I wonder if they know that film is light sensitive?

[jim appleyard]

ive had my fair share of shocks I once had a woman come in with a plastic bag and inside was a few rolls of undeveloped 35mm film. the film was not in canisters just loose in the bag.
when she asked me to develop it I had to ask innocently why? if you would like some blank film I have some i can just give you now? and she didn't understand so in confusion i quickly sorted out that something was amiss she didn't seem to understand her film was blank. so I had to explain that her film was blank and she was asking why why why? and getting upset. well I had to explain to her that you must not take the film out of the canisters it winds back into. that it was very hard for her to get the film out of those canisters for a reason! they are only meant to come out in a darkroom by a trained lab professional.

well she was very upset that her film was ruined and I was very shocked to discover a grown woman could think after taking a few rolls of film and shooting on them that she should pry them out of the canisters to bring to a lab.

Am I missing something here? If this woman had pulled all the film out of the canisters, then they would be exposed and then deveoped into black negs, not blank. Blank would mean that they never saw any light.

Is black what you meant to say and we just have a language barrier here?

[Craig]

Slide film would be clear if exposed to light and developed. I think he means blank in the sense that there would be no useable images on the film.

[Stephen Frizza]

weather its e-6, c-41 or black and white total exposure of that nature for that time period ain't going to leave you with an image so either total or nil exposure blank is blank as blank can be.

[Removed Account]

ive had my fair share of shocks I once had a woman come in with a plastic bag and inside was a few rolls of undeveloped 35mm film. the film was not in canisters just loose in the bag.
when she asked me to develop it I had to ask innocently why? if you would like some blank film I have some i can just give you now? and she didn't understand....

SOme of my customers have a problem understanding aspect ratio. Unfortunately, when they take pictures with their 3:4 sensor digicam, get 4x6 prints done, and ask, "Why are the feet cut off?" I am not allowed to answer, "Because we thought you'd like us to cut their feet off instead of their heads."

- Justin

[Mark Antony]

Yes my favourite lab experience is when I was handed a roll of film and dropped it on the counter. The woman shouted it's ruined now, they'll all be blurred. Nonsense I said you can't blur a film by shaking or dropping it.
She came back an hour later and sure enough they were mostly blurred.
I had a hell of a time explaining it was the 1/15 shutter speed rather than 'film shake' :-)
Mark

http://photo-utopia.blogspot.com/

[Tom Kershaw]

By what means did the processing person think you could blur a film by dropping it?

Tom.

[Mark Antony]

I was the processing person as I owned the Lab, she was the customer.
Her argument was that as they hadn't been fixed yet they were still movable. She was slightly how can we say – 'eccentric'
So to her mind shaking a film could move the pictures around and blur them, when in reality she had her MTL3 set on 1/15.
People think the strangest things Tom.
Mark

PS you probably knew my Lab Coe Photo in Mountergate Norwich, I won't mention any names as if you live in South Norfolk, then you may know the Lady ;-)

[Pete H]

Does it work with prints too? I'll try dropping the paper next time I'm in the darkroom and want some motion blur ...

[Michael W]

I once had a student give me this explanation as to why his assignment hadn't been done. He was shooting at a pop concert in Parramatta Park (Sydney), general crowd shots. A woman came up behind him from the other direction & told him that she was a witch & didn't permit her image to be captured for some magical reasons. She was accompanied by some heavy biker type. My student protested that he had been shooting in the opposite direction & that she wouldn't appear in any of his photos, but she insisted that he had done something wrong. There was a bit of argument but eventually he was intimidated into opening the back of his camera & letting them see that he had ruined the roll of film. This was an adult guy telling the story, not some kid making up an excuse. It wasn't a compulsory assignment & I doubt many people would be able to invent such a wild tale so I believed him.

[Stephen Frizza]

ive had the film shake experience myself, where the hell do people come up with such outrageous ideas that dropping a canister of film will blur its contents???