How To Figure Out If There’s Already 35mm Film In Your Camera
I’ve been shooting film for years and even I’ve made the odd mistake and opened my film camera up only to discover there’s film in it!
A lot of film cameras have a film viewing window so you can see what film is inside but for those that don’t, there’s a really handy way to see if there’s film in a camera.
I’ll show you the different ways to find out if there’s film in different cameras really easily!
Put Simply
There are a lot of different types of cameras so this isn’t a simple ‘one size fits all’ type question. As mentioned earlier, some cameras have a film-viewing window which makes this whole exercise a lot easier!
Other cameras are a bit more complicated so I’ve put together a video to show you how to work it out!
Point-And-Shoot Cameras
Point-and-shoot cameras are basic, compact cameras and usually, they have a film viewing window.
- If a point-and-shoot has a film viewing window then you’ll be able to see if there’s any film in the camera or not. As you can see in the picture above there’s a transparent window to the right of the writing. This is the film viewing window and this particular camera has no film in it!
- If a point-and-shoot camera has no film viewing window it may still have a LCD display. Sometimes the display says E – which means empty. If it then says a number, this would suggest that the camera has been loaded.
- If the camera doesn’t have a film viewing window or a LCD display then it should at least have a shot counter wheel which will display numbers from 0 – 36. If it’s on anything other than 0 then it would suggest that there’s film inside the camera but it doesn’t guarantee it. Some very basic point-and-shoot cameras would show a number of shots even if you’d taken pictures without film inside. So it’s worth being aware of that.
If you aren’t sure if film is inside the camera but you have no intention of shooting the rest of the roll then you can use the manual rewind button and that way you know the shots taken up until that point are safe.
SLR Cameras & Rangefinders
Luckily, SLR cameras and rangefinders are far easier for us to see if they have film in or not because of a simple trick.
As I’ve shown in my awful video. There’s a telltale sign to easily show you if an SLR or rangefinder camera has film in it or not!
When winding on to the next frame, if the rewind lever on the opposite side moves at the same time, that shows you that there is film in the camera (and that it is correctly wound on).
This is a great way of checking if there’s any film in a camera but it’s also the perfect way to be confident that you’ve loaded your camera properly.
Final Word
These little tips should help you to avoid accidentally opening your film camera and exposing some old film but if that does happen, I made an article to easily work out whether your film is ruined or salvageable!
