250D sudden issues

[Joel_L]

After spending a lot of time and rolls getting a 250D in C41 process down, problems have come back.

I have done about 20 rolls since my initial experiments that have all given good results, I was quite happy with my process. I recently did a couple rolls in ECN2 that also came out fine, but I like the results from C41 better and went back to it.
Yesterday I went out and about and took some shots of what I call early spring, finally starting to get some color around here. That roll came out very magenta/purple with uneven casts across the whole roll. I was down to the very end of my C41 chemistry, so I wrote it off as aged chemicals. I mix my chemicals for one shot use from the concentrates. The color of the developer did not look off, but......

Today I went and shot another roll using a fresh batch of chemistry and got the same results, again, the color of the chemicals all looked OK. I got near the same results, magenta cast, green on the uncorrected scan. The scans mostly clean up except for uneven color cast along the roll. Oddly it seems worse on the outside of the reel.
I also noticed one edge of the film has pretty close to the right mask color. Trying to convince myself why that might be, I process in my Jobo CPE2, so rotary processing. Trying to convince myself that the chemistry somehow stays in contact with the film longer and that even though this C41 kit is fresh, its still old ( maybe 8 months ).

I'm thinking of processing a test strip right from my bulk loader to see if I can get the right mask color.

Any thoughts?

 

[koraks]

My first guess would be a problem with the bleach, but the negative strip photos don't look quite right for retained silver. Still, re-bleaching with known-good bleach would be the first thing I'd do. Test the bleach on some B&W paper to see if it works and how long it takes, then re-bleach some of the affected strips and see if it makes a difference. Maybe add some KBr to your bleach and bleach for a long time (10 minutes at room temperature) by means of a safety margin.

Can you describe the exact process you're following and chemistry used?
Stop bath and/or rinse after developer?
What kind of C41 chemistry and in particular bleach are we talking about?

I must say the tiny band at the top of your strips does indeed look like the correct mask color. It's a bit of an odd pattern, really. It's a bit reminiscent of massive light fogging. You do have the center column in your Jobo tank installed, right?

 

[Joel_L]

Last go around I switched to Bellini chemicals because the use a separate bleach and fix.

The Bellini process has no rinse or stop between the developer and bleach. So it pretty much goes, Kodak formula prewash to remove remjet, rinse/shake 5 times ( no obvious remjet after the second rinse ), I use my diluted mix to make 140ml for each, developer, bleach, and fix. This mix has been tried and proven to me.

Develop 4 minutes, bleach 2 minutes ( 2x normal time ), fix 4 minutes ( 2x normal time ), all at 38C. This process has worked well for 20+ rolls now.

As far as fogging, the center core is in, I always insert it in the reel before loading the film. My bulk loader is one I designed and printed for 400ft rolls, It is possible there is a problem there, but the same design I also use for my 400ft roll of E100D and do not have problems there.

I will try putting a strip in fresh full strength bleach and see if it changes anything.

My next step might be to load some film right off the loader and process it to see if perhaps it is exposing the film, but I worry about that leading me to a false conclusion. The rolls of film that are having a problem are the last few rolls from a batch I loaded that until now has not had any problems.

Update: I put a strip in fresh bleach for 10 minutes, no change.

Another test I could do is shoot another roll and put it through the ECN2 chems I still have.

 

[koraks]

The more I look at it, the more it makes me think of an optical fogging problem. Not sure where it would manifest itself down the chain, though.

 

[Joel_L]

Now I can stop panicking that my roll of 250D was somehow exposed. I did a roll around the house ( really getting bored with doing that for these tests, but would really hate to botch something I like ).

Anyway, I processed this in my ECN2 chemistry, which is also getting old for working strength chemicals. They turned out fine, no signs of fogging at all.

It finally got warm enough going over the hill that I ordered some fresh chemistry. Not sure I'll spend any more time with this kit and just call it bad.

This roll was shot in the same camera and processed in the same tank, there should not be another path for fogging.

 

[koraks]

Yeah, that looks just fine! Really weird; the only thing I can think of is some form of severe cross-contamination that somehow made its way into your C41 kit.

 

[Cholentpot]

I've found that 250D to be the most finnicky of the Vision3 line. It is the most useful though. I had issues with my rolls of 250D this past year. I thought that it might be the film went off in my fridge but it may have just been unhappy with my chemistry.

 

[Joel_L]

I like the speed of the 250, suits what I like to do fine. Have you tried pushing the 50D to 200, if so, how were the results?

As far as the 250D, results have been very consistent for me up until this incident. I have one roll left from the last session of winding cassettes, Before I dump the C41 kit I have now, might give it one more go just to be sure.

 

[Cholentpot]

I like the speed of the 250, suits what I like to do fine. Have you tried pushing the 50D to 200, if so, how were the results?

As far as the 250D, results have been very consistent for me up until this incident. I have one roll left from the last session of winding cassettes, Before I dump the C41 kit I have now, might give it one more go just to be sure.

I've pushed 50D to 100 and developed it the same as 50 with no issues. Never felt the need to go further. I'm not dismissing fully that the film went off though. It's a possibility.

 

[FredK]

This sounds like it could be a failure of the velvet at the lip of the spool and possible a light leak into the chamber when you were bulk loading the cassette. The fog looks like it was fogging from the backside of the film and quite consistently.

As another pointed out, if the chemistry was to blame, the edge with the correct D-min would not have been correct.

 

[Joel_L]

Hi,

Just an update.

After being happy with 250D for a while, I reported the sudden issues I was having in this thread. I stopped using driveway cleaner and switched to a self mixed Kodak formula to clear the remjet, results were still mixed.
I stopped shooting the 250D for a while and started shooting E100 more.

Recently ( in the last week )I went back to the 250D. First roll had the same dark muddy issue and that's when I had my aha moment.

I still do not have a darkroom so just process on a table in my basement near my hot water heated. I would poor the remject clearing solution into my tank, let it sit for 30 seconds or so, poor in back into my bottle for next use. Now I would fill the tank from the hot water heater, shake and dump. Do this four or five times to clear what remjet was going to come off. From there into the Jobo and process. Some times was fine, some times dark and muddy looking.

My aha moment was that the water from the heater was way too hot. Now I'm not sure that it was hot enough to really damage the emulsion or if it just made things hot enough that the developer was really active.

With that in mind, I did a few more rolls using water much closer to the process temperature and all of them came out fine. I used my driveway cleaner to clear the remjet, no issues. Each roll looked like I would expect it to.

So, why the inconsistency, I think it was a matter of if the hot water heater had just been used so that the water temperature was much lower, vs a freshly heated up tank full. Stupid right!

Anyway, my 250D process is back into control and giving good results.

Moral of the story, watch those temperatures, I measured the water out of the heater at what I think is its hottest and it was 140F, poor film.

 

[ChrisGalway]

Hi,

Just an update.

..........

Moral of the story, watch those temperatures, I measured the water out of the heater at what I think is its hottest and it was 140C, poor film.

No, not 140C, unless your water heater produces super-heated steam! I think 140F or 60C. Still way too hot.

 

[Joel_L]

No, not 140C, unless your water heater produces super-heated steam! I think 140F or 60C. Still way too hot.

Yes, you are correct, that should have been obvious to me., fixed my post., Thanks

 

[Quiver2]

Surprised that you didn't have any reticulation in your film. I used full hot water for my rinses when doing ecn-2, had fine marks throughout my images. Started to temper my rinse water and the problem went away.