Accidently exposed film. Help!

EricO · Nov 9, 2009

I'm fairly new at medium format (2 years). I was doing a photo shoot recently and made two rookie mistakes. I took the seal off of a roll of 120 film but realized that the back that I was going to load already had film in it. I accidently exposed the film in the back when I opened it. I figured that may have ruined a frame or two so I continued shooting. Meanwhile, the roll that had the broken seal unravelled a little. Is that roll ruined? I was thinking about running it through by taking some snap shots. What do you think?

Soocom1 · Nov 9, 2009

First: the loaded roll will lose between two to 4 images depending on the length of time the back was open and how intense the light was. There is no way around the loss of those frames. hard lesson learned.
Second: The "unraveled roll" will be frosted on both sides of the frame. Again depending on how much and how long will depend on the amount of loss.
unfortunately that is an issue with film. Always has been always will be. Best thing to do is keep with you a dark bag to prevent such issues unless you have pre-loaded backs.

Rifleman1776 · Nov 9, 2009

We could make jokes, but, fact is, you are far from the first to make a mistake like this. Value is in lesson learned. Sorry for your loss, I hope you made some duplicate "one more" shots.