Why is my roll under/unexposed?

PopeBuckfastXVI

So over a couple of months I ran a roll of tri-x 400 through my bronica, using a new lens (50mm f/2.8 MC). For the first 10 or so exposures of the roll I had a ****ty old light meter that wasn't very accurate, but I tried to wing it through sunny 16 and guestimating what the exposure should be. For the last 5 exposures I used a new Sekonic l308 to meter and it's balls accurate. When I got the roll back from Gunns it looks like the lens cap was left on for every exposure, there's no slightly darker areas, the whole roll is nearly transparent. Even if I had severely misjudged an outdoor exposure I would have expected the sky at least to show up slightly darker. Or if it was blown out at least I could think I accidentally exposed it when taking it out of the camera or something, but it's all totally under or unexposed.

Could this be the lens? Am I right in thinking the shutter is in the lens itself? Maybe it's not opening or something?

FWIW I have put a couple of rolls through it with a 75 MM f/2.8 PE lens and they came out perfect.

The last 2 exposures were made in early evening, of a house surrounded by trees with some sky in the background, I exposed for 1/60s @ f/8 ISO 400, which I would expect to show something if it had worked correctly.

Any advice or experience of similar much appreciated!

magicbastarder

what can you see if you look down the lens when the shutter fires?

DaireQuinlan

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Could this be the lens? Am I right in thinking the shutter is in the lens itself? Maybe it's not opening or something?

FWIW I have put a couple of rolls through it with a 75 MM f/2.8 PE lens and they came out perfect.

The last 2 exposures were made in early evening, of a house surrounded by trees with some sky in the background, I exposed for 1/60s @ f/8 ISO 400, which I would expect to show something if it had worked correctly.

Any advice or experience of similar much appreciated!

Yeah the shutter is in the lens. What is it ? Judging by the 75mm an ETR or ETRS ? If it works fine with a different lens then chances are that, yep, the lens is dysfunctional.

When you say unexposed though, is the roll actually COMPLETELY transparent ? or are there at least SOME indications that an image was formed on the film ? What are the edge markings like ?

If it was OVERexposed I'd say the aperture blades were sticking open, or the shutter was slow and needed a CLA, underexposed is a strange one. There -is- a facility on older Bronicas' (SQ/ETR/whatever the 6x7 one is) to shoot always at 250 if the batteries are gone. This could also happen I guess if the connections between the lens and the body were a bit dodgy.

Try taking off the back, locking the mirror up, and firing it with the 50mm at different apertures and different shutter speeds and see what happens. IE fire it at 2 sec at full aperture and see what happens. To get it to fire with the back off you might have to put it into multiple exposure mode as well, and crank the shutter again before firing.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Thanks for the responses, will try looking down through it and firing the shutter.

You can maybe see some frame lines in a couple of places on the roll, but nothing else, and not in a regular pattern, just 1 here and 1 there. Apart from that it's totally see through, you can't differentiate between the top and bottom and the middle, and can't make out anything that might be a shape.

I bet it's the flipping shutter now, I wonder what my options are if it is not opening during the exposure. Do you know of any service agents that could look at it if so?

DaireQuinlan

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Thanks for the responses, will try looking down through it and firing the shutter.

You can maybe see some frame lines in a couple of places on the roll, but nothing else, and not in a regular pattern, just 1 here and 1 there. Apart from that it's totally see through, you can't differentiate between the top and bottom and the middle, and can't make out anything that might be a shape.

I bet it's the flipping shutter now, I wonder what my options are if it is not opening during the exposure. Do you know of any service agents that could look at it if so?

what about the edge markings ? the 1/2/3/4/5 etc etc. They should all be there and clear and distinct. If they're not then it's the fault of the development.

If its the shutter then it might just be the electrical contacts. Is it an original ETR or a later (ETRS/I/etc etc) ? The ETRI at least should behave like my SQAi, and flash that red light in the viewfinder if any of the contacts aren't connecting properly, the earlier ones I don't know, they might just fire off at 1/250 or something, I'm not too sure.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Yeah there's numbers 1 through 15 along the bottom and Tri-X 400 and numbers in the 40's along the top and when it's rolled up you can see a slightly darker band along the top and bottom (when it's rolled and all stacked on top of itself).

Just pretty gutted as I thought I had a couple of nice shots on there that I was looking forward to seeing, know there's nothing can be done now but want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I'll do the tests you mention above when I get a chance and let you know how it goes. It's an ETRS not the ETRSi

Thanks for all your help!

magicbastarder

if you can stretch some tracing paper over the back of the body with the film back off (i.e. roughly where the film would be), and fire the shutter for a second, you should see some sort of image on the paper.

Heebie

2 things I'd look at:
1.> The shutter going too fast. This can happen.. springs gets too tight, or too loose, depending on the mechanism.
A good camera repair shop should have a meter they can measure the shutter response with.. I don't know if Zerohamster has one of those or not.. but check with him.

2.> The film processing. If the lab wasn't using the right dev time for the developer they use, with the film you use, or the chemistry was old/weak/mixed incorrectly, that could cause it. If this is the case, the markings along the film edge should be as underdeveloped as the image area.. they shouldn't look sharp. Developing at too low a temperature could do this too.

I guess a third would be a crap light meter.. or misreading the light meter.

thefizz

If you're over my way any time I could test your lenses shutter speeds for you.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Thanks a million.

Am away shooting a wedding this weekend, but will run all the tests above when I get back, hopefully it is just the battery maybe!

Thanks!

PopeBuckfastXVI

Well I popped off the back and test fired the shutter at a few different speeds and it seems to be working fine, the blank roll remains a mystery, I'm reluctant to point the finger at Gunns as I think many people have had good experiences with them, it may yet be something I've done wrong, maybe in loading the roll or something.

I'd say it's not just badly exposed though, because certainly some of the settings I used would have matched up pretty well with Sunny f/16, and having used the sekonic meter with my digital camera I would say it's balls accurate.

Even if the main scene was badly underexposed I would expect to see something from the sky.

Anyway, I'll put a roll of c41 film through it and drop it into my local lab here and see how it goes.

Hopefully it'll just work and the original roll issue may just have to remain a mystery!

pete4130

Did you load the film backwards with the light proof paper facing towards the front so nothing got exposed?

DaireQuinlan

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Well I popped off the back and test fired the shutter at a few different speeds and it seems to be working fine, the blank roll remains a mystery, I'm reluctant to point the finger at Gunns as I think many people have had good experiences with them, it may yet be something I've done wrong, maybe in loading the roll or something.

Nah, if the edge markings are all present and correct and there's no sign of fogging then it's very unlikely to be the development. There are a bunch of ways you can screw up the development, but most of them would affect the edge markings as well, or fog the film excessively or whatever.

pete4130 wrote: »

Did you load the film backwards with the light proof paper facing towards the front so nothing got exposed?

^^ now THIS is a possibility all right

pete4130

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

^^ now THIS is a possibility all right

I've done it before

DaireQuinlan

pete4130 wrote: »

I've done it before

I never have, yay for me ! On the other hand I HAVE loaded the backing paper onto the development spool instead of the actual film, leaving the film curled up on the ground when I turned on the lights. DOH.

PopeBuckfastXVI

pete4130 wrote: »

Did you load the film backwards with the light proof paper facing towards the front so nothing got exposed?

That's entirely possible, and sounds like it might produce the result I got.

< Newbie!

pete4130

I did with my first roll through an ETRSi....

PopeBuckfastXVI

Ok, I tested the camera with the wrong lens on :facepalm:

It seems the shutter is not working properly on the 50mm, when I depress the button the mirror flips up and the shutter closes tight, I can't even see a flash of light through it at the start, and this is when the shutter speed is set to 8s.

It works fine with the 75mm and the battery light comes on.

What are my options, is there somewhere that can service/repair the shutter?

Thanks!

dubtom

I just developed a roll on my etrsi and all the images I took with a 150 lens are blank, I took 10 pics with a 75mm,they came out fine,the last 5 are blank. I checked the lens with the back off just now and it seems to be firing fine at all speeds with the 150. It was my first roll through the camera so I'm not ruling out error on my part,but I did replace the dark slide before I changed the lens. I'll put a fresh roll through with the 150 again just to be sure I didn't cock up but seeing as the shutter seems to be firing ok,could it be dirty contacts or something on the lens?