What camera does iJustine film with?

Why did my Krasnogorsk-3 16mm camera give me loose film?

• Why did my Krasnogorsk-3 16mm camera give me Loose Film? I've been shooting a short 16mm film for the last month or so. We've been using a Bolex reflex and it worked great. We had to switch over to a Krasnogorsk-3 on the last two days of the shooting schedule because of a scheduling conflict to borrow the Bolex. So I looked up guides on loading it, and practiced a lot of times, and finally went through with it. Loaded the camera, and shot almost an entire roll of film. The sounds were pretty normal, everything seems like it filmed fine. As I went to take out the film, I realized two things: 1st, the film is not all used up--this is fine, I'll just wind it through, 2nd, the film on the receiving wheel is not tightly wound on the other end. Now I did the whole process in the dark, so the film should not be re-exposed. What I'm wondering is why the film is not tight on the receiving wheel, and if that means that I might have exposure problems. Could I have lost my last two rolls of film?

• Answer:

  First of all, I think your film is probably fine, as the loop size on this particular camera is not crucial. However, have you shot with a Kras-3 (particularly this particular camera) before? If not, how did you know that the sounds it was making were "pretty normal"? While Krasnogorks are spectacular, you're working with an old piece of machinery. When I worked with a Kras in school, my personal camera felt and worked very differently from others in my class. Yours seems to have a few personal quirks, as they all do. You could have lost all of your work. But you're working on a camera that (I assume based on your question) that you haven't worked with before, so that's always a risk. You'll have to get the film processed before you know if you lost your last two rolls. Here's a http://www.k3camera.com/k3/k3pdfs/2004k3man.pdf, written by a company in NY that sells them. Perhaps it will help.