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I recently acquired a Pentax ME that has been sitting on a shelf for at least twenty years. It may or may not have a partially-exposed roll of Kodak Gold 100 film in it. How can I tell for certain, preferably without damaging either the camera or the film?
(Note that the batteries in the camera are long dead, and the camera has very little manual-operation capability. If I need to replace them to check for the presence of film, be sure to mention it.)
One easy way to check if film is loaded in the camera is to gently turn the rewind knob in the direction that would rewind the film. If there's resistance to the knob turning, that indicates the camera is loaded. If the rewind knob just spins freely, that proves there's no film magazine in the camera.
If there's a 20-year-old film in the camera, you'll surely not want to take any new photos on that old film. It's very unlikely that they'll produce anything usable.
So, to me the most plausible aim is to save any photos that might have been taken on the old film roll (still not very likely that you'll get decent results, but you might try).
My recommendation is to rewind the camera (you'll typically feel some resitance while there is film left to be rewound - or turn the rewind lever some 50 revolutions clockwise, that should surely suffice). Then, you can open the back cover and you'll see whether there is a cartridge in it. You can give it to a lab and hope for the best.
If you want to take photos with the camera, buy a fresh film. And don't let it rest in the camera for years before developing it.
When you advance the wind lever, does the film rewind knob also turn? I'm not familiar with the camera, but this should be the giveaway – without film in the camera, advancing the wind lever shouldn't have any effect on the rewind knob.
As I say, I'm not familiar with the camera. To perform the above test, you will obviously need to advance the film and potentially waste a frame. You may also need to fire the shutter if the film has already been wound on, waiting for the next exposure. According to camera-wiki.org, you don't need batteries in the camera to fire the shutter, though, unless you are very lucky, you'll get incorrect exposure.
Another thought I had – if the wind lever doesn't advance at all, that might indicate that there's a fully-exposed roll of film in the camera, waiting to be rewound.
