What happens if you wind past the rated exposures on a roll of 35mm film?
Asked 7/22/2012
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I loaded what I thought was a 36-exposure roll, but after removing it from my Ricoh XR-2 I realized it was actually a 24-exposure roll. The camera has manual film advance, so it didn’t automatically rewind, and it let me keep winding past frame 24. Rewinding back into the canister seemed normal. If you shoot past the stated number of exposures on a manual-wind 35mm camera, is the film usually damaged, or do the extra shots just overlap on the last frame?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
5
For most film camera shutters, the mechanism does not 'cock' until the film advances. If the film does not advance then the shutter is not able to release. Unless your camera broke the sprocket holes on the film and simply advanced without moving the film, I suspect you got lucky and found your 24 roll was significantly more than 24 frames.
Originally by user4880. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4880
14y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Usually the film is not ruined. On many manual-wind 35mm cameras, once the film reaches the end, the advance gets noticeably tight and either stops moving film or slips via a clutch designed to prevent damage. In that case, the shutter often won’t keep operating normally unless the film actually advances, so you may simply have gotten a few extra frames if the roll had a little more length than advertised.
Possible outcomes are:
- you got lucky and the roll allowed a few extra exposures,
- the camera’s advance slipped harmlessly once the roll was finished,
- or, less ideally, the film stopped moving and you made multiple exposures on the last frame.
If rewinding felt normal, that’s a good sign the film likely wasn’t torn or badly damaged. Serious damage would usually involve torn sprocket holes or a jam. So the most likely result is either a few bonus frames or some overlap near the end, not a completely ruined roll.
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