Monday 25 January 2016

How to test if my film was exposed or not



So yesterday, after assuming I'd finished my roll, which I'd been shooting over a few months because I don't shoot film that often, I went to wind my film back into the canister. I did everything right, but noticed that there was a lack of tension and thought it was odd that the frame counter on my Canon AE-1 wasn't automatically winding back to S. This makes me think I'd stupidly not loaded the film properly in the first place and that despite shooting over the past few months, I've not actually gotten any of the shots.


I'm curious to know if there is a way to test without having to develop the film.


I was thinking if I retracted the leader out of the canister and pulled out the first frame, would I be able to tell if it had been exposed or not and therefore make an assumption as to whether the other had as well?


Thanks in advance for any help!




Answer



There is no way to visually inspect undeveloped film to see if it has been exposed. The images on undeveloped film are called 'latent images' because the chemical changes made to the light sensitive molecules in the film's emulsion are not visible until those molecules have reacted with the chemicals in developer.


Even if the changes were visible, there would be no way to observe the film with your eyes without exposing it to more light, which would cause further chemical reactions in the emulsion and fog the film.


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