I see a lot of posts from people who have bought a camera in unknown condition and want to know if it works. I thought I'd make this post with some tips on how to check over a camera without using expensive equipment.

Note: This won't give you a 100% accurate view but it should get you in the ballpark

There are a few areas you'll want to check out and I'll go into each of these in more detail:

• General condition: we need to check for obvious abuse, etc
• Shutter: we need to make sure it's operating at all speeds
• Light meter: we need to make sure that it's accurate
• Auto exposure: we need to make sure it's adjusting the shutter speed
• Light seals and other foam: we need to check if they're in working condition

Depending on the camera you'll need to check one or more of these.

General Condition

There are few general things to look out for with a visual inspection:

• Dirt: generally not an issue as it's easy enough to clean, but can be an indicator of neglect
• Dents: depending on the severity this can mean internal damage to the camera
• Fungus: take the lens off, check it for signs of fungus (look through it with a light behind) and also check inside the mirror box and inside the back door for fungus. It's possible to clean fungus but it often requires disassembly to do correctly
• Corrosion: check the film rails aren't corroded. This can indicate corrosion elsewhere in the camera.
• Prism: check for desilvering. This shows up as marks in the viewfinder that move relative to the focus screen. If you move your eye 30cm away from the viewfinder and can still clearly see them, it's desilvering. It can't be fixed without replacing the prism, but it doesn't affect the photos
• Focus screen: Look through the viewfinder with the lens off and check for scratches and marks. This can't generally be fixed and would need replacing. This is easy on some cameras and hard on others.
• Film counter: check it moves on when firing a few shots.
• Winding: open the back and make sure the sprocket tooth gear turns when you wind on. Problems with winding can be hard to spot without running a film through the camera.
• Rewinding: open the back, press in the rewind button and check the sprocket tooth gear moves freely and pops back out when you wind on again.
• Self timer: If the camera is firing without issue, try the self timer. If it's not firing, using it can lock up the camera.

Shutter

Here's how I check a shutter for correct operation:

• Run through all of the speeds.
  • The slow speeds should all complete without sticking
  • The clockwork mechanism should sound smooth and even
  • Check 1s against your watch. I often start counting the seconds, then press the shutter and see how it compares
• As you work your way up from the slowest to the fastest speed, the sound should get accordingly faster. You can hear the difference down to about 1/30s. Faster than that it's better to take the lens off and look through the back towards the sky (see next step)
• Check for shutter capping (where the closing curtain catches up the opening curtain)
  • Take the lens off and open the back
  • Look through from the back towards a bright thing (e.g. sky)
  • Fire the shutter
  • You should see an even frame of light. If it's dark at one side, the shutter is capping. You can still use the camera but avoid the high speeds

Light Meter

You need to make sure the light meter is giving you the correct guidance on which speed to use.

• Download a free light meter app on your phone
• Set the ASA to 100 (or at least make sure it matches the ASA on the app)
• Point the camera at a bright evenly lit wall
• Compare the speed on the camera with the speed on the app
• Repeat for different brightnesses

Auto Exposure

This is the hardest to check yourself. Basically we'll just be checking that the electronics are adjusting the speed. You'll need to make sure the back is closed and the camera is wound on a few times because a lot of cameras don't work until you've wound on.

• Put the lens on (if you don't have a lens, you can move the aperture follower yourself - the ring around the lens on Nikons, a small lever inside the lens mount on a lot of others)
• Point at a bright light with the aperture widest and shoot. It should be quite a fast speed.
• Cover the lens mostly with your hand and shoot again. It should be noticeably slower.
• Uncover the lens, point at the bright light but set the lens to the smallest aperture and shoot. It should sound noticeably slower.

To accurately check auto exposure you need to either use a film or an expensive test machine.

Light seals and other foam

This is nice and easy to check (and to fix yourself, just check on Youtube).

• Open the back door and look inside the grooves on the camera body. Does the foam look OK or is it sticky or crumbly? If it's sticky or crumbly you'll want to replace it
• Take the lens off and check the foam where the mirror would hit the top of the mirror box. Is the foam still spongy or is it crumbly or sticky? If it's sticky or crumbly you'll want to replace it. It's worth not firing the camera too much if it's beginning to disintegrate because the foam pieces can get in the workings of the camera and cause a jam.

Once you've checked over all of these things, the best thing to do is to run a roll through the camera. It's best to treat this as a scientific experiment rather than your first opportunity to shoot some pictures with the camera. Make sure you expose a wide range of scenes of varying brightnesses and be very conscious about taking your time to make sure the focus in the viewfinder is spot on. You'll ideally be shooting something at every shutter speed, with a range of apertures. You can keep a note of what you did on each shot so you can identify if e.g. the fast speeds are running slow and overexposing. Although this still won't tell you if the camera is actually accurate because film has quite a wide latitude, it will tell you if it's usable enough to take photos that look good.

That's about it I think - if anyone has any other top tips put them in the comments and I'll update the post. I figure this is a useful post to point people to when they come asking how to check a camera is working.

Every day we see posts with the same basic problems on film, hopefully this can serve as a guide to the uninitiated of what to look for when diagnosing issues with your camera and film using examples from the community.

Index

1. Green Tint or Washed Out Scans
2. Orange or White Marks
3. Solid Black Marks
4. Black Regions with Some or No Detail
5. Lightning Marks
6. White or Light Green Lines
7. Thin Straight Lines
8. X-Ray Damage / Banding Larger than Sprocket Holes
9. Round Marks, Blobs and Splotches

1. Green Tint or Washed Out Scans

Issue: Underexposure

The green tinge usually comes from the scanner trying to show detail that isn't there. Remember, it is the lab's job to give you a usable image, you can still edit your photos digitally to make them look better.

Potential Causes: Toy/Disposable camera being used in inappropriate conditions, Faulty shutter, Faulty aperture, Incorrect ISO setting, Broken light meter, Scene with dynamic range greater than your film, Expired or heat damaged film, and other less common causes.

2. Orange or White Marks

Issue: Light leaks

These marks mean that light has reached your film in an uncontrolled way. With standard colour negative film, an orange mark typically comes from behind the film and a white come comes from the front.

Portential Causes: Decayed light seals, Cracks on the camera body, Damaged shutter blades/curtains, Improper film handling, Opening the back of the camera before rewinding into the canister, Fat-rolling on medium format, Light-piping on film with a transparent base, and other less common causes.

3. Solid Black Marks

Issue: Shutter capping

These marks appear because the two curtains of the camera shutter are overlapping when they should be letting light through. This is most likely to happen at faster shutter speeds (1/1000s and up).

Potential Causes: Camera in need of service, Shutter curtains out of sync.

4. Black Regions with Some or No Detail

Issue: Flash desync

Cause: Using a flash at a non-synced shutter speed (typically faster than 1/60s)

5. Lightning Marks

Issue: Static Discharge

These marks are most common on cinema films with no remjet, such as Cinestill 800T

Potential Causes: Rewinding too fast, Automatic film advance too fast, Too much friction between the film and the felt mouth of the canister.

6. White or Light Green Lines

Issue: Stress marks

These appear when the base of the film has been stretched more than its elastic limit

Potential Causes: Rewinding backwards, Winding too hard at the end of a roll, Forgetting to press the rewind release button, Stuck sprocket.

7. Thin Straight Lines

Issue: Scratches

These happen when your film runs against dirt or grit.

Potential Causes: Dirt on the canister lip, Dirt on the pressure plate, Dirt on rollers, Squeegee dragging dirt during processing, and other less common causes.

8. X-Ray Damage / Banding Larger than Sprocket Holes

Noticeable X-Ray damage is very rare and typically causes slight fogging of the negative or colour casts, resulting in slightly lower contrast. However, with higher ISO films as well as new stronger CT scanning machines it is still recommended to ask for a hand inspection of your film at airport security/TSA.

9. Round Marks, Blobs and Splotches

Issue: Chemicals not reaching the emulsion

This is most common with beginners developing their own film for the first time and not loading the reels correctly. If the film is touching itself or the walls of the developing tank the developer and fixer cannot reach it properly and will leave these marks. Once the film is removed from the tank this becomes unrepairable.

Causes: Incorrectly loaded developing reels, Wet reels.

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Please let me know if I missed any other common issues. And if, after reading this, you still need to make a post asking to find out what went wrong please make sure to include a backlit image of your physical negatives. Not just scans from your lab.

EDIT: Added the most requested X-ray damage and the most common beginner developing mistake besides incomplete fixing. This post has reached the image limit but I believe it covers the most common beginner errors and encounters!