Why does my film camera not use entire roll of film?

Question

I have a point and shoot olympus mju zoom 105. It had been working perfectly fine with the first few rolls of film but recently whenever I have put a new lot of film in it automatically rewinds the film after taking only 6 photos. Any ideas as to why this might be happening? Thanks.

Answer 1

Had the same problem once with 135 film and a Canon EOS 300v.

Turns out, that:

• the battery was quite low (and old)
• it was winter-time outside with -5 °C
• and some idiot (me) had the habit of tightening the film before putting it into the camera.

I did so for years with manually winded cameras. But the electronics measured maybe to much needed force and therefore decided to wind back.

Answer 2

The most likely theories:

• Your batteries are weak. Replace them.
• There is excessive tension in the winding mechanism that is fooling the camera into thinking that the roll is done. This would need professional repair, most likely.
• The film is not winding cleanly onto the take-up spool. Make sure you are loading the film correctly. If the film engages crookedly, it's possible the camera would experience higher winding tension than it should.
• Overloaded bulk rolls of film can cause similar symptoms. Make sure you're using commercially-loaded 36-exposure (or fewer) rolls. (Bulk-loaded film - which is available from a few commercial sources but is usually done at home - should be fine, but is more likely to cause problems.)
• It might just be that the cartridges that manufacturer uses are tighter than other cartridges. Try another brand of film and see if it's any better.