My advance lever is stuck o my Ricoh camera. I had a roll of film get stripped in it and took it out in the dark room and developed it but now even with no film in it the lever won't advance. I've looked at the advice people have given other people with this problem and tried holding the shutter down while trying to advance and holding the rewind button down and trying to advance and nothing has worked. Please help me I have a project due really soon and need to take pictures!

This camera is 42 years old. Sounds like a mechanical problem, but I doubt you are going to find any company or individual who knows how to fix it, or can find parts for it, if needed.
Suggest you keep this museum piece as a conversation starter, and invest in a newer model.
If you want to stay with Canon, the Elan 7N and Rebel T2 film cameras are 'only' about 13 years old. I see Elans on eBay starting at $70 (body only).

Take your camera to photo developer who has the dark room. They will open your camera in dark room and remove the film without any damage to it. Once film is out you can see whats actually the problem, it can be gear tooth misaligned or something.

push the film release on the bottom of the camera and try to continue forward then. If you are trying to get 27 pictures on a 24 exp. roll you may have advanced your film so far that it is stuck on the piece of tape that attaches the film to the spool. Take only 24 pictures.

The film is either at the end or stuck. The shutter will not release unless the film advance lever has gone all the way and back.
Make a note of the frame counter. Rewind the film and remove it from the camera (When you feel the film to come loose from the receiving spool, stop rewinding to prevent the end of the film to disappear inside the can. This way you can reload it if it was stuck in the middle.) If the film was completely exposed, take it to be developed.
With the empty camera, try to advance the lever and release the shutter. If this works, the problem was the film and not the camera. Everything is fine. If the problem persists, take it to be repaired.
If the film was stuck in the middle, load it again into the camera. With the lense cap on (preferably in a dark room or similar) 'shoot' as many 'empty' frames as you had on the counter plus two more. Finish the film and develop the pictures.
If the film stucks again at the same place, rewind it and develop normally. It was a bad film.
Hope this helped you to solve the problem.

You may end up sacrificing the used film or you can rewind it early.
I have had it happen that the film sprocket holes had striped out causing the advance sprocket to get out of sync with the film making it ride up onto the area between sprockets and creating a jam.
If you can, rewind the film onto the feed roll to preserve the exposed portion and then remove it from the camera.
Try the film advance then with an empty camera, releasing the shutter and repeating the cycle to determine if the advance mechanism will now act as it should; if it does, then the film was probably at fault and it may never happen again.
If you cannot respool the film, I would take it to a professional photo lab and have them unload the camera in a dark room if you want to try to save the pictures already on it.

kwilson36

you should have at least 6in. of exposed film from the film canister to the take-up spool unless you loaded the film in total darkness.
open the back cover to make sure the shutter is working, reload and give it another try.

It likely did not catch when it was first loaded, and as such never advanced through the camera. Open the back of the camera, with no film in it, then set the shutter speed to 1, advance the film advance lever and take a shot. You should see the shutter curtains open and then close a second later. Then advance the film lever again and watch to see that the sprockets are turning. If they are, then the camera is exposing and the mechanics are working properly to advance the film. Chances are it was just loaded incorrectly.

There doesn't seem to be a pattern with any of the Fuji films (I use Sensia and Velvia, exclusively, and have never had a problem in my Canon EOS). There are reports that the Fuji Pro films will gum up the sprockets in a camera, thanks to an adhesive strip at the end of the roll, but I'm not sure if the regular 400 speed film has the same problem. You might try a thorough cleaning, and see if it is still happening. I'm not surprised that 400 speed comes out a tad dark. Try dropping to 200 speed (I generally won't use anything above 100 speed, unless it is black&while).

Cheers

No, it is not the battery. My guess is that the film leader did not stay in the take-up spool and is now bunched up around it. Try rewinding the film carefully as you normally would but remember that you are only rewinding a small portion of the length. You can even just open the film door and start over. You will only loose 3 or 4 frames on the roll.

Dear Spotomatic
Most film processing stores will take the film into a darkroom and get it out that way, also most camera supply stores sell light tight bags that you could take the film out of the camera without exposing the fim to light. Make sure you do not open the camera back even in a dark room.

Sincerely,
Agent Allan
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