Hello Dr T

I've just had my film back from sat night club shooting as well as my sculpure shoot and there's been some problems which I hope someone can enlighten me on. Hoping its human error and not mechanical.

- Night club shoot I did 11 rolls. 3 were utterly black after processing. My only guess is that batteries are dying and when I was shooting rolls in quick succession the charge wasn't there any more. F/8 or f/11 with sync on 60th. Batteries had never been changed since buying the camera about a year ago. Flash was firing each time however.

- The three rolls I did on tuesday were barely explosed but I figured out it wasn't 100 asa film but 50 asa and the %^&!?% dial was set to 1000. They do need to make that bigger like on 35mm cameras.

I shot a test roll of the sculptures today and the lab said exposures were either over by 1 stop or under 1 stop. I used the internal meter for one shot and and basic minolta meter with bulb for the 2nd. So that might just require very specific metering technique and/or fill flash. Won't know till look at it and mount it.

The lab guy also said there were 4 frames merged into one long one so that might be down to leaving film in the camera loaded and not tight enough or not winding accurately. Not sure till I see them thurs morning.

I plan to reshoot the sculpture tomorrow and have a test shoot in Liverpool on Saturday. On way up there friday noon GMT so anyone please email direct or post.

Cheers.

Mark

I too have gotten back some completely black rolls of film. I haven't figured
out yet whether it is a battery problem or a shutter problem.

The TL-120 apparently will fire at one speed with no batteries. I don't know
what that speed is, but it's way too fast for anything I've ever done. So you
will hear the shutter fire, but you won't know at what speed it fired.

The bad part is that there's not always a warning that the batteries are too
low. (There is a beeping indicator I've heard at times, and I change my
batteries when I hear it. But I've had this problem when I didn't hear the
beeping. Maybe the batteries were too low to beep?)

A year without changing batteries is amazing. Get more of those batteries!

I don't think the strobe firing has anything to do with the batteries. So just
because your strobe went off, doesn't indicate that anything else worked
properly.

There are a couple of culprits that could cause your batteries to drain. I
don't think this is your problem, since they lasted a year, but it should be
part of the discussion on batteries. The batteries are working when the shutter
is half pressed, and when the button on the back left is pressed. If anything
in your camera bag is pressing, it will cause battery drain. I found a bottle
cap from a hotel shampoo bottle that fit's nicely over my shutter, to protect
it from being pressed.

I would recommend the following:
With no film in the camera, put in fresh batteries, and set the shutter at
something slow. I open up the camera before anything critical, and test the
shutter at speeds like 1 second, 1/2 second, and Bulb. It will be obvious
whether it's working. I would check it this way in between each roll,
especially if it's a critical shoot.

I was having this problem recently even with fresh batteries, and getting
intermittent results. I was about to make arrangements to have my camera sent
to China. But the last set of batteries I put in seem to be working well. I did
screw in the battery compartment extra tight last time. I don't know if this
made any difference, as far as my problem goes. But I just got back 2 fabulous
sets of test shots for a shoot I'm doing tonight.

Wish me luck! And good luck to you, Mark.

btw, since we were recently on the subject of wish lists, how about a reliable
way to know if the batteries are up to the task of firing the shutter?

Bob Venezia

Quoting Mark <blackice@pavilion.co.uk>:

> I've just had my film back from sat night club shooting as well as my
> sculpure shoot and there's been some problems which I hope someone can
> enlighten me on. Hoping its human error and not mechanical.
>
> - Night club shoot I did 11 rolls. 3 were utterly black after
> processing. My only guess is that batteries are dying and when I was
> shooting rolls in quick succession the charge wasn't there any more. F/8
> or f/11 with sync on 60th. Batteries had never been changed since buying
> the camera about a year ago. Flash was firing each time however.

Re: TL120 dying battery causing problems?

Hi Bob

Thanks for the quick reply. I was going a bit mad wondering if I had done
something wrong or what exactly happened.

I put new batteries in now and with the film back open I worked through every
2nd shutter speed and they all looked ok.

However this is a serious reliability issue that needs to be explained or
addressed ASAP. Its both time and $$$ wasted. I'm just thanking the heavens it
didn't happen on a real critical shoot - a day in the studio etc.

Anyone else have any clues?

Cheers

M

PS: Changed batteries and looks to be ok now. I'll make it a rule to put in new batteries for any client shoot.

Mark wrote:

> PS: Changed batteries and looks to be ok now. I'll make
> it a rule to put in new batteries for any client shoot.

Mark, how do your batteries test out under load?

For ages, I've been reading anecdotes around the theme of "I
replaced the batteries in my TL120 and all is good", but
what would be extremely helpful is to know at what capacity
they cease working.

--
John Thurston
Juneau Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us

How do you test batteries under load? Or maybe I should ask, how cheaply can
you get a tester that will test under load?

Bob

Quoting John Thurston <juneau3d@thurstons.us>:

> Mark wrote:
>
> > PS: Changed batteries and looks to be ok now. I'll make
> > it a rule to put in new batteries for any client shoot.
>
> Mark, how do your batteries test out under load?
>
> For ages, I've been reading anecdotes around the theme of "I
> replaced the batteries in my TL120 and all is good", but
> what would be extremely helpful is to know at what capacity
> they cease working.
>
> --
> John Thurston
> Juneau Alaska
> http://stereo.thurstons.us
>

Hi

I have a feeling having done two different shoots last week (tests for clients) that the issue is with the battery load and shooting quickly.

This is in part due to 'in camera duplication' and also the nature of the subjects I shoot which are live and moving.

I'll do a break down of all the recent incidents and what the exposures were like and what batteries were in the camera.

The suggest we as a group try to replicate the issue.

M