Lost Gallery: Mistakes in Amateur Photography

Friday, January 8, 2010

	Photo film can be fogged in several ways. The most common fogging results from miss-handling the roll or plate while loading or unloading the camera. A shutter malfunction will produce odd patterns in each frame. This is because it only happens when the shutter is tripped. A light leak in the structure of the camera will produce a steady pattern on a roll, in the same place from beginning to end as the film is advanced.
This is a part of a series looking at a few examples from Lost Gallery of the seven most common problems of the amateur photographer. 1.) The photographer's own shadow is in the picture. 2.) Forgot to advance the film: The Double Exposure 3.) Blocked the lens with a finger or a thumb or something 4.) Somebody moved, either the subject or the photographer 5.) Not framed right, Missing heads, feet, people 6.) Improper lighting (Overexposed, Underexposed) 7.) Fogged negative from miss-loaded film or a damaged camera. Or, RETURN TO THE BACK PAGE INDEX.


		See the similarity in the fogged patterns of these two? This probably means a mechanical problem with the lens or the shutter. When the shutter is tripped, extra streaks of light strike the film from some unintended source and is repeated in the same place of each frame.