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- Name
- James
- Edit My Images
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Having returned to using film after 15 years or so of digital photography I've also started home developing my colour film (although I did black and white developing years ago). It's been going reasonably well, ie I'm getting images I can see, but I'm getting a couple of recurring issues and would welcome some suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong.
1. An orange bleed from the dividing section between adjacent frames, generally but not always when the image next to the dividing section is light, eg sky, as seen in the three pictures below - which are as scanned from a Nikon CoolScan IV with no cropping but with digital ICE (dust removeal) and ROC (colour restoration) enabled. ROC has been enabled to try and compensate for the use of expired film which has not been refrigerated.
The first picture is the odd one out as it was taken on fresh Kodak ColorPlus 200 (Olympus OM3 with 35mm f3.5 Zuiko lens) - this was my first roll shot in my return to film. The next picture was taken on expired Kodak Gold 200 (use by date 4/2002) (my 2nd roll) which was shot at 100 ASA (Olympus OM2N with 50mm f1.8 Zuiko) and the third picture was on expired Jessops SHR200 (probably 20 years old) (my 5th roll) shot at 25 ASA (Olympus OM2N 50mm f1.4 Zuiko).
The other issue is bright rays across some, but not all, of the images and they also cross the border between adjacent images.
Both pictures above were taken on time expired Jessops SHR200 (use by 11/99) (my 3rd roll) which was metered at 100 ASA (Olympus OM4 21mm f3.5 Zuiko). The sun was on the left in the first picture (which also shows the orange bleed issue on the right hand side) but was behind me in the second picture and as the negative scan below shows, which is from the same roll of film, some of the rays cross the border between images. So I don't think the rays are coming from light on the lenses. The rays don't appear on every image.
Although these rays have been most prevalent on this roll (my 3rd roll) they have also appeared on other rolls such as in the picture below which is from the 5th roll (Olympus OM2N). The OM4 is a recent acquisition and the ad claimed that it had new light seals fitted - they look OK as do the ones on the OM3. I replaced the light seals on the OM2N prior to using it. So I don't think a light leak is the problem and instead I think there must be a problem in the development. The rays always seem to run from edge to edge rather than lengthways.
I've been using the Rollei Digibase kit in a Paterson Series 4 tank (loaded in a new changing bag) with a 2min 30 sec pre soak, a very short wash (fill tank and empty) between developer and bleach (as I didn't like the idea of contaminating the bleach by going straight from developer) and washes between bleach and fix and fix and stabiliser. The pre soak was agitated continuously (by inversion) for the first 15 seconds then 2 inversions every 30 secs. Agitation in the other stages has been on a similar basis and the washes between bleach-fix and fix-stabiliser have been continuous through flow from the tap.
I'm wondering if I should use a stop-bath between developer and bleach rather than the short wash and whether I need more or less agitation. The orange bleed from the divider between images has appeared on all films, although not so prevalent on the fresh film, whereas the rays, so far, have only appeared on the expired film (or have not been bad enough for me to have noticed them on the fresh film).
My first development batch (on 14 February) was roll no. 2 along with an exposed film from 15 years ago which i had never got developed at the time. Roll no. 1 (the fresh film) was in the second batch I developed (20 February) along with another old exposed film. Roll 3 was in the third batch (28 February) along with another film which had been sitting in a Zorki 4K for probably 20 years), roll 4 was the only film in my 4th batch (6 March) and roll 5 was the only film in my 5th batch (21 March). So, to date, my 1 litre Digibase kit has developed 8 36 exposure 35mm films and based on its quoted capacity and the time scale I think it should be still OK - the developer is stored in a brown glass bottle using marbles to get the level to the top of the bottle to try and minimize oxidation. Development time was extended by 15 secs after batches 1 and 2 (4 films in total) and will be extended by another 15 secs for the next batch.
All suggestions (other than give it up - your eye is terrible) gratefully received.
1. An orange bleed from the dividing section between adjacent frames, generally but not always when the image next to the dividing section is light, eg sky, as seen in the three pictures below - which are as scanned from a Nikon CoolScan IV with no cropping but with digital ICE (dust removeal) and ROC (colour restoration) enabled. ROC has been enabled to try and compensate for the use of expired film which has not been refrigerated.
The first picture is the odd one out as it was taken on fresh Kodak ColorPlus 200 (Olympus OM3 with 35mm f3.5 Zuiko lens) - this was my first roll shot in my return to film. The next picture was taken on expired Kodak Gold 200 (use by date 4/2002) (my 2nd roll) which was shot at 100 ASA (Olympus OM2N with 50mm f1.8 Zuiko) and the third picture was on expired Jessops SHR200 (probably 20 years old) (my 5th roll) shot at 25 ASA (Olympus OM2N 50mm f1.4 Zuiko).
The other issue is bright rays across some, but not all, of the images and they also cross the border between adjacent images.
Both pictures above were taken on time expired Jessops SHR200 (use by 11/99) (my 3rd roll) which was metered at 100 ASA (Olympus OM4 21mm f3.5 Zuiko). The sun was on the left in the first picture (which also shows the orange bleed issue on the right hand side) but was behind me in the second picture and as the negative scan below shows, which is from the same roll of film, some of the rays cross the border between images. So I don't think the rays are coming from light on the lenses. The rays don't appear on every image.
Although these rays have been most prevalent on this roll (my 3rd roll) they have also appeared on other rolls such as in the picture below which is from the 5th roll (Olympus OM2N). The OM4 is a recent acquisition and the ad claimed that it had new light seals fitted - they look OK as do the ones on the OM3. I replaced the light seals on the OM2N prior to using it. So I don't think a light leak is the problem and instead I think there must be a problem in the development. The rays always seem to run from edge to edge rather than lengthways.
I've been using the Rollei Digibase kit in a Paterson Series 4 tank (loaded in a new changing bag) with a 2min 30 sec pre soak, a very short wash (fill tank and empty) between developer and bleach (as I didn't like the idea of contaminating the bleach by going straight from developer) and washes between bleach and fix and fix and stabiliser. The pre soak was agitated continuously (by inversion) for the first 15 seconds then 2 inversions every 30 secs. Agitation in the other stages has been on a similar basis and the washes between bleach-fix and fix-stabiliser have been continuous through flow from the tap.
I'm wondering if I should use a stop-bath between developer and bleach rather than the short wash and whether I need more or less agitation. The orange bleed from the divider between images has appeared on all films, although not so prevalent on the fresh film, whereas the rays, so far, have only appeared on the expired film (or have not been bad enough for me to have noticed them on the fresh film).
My first development batch (on 14 February) was roll no. 2 along with an exposed film from 15 years ago which i had never got developed at the time. Roll no. 1 (the fresh film) was in the second batch I developed (20 February) along with another old exposed film. Roll 3 was in the third batch (28 February) along with another film which had been sitting in a Zorki 4K for probably 20 years), roll 4 was the only film in my 4th batch (6 March) and roll 5 was the only film in my 5th batch (21 March). So, to date, my 1 litre Digibase kit has developed 8 36 exposure 35mm films and based on its quoted capacity and the time scale I think it should be still OK - the developer is stored in a brown glass bottle using marbles to get the level to the top of the bottle to try and minimize oxidation. Development time was extended by 15 secs after batches 1 and 2 (4 films in total) and will be extended by another 15 secs for the next batch.
All suggestions (other than give it up - your eye is terrible) gratefully received.