The title of this post was named by Theo from Photo Thinking. I asked a group I am in if it is possible to tell a 100 or 400 film from just looking at it. The reason is that, for the last few weeks, I have used either bulk-loaded Exeter 100 or 400, and the results have been weird. They were either overexposed and overdeveloped or underexposed and underdeveloped. I came to the conclusion, I might have put the wrong label on the wrong film, though I have no idea how I managed that…apart from the postman rang halfway through the process and may have distracted me.

So maybe, I labelled the 400 as 100 and vice versa.

Theo’s answer was…

“If you hold the film at 90 degrees to moonlight, on the 29th of the month, with the sounds of distant barking from a dog, while standing on one leg, it will reveal what type of film it is…….”

All joking aside, the only real way to tell was to shoot a 100-labelled film at 400 and develop it accordingly. As I wasn’t sure this was the case, I just shot a few exposures on a short roll around the house. AND, I was right, it came out ok.

So, I relabelled the films and took a trip to Blackpool and Fleetwood…but something wasn’t right. The film ripped inside the camera. I opened the back, and there was a piece of gorilla tape sticking to the film, coming from inside the cartridge??? WTAF!! I removed that and finished the rest of the film, thinking, well, the tape is now removed, so it should be ok.

NO, there was sticky gunk and scratches all over the developed film.

So this is the reason I have not published as much recently. Or rather, I feel like I haven’t, but it is still almost one post a week. It has impacted the new camera posts, as I don’t feel the results reflect the camera, so I will reshoot with them. I also missed Holga Week 🙁

Anyway, I almost want to throw the rest of the film away and start again, and I would except I hate waste. Hopefully, the last few rolls will all come out ok.

The moral of the story, only bulk roll one film at a time. Plus, do not reuse cheap cartridges…you know, those plastic ones, stick to the metal ones.