ChrisR
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I have been having an interesting quest on film twitter over the past few days, and it’s not yet fully resolved, so I thought I should ask here.
I developed two films on Monday afternoon; the first was HP5 devved in FX-39 II (for reasons!) taken with my Pentax ME, the second also HP5 but devved in my 4-year-old HC-110 (dilution E), taken with my Pentax LX. Both were devved in the Rondinax (one after another, obviously). Both hung to dry in the shower for 4 hours, cut and sleeved in glassine and pressed under heavy books overnight.
On Tuesday afternoon I started scanning the first film. I was quite shocked when I got to this image:
<frame 8>
… and even more so when I realised how many images were affected (13 out of 36). Here are a couple more so you can see the variety.
I asked on twitter for ideas, and over the next 24 hours or so checked out a few things. Someone asked for images of the negatives, straight ahead and at a slant. Couldn’t really do the latter well, but here’s the straight on image of that first frame (you can see why I don't try digicam scanning!)…
You can see it’s a brown stain; it also appears there are brown marks at the edges of the film, too. Some of the marks strayed into the inter-frame gap, but none strayed from the film into the sprocket area (apart from the edge marks).
The design of the Rondinax means film is loaded in darkness straight from the canister onto the spool, so no way of contaminating the film with any chemicals that might have got onto my hands.
I tried cleaning the marks off a frame with a cotton bud and dilute shampoo (again, for reasons!). No luck.
There was quite a bit of discussion about the film coming off the reel and touching. “Agitation” with the Rondinax is very gentle, so it’s unlikely to come off the reel once loaded. I think I might have had a poorly-loaded roll in the past, but I remember that as being VERY hard to load; no such issue this time. I can’t find any evidence of touching 135 in my library. I did find a scan of a 4x5 frame that I’d developed with the taco method that had come apart and touched something and it looked very different.
There was also a discussion about fixer issues, though quite a few folk didn’t think that could produce effects like this. However, someone suggested refixing, so I re-did a strip for 10 minutes. No change (but... see later).
At about this point yesterday afternoon I thought I’d scan the other film. Pulled out the first strip and… I didn’t bother scanning it! Covered in brown marks.
Two cameras, so it’s not the camera. Two developers, so it’s not the developer. One tank; someone suggested checking for contamination (can’t quite see how this would happen). One stop bath, one batch of fixer, one type of film… Those are the only things in common (except for the final wash with PhotoFlo 2+500, can't see how that would be an issue).
At about this point I realised I didn’t do a fixer strip test before refixing, and also that in the fixer test before this dev session, the clearing time was a bit long. So maybe the fixer test I did yesterday wasn’t as conclusive as I’d thought (if the fixer was spent). I think I’ll mix a fresh batch of fixer this afternoon and try to refix all the strips of one film. Getting them washed and dried will be an issue. However, there are several folk on twitter who are adamant that fixer wouldn’t cause this type of artefact.
Some have suggested film defects; unfortunately I no longer have the film boxes so I don’t know if they are the same batch. I’ve brought Ilford in on twitter (apparently they might be able to tell the batch from the edge bar code) but no response so far.
So, dear TPFC, any ideas?
I developed two films on Monday afternoon; the first was HP5 devved in FX-39 II (for reasons!) taken with my Pentax ME, the second also HP5 but devved in my 4-year-old HC-110 (dilution E), taken with my Pentax LX. Both were devved in the Rondinax (one after another, obviously). Both hung to dry in the shower for 4 hours, cut and sleeved in glassine and pressed under heavy books overnight.
On Tuesday afternoon I started scanning the first film. I was quite shocked when I got to this image:
<frame 8>… and even more so when I realised how many images were affected (13 out of 36). Here are a couple more so you can see the variety.
I asked on twitter for ideas, and over the next 24 hours or so checked out a few things. Someone asked for images of the negatives, straight ahead and at a slant. Couldn’t really do the latter well, but here’s the straight on image of that first frame (you can see why I don't try digicam scanning!)…
You can see it’s a brown stain; it also appears there are brown marks at the edges of the film, too. Some of the marks strayed into the inter-frame gap, but none strayed from the film into the sprocket area (apart from the edge marks).
The design of the Rondinax means film is loaded in darkness straight from the canister onto the spool, so no way of contaminating the film with any chemicals that might have got onto my hands.
I tried cleaning the marks off a frame with a cotton bud and dilute shampoo (again, for reasons!). No luck.
There was quite a bit of discussion about the film coming off the reel and touching. “Agitation” with the Rondinax is very gentle, so it’s unlikely to come off the reel once loaded. I think I might have had a poorly-loaded roll in the past, but I remember that as being VERY hard to load; no such issue this time. I can’t find any evidence of touching 135 in my library. I did find a scan of a 4x5 frame that I’d developed with the taco method that had come apart and touched something and it looked very different.
There was also a discussion about fixer issues, though quite a few folk didn’t think that could produce effects like this. However, someone suggested refixing, so I re-did a strip for 10 minutes. No change (but... see later).
At about this point yesterday afternoon I thought I’d scan the other film. Pulled out the first strip and… I didn’t bother scanning it! Covered in brown marks.
Two cameras, so it’s not the camera. Two developers, so it’s not the developer. One tank; someone suggested checking for contamination (can’t quite see how this would happen). One stop bath, one batch of fixer, one type of film… Those are the only things in common (except for the final wash with PhotoFlo 2+500, can't see how that would be an issue).
At about this point I realised I didn’t do a fixer strip test before refixing, and also that in the fixer test before this dev session, the clearing time was a bit long. So maybe the fixer test I did yesterday wasn’t as conclusive as I’d thought (if the fixer was spent). I think I’ll mix a fresh batch of fixer this afternoon and try to refix all the strips of one film. Getting them washed and dried will be an issue. However, there are several folk on twitter who are adamant that fixer wouldn’t cause this type of artefact.
Some have suggested film defects; unfortunately I no longer have the film boxes so I don’t know if they are the same batch. I’ve brought Ilford in on twitter (apparently they might be able to tell the batch from the edge bar code) but no response so far.
So, dear TPFC, any ideas?
