> Hey, I always have a roll of Seattle's film in my bag. It's
> always the same roll, too. It's great if I suspect a problem
...
> Also terrific for practicing the famous OM double exposure
> technique. That one roll must have 1000 exposures on it by now.
I recently bought an OM-1n for astrophotography (my first OM!).
While testing the camera I shot a couple of rolls of cheap film
and developed them at two different 1-hour labs. The negatives
from both rolls came back with awful scratches. I examined the
camera body but couldn't see an obvious source, so I figured
it's probably the cheapo labs. Then I realized I had a way to
test if the body was causing the scratches: Seattle Filmworks!
I opened the magic red cannister I've had for years, loaded it,
shot some pix, rewound most of the way, opened the camera, then
as I began to examine the film for scratches, to my horror I
saw "USE BY NOV. 98" printed on the film pack. Darned film had
expired! Rats... :-)
The film came out clean; both 1-hour labs caused the scratches.
This was my first and probably last use of 1-hour processing.
Yesterday I had a chance to observe one of the lab-boys at one
of these 1-hour labs. He yanked a freshly-developed roll of
negatives from the AGFA machine with his bare hands, slapped
it onto a manual cutting device, and rapidly cut the negatives
into strips of 4 (much faster than I would have been able to
line up the strips). If the machine didn't scratch the film,
the way he ripped through it cutting the negatives probably
did. I've never done any darkroom work, but I always imagined
it to involve careful handling of film by the edges, perhaps
even wearing rubber gloves.
Alan Bland
mailto:gordo@xxxxxxxxxx
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