by the rest of the group, and maybe we can learn something!

Jeff

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think I'm getting over this one finally, but when I haven't used my Tech V in handheld mode for a while, my most common mistake is forgetting to focus. The I process the negatives and think, "I've got to get this checked out," and I test the rangefinder against the groundglass at various distances, and of course it's dead on.

[David Karp]

My favorite goof is the flip side of your example -- I forget to pull the darkslide sometimes. Its especially frustrating when you have a long exposure and start searching for the darkslide only to find it is in the holder. Its really especially frustrating when the light you were so excited about disappears just before you are set to do it again without the darkslide.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Oh ya??? I've got all of you licked. After 12 years living in Japan and making the same mistakes you did a few times, I come back home to Canada, go out with my 8x10 after 4 months of no photography, expose 4 sheets, get home to my darkroom, turn the light out, pull the slide and feel for the edge of the film....Where's the edge? What?? No film? Checked other holders....SAME!! I could have sworn I loaded those holders before I left Japan. The white tabs were facing out. That's the biggest, dumbest mistake I ever made!

[Chad Jarvis]

I confess...I don't use a calculator!

[Christopher Condit]

Errors made so far::

1. Forgot to pull darkslide.

2. Pulled wrong darkdslide.

3. Removed holder from camera before re-inserting darkslide.

4. Failed to insert holder all the way.

5. Forgot to close lens before pulling darkslide.

6. Inserted readyload film backwards in holder.

7. Inserted readyload holder backwards in camera.

8. Separated film from readyload sleeve through various methodologies.

9. Removed lens before replacing darkslide.

10. Reinserted darkslide white side outwards, so then double-exposed film.

And those are only the filmholder-related errors!

[Bobby Black]

My personal favorite is when I get so wrapped up under the focussing cloth that I don't see what's happening around me. Case in point...shooting tide pool rocks at the ocean. I get into what I'm doing, don't see the waves or tide coming in and, well, you can imagine the rest. I go home wet and spend the rest of the night drying out my shoes and gear.

I've got to look up once in a while...

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

You are all wusses....I once tried to focus with the holder in place, and wondered for 5 minutes why I could not see a thing.....:-))

[Brian Kennedy]

I often carry two or three types of film with me -- with different ISOs and lots of opportunity to forget to adjust the ISO on my meter.

[Jim Rhoades]

In the late '60's I had a chance to go out West and study with St. Ansel. I spent the summer surfing up and down the east coast instead.