Troubleshooting - Some rolls came out completely black

[Stephen Schlueter]

I did a shoot the other day using 7217 and 7218. We shot both indoors and outdoors with a Beaulieu 4008 camera. I shot a total of 10 rolls of film. Rolls 3, 5, 6, and 7 have come out completely black. I am stumped and noone has any idea what the problem is. As far as the lab can tell, the film ran through the camera (he said there are light spots at the end of the roll to signify it went through).

 

The shutter switch was not touched at all.

 

Also, the exposed film came back particularly grainy, and the black reels are not just complete black, there is super grain, especially in the blue and green colors, dancing around the image.

 

I doubt this could be a problem of sever underexposure. Mainly, because on the interior footage we shot a mini explosion so we should see a shot burst of something. Also, the other 3 rolls were shot outside and the exposure was in the f8 range.

 

Please any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I've called other labs for advice and we are sending the film into kodak. But, to be honest, everyone seems stumped.....

 

Thanks,

 

Steve Schlueter

[Alessandro Machi]

I did a shoot the other day using 7217 and 7218. We shot both indoors and outdoors with a Beaulieu 4008 camera. I shot a total of 10 rolls of film. Rolls 3, 5, 6, and 7 have come out completely black. I am stumped and noone has any idea what the problem is. As far as the lab can tell, the film ran through the camera (he said there are light spots at the end of the roll to signify it went through).

 

The shutter switch was not touched at all.

 

Also, the exposed film came back particularly grainy, and the black reels are not just complete black, there is super grain, especially in the blue and green colors, dancing around the image.

 

I doubt this could be a problem of sever underexposure. Mainly, because on the interior footage we shot a mini explosion so we should see a shot burst of something. Also, the other 3 rolls were shot outside and the exposure was in the f8 range.

 

Please any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I've called other labs for advice and we are sending the film into kodak. But, to be honest, everyone seems stumped.....

 

Thanks,

 

Steve Schlueter

 

Assuming the film went through because there are light spots at the end of the film is not reassuring to me.

 

Did anyone look to see if film was still visible on the super-8 cartridge pressure plate and that it said expired on it. Or did you all think it was the end of the film because there was no more film to push past the super-8 cartridge plastic pressure plate? These two methods are far more reliable than a vague assumption made the lab technician.

The lab technician should know BEFORE the film is process if the film was run all the way through or not.

 

Assuming the lens can easily be taken off I would take the lens off and turn the f-stop wheel from one extreme to the other and see if the lens aperture is actually stopping down or not. When the f-stop ring is at f 1.8, is the aperture actually wide open? When you rack the f-stop to f-22, do you find that it totally closes down at f-22, or is it incorrectly closing down at say f-8???

 

I would then check the shutter settings to make sure that as you change shutter angles the camera is changing correctly.