Thought I had film loading down pat, turns out I was cross-threading the take-up spool for like 2 years

I was at a coffee shop in Raleigh last month shooting some rolls of HP5 on my old Pentax K1000. Some older dude walks up and asks what I'm shooting. I show him the camera and he asks to see a roll. I pop the back open and he just says 'you been ripping the sprocket holes this whole time?' I had no idea what he meant. He showed me how the film was sitting crooked on the spool because I was forcing it in at a bad angle. Fixed it on the next roll and my negs came out way tighter. Has anyone else had some random stranger point out a dumb basic mistake you were making?

2 comments

2 Comments

derekgibson7d ago

Man, I had almost the same thing happen with my Canon AE-1 at a lab in Portland. The guy behind the counter just squinted at my negatives and asked if I was wrestling the film in. I felt about two inches tall. He showed me to place the leader just past those two red dots and let the sprockets catch naturally instead of forcing it. Now I always check that alignment before closing the back. Did that fix change how many frames you got per roll too?

lisa_brown7d ago

Woah, hold up. I mean, I get that the coffee shop guy and the lab tech meant well, but I actually don't think forcing the film in a bit is always a terrible thing. Idk, maybe it's just me but I've been shooting for maybe 4 years now and I always give the spool a little extra nudge to make sure the teeth catch. I've had more problems with film slipping off the spool completely when I try to be too gentle. My negs come out fine, sprocket holes get a little bent sometimes but it never messed up my images. I kinda think people overthink this stuff sometimes.