I found an old roll of film from 2009 at a thrift store and got it developed

Picked up a Canon AE-1 at a garage sale last month for 20 bucks, and there was a half-finished roll of Fuji Superia inside. I took a chance and sent it to the lab, expecting nothing but fogged garbage. Instead, it came back with photos of someone's backyard barbecue from June 2009 - you could see the date stamp. The strangest part was a shot of a kid blowing out candles on a cake, and they looked like they were about 12, so that person is probably in their late 20s now. Has anyone else had luck with mystery rolls from old cameras?

2 comments

2 Comments

beth_hunt10d agoMost Upvoted

Bet @palmer.ryan's right, that's wild seeing a 12 year old birthday party pop up from nowhere.

palmer.ryan10d ago

That bit about the kid blowing out candles really got me. I read somewhere that there's a whole community of people who buy old film cameras specifically hoping there's a roll inside. It's basically a time capsule. The fact that you got a date stamp from 2009 is luck, most of those old rolls are too degraded to show anything clear. I've seen people post results where all they got was a faint ghost of a tree or just solid black. The AE-1 is a solid pick up for twenty bucks even without the film though.