Unexposed parts of film?

[Duckii]

I recently started taking a b&w photography class. I just developed my first two rolls of film, Kodak TRI X 400. And to my surprise about half to a third of my photos only came out. It seems that one shot came out then about 5 shots there is completely nothing. The film is almost clear, it’s kind of milkly blue. I also took a roll of fugichrome 100 for E6 printing and the same thing happened. I have a canon 35 mm rebel XS and I put the correct ISO for each type of film. The lens cap was off, I did not use flash for any of the pictures and the camera did not seem to have a problem calculating the right number of exposures. I just want to know if it might be the camera that is to blame or I am doing something wrong.

 

[randerson07]

can you post some scans so we can see?

Ive had that sort of thing happen when using untested older cameras, it was caused by shutter failure.

 

[dxqcanada]

Yes, it does sound like you have a shutter problem.

If you open the back and trip the shutter ... does it always open ?

 

[Duckii]

I have film in the camera so I have to wait to use that film up to see is it is the shutter. I don't have the film on me.

 

[Duckii]

I just check the shutter. I pressed the shutter button about ten times on several different shutter speeds and it worked fine, the shutter went down and the mirror popped up every time.

 

[dxqcanada]

You stated when you shot the B+W negative film ... 5 frames were clear.
When you shot the E-6 ... were the frames clear or black ?

Set the camera in manual exposure ... try all the shutter speeds.
Make sure that the shutter is opening at slower rates.

 

[Duckii]

You stated when you shot the B+W negative film ... 5 frames were clear.
When you shot the E-6 ... were the frames clear or black ?

On the E6 a few were black, a lot were clear

 

[dxqcanada]

Black = under exposed (or not exposed)
White = extremely over exposed

If the shutter is working OK ... an the lens aperture is working OK (you should check that too) ... it could be your exposure system if you were using Auto.

Were you shooting Manual exposure or one of the Auto exposure settings ?

 

[Duckii]

Were you shooting Manual exposure or one of the Auto exposure settings ?

I shot either aperture priority, shutter priority or fully manual. I checked to make sure if I was under or over exposed.

 

[compur]

What lens?

What were you shooting?
(example: a black cat in a coal bin at night, the inside of a tanning booth, etc.)

 

[Duckii]

What lens?

What were you shooting?
(example: a black cat in a coal bin at night, the inside of a tanning booth, etc.)

lens: 55mm canon ef, and 28-128 mm canon EF and the E6 shots were in good sunlight selfies and the b&w film was random shots of kids, trees all with good sunlight, no flash.

 

[compur]

I would try a different camera.

 

[Battou]

It sounds to me it's a shutter failure but with out seeing the film or the shots in question I can't say for sure.