My frame counter tells me I shot 36 exposures on a 24-exposure roll; is the roll exposed or not?

Question

I finished what I thought was a 36 exposure roll of film earlier, but once I got it out of the camera I realised it was only a 24 exposure roll. I am using an old Ricoh XR2 camera which has manual film advance so it didn't automatically wind back; it also didn't protest when I wound it past 24.

The film seemed to wind back into the canister without a problem. Will the film be damaged or ruined in any way, or will the last frame just be massively overexposed from having 12 shots exposed on it?

Answer 1

The Ricoh XR2 is designed to automatically prevent you from doing what you said you did. You would only be able to do that if you were using the multiple exposure feature in the camera.

I suspect the film was incorrectly loaded and none of the frames were ever exposed. There really is no other explanation for what you describe. You could probably load it again and use the same roll. Next time watch the rewind knob for movement as you wind each frame.