The day I had to choose between saving a half-baked roll or opening the camera early

I was on a trip to Santa Fe last spring and shot about 18 frames of this old Kodak Tri-X I found at a thrift store. The problem was my camera started acting up halfway through the roll, making this grinding noise every time I advanced the film. I stood there in my hotel room trying to decide if I should just finish the roll blind and risk more damage or open the camera back and lose those first 18 shots to light exposure. I went with finishing the roll because I figured even messed up pictures are better than nothing. Well, the grinding turned into a full tear on frame 20 and about half the roll got these weird streaky light leaks that look like ghost fingers. Has anyone else had to gamble on a partial roll like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

sagelane26d ago

Oh man, that is such a brutal choice! I did the exact same thing last year with a roll of expired Fuji in my old Minolta. The advance lever just locked up completely after frame 12 and I had to decide if I wanted to lose those shots or try to force it and wind up destroying the whole camera. I forced it and got half a roll of these wild overlapping double exposures that actually looked pretty cool, but I was so mad at myself for weeks! It's weird how attached we get to those frames even when they might not be great, you know? Your ghost fingers sound way cooler than my mess though, honestly.

claire_campbell26d ago

Good thing ghosts don't pay for film, you saved frames and got free spooky art.