35mm Lucky shd 100 film blue base color and base plus fog question please.

[Samuel Hotton]

I have just finished processing a roll of 35mm Lucky shd 100. I processed it in Diafine @ 3+3 72 deg F, exposed at 100 asa, clear water rinse, 6 minute fix.
Exposures look great.
My Question: The processed film base has a blue color cast and the base plus fog density is higher (to my eye) than any I've seen before. Is this blue cast and apparent higher base plus fog normal for Lucky shd 100 35mm film?
With thanks,
Sam H.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Is it the base or the emulsion that has the blue color? Take a small piece of the film and soak it in Chlorox to strip off the emulsion. This way you can tell whether the base is colored or not. If the base is not accounting for all of the color then the some dye in the emulsion is not being cleared. In this case soaking the film in a sulfite solution should remove the dye. Also not all films respond well to Diafine.

 

[Samuel Hotton]

Good evening Mr. Koch,
I did as you suggested and soaked a bit of the film in Chlorox. The base *is* the same cyan color in the film stripped or not! So I am to gather that it is just the nature of the film support and not anything I have created in the development process.
Thank you sir. I would have never thought of that experiment with the bleach.
Sam H.

 

[Newt_on_Swings]

Foma also has this annoying blue base. I don't like it, but it prints fine. Fog or apparent fog is kinda tricky to tell if its at low levels and the darker base color can play tricks with your eyes. Try a print and you will know if it's fog that has any affect on your images.

 

[darkosaric]

I like Foma films (I like all B&W films ), but somebody told me that he likes films with clear base because he can judge better contrast in darkroom, and easier to decide which grade filter to apply. I am wondering does different color base of some films has an influence on variable contrast papers?

 

[Samuel Hotton]

Good morning Newt,
You are most correct, I can't tell much without printing it. The cyan base color throws me off. I have good densities in shadows and highlight, should print well. I have never had the opportunity to use Foma films unfortunately, so I was surprised to see this cyan base.
Sam

 

[Samuel Hotton]

Good afternoon Darko,
Good question, I would think that with print paper being sensitive to the blue spectrum, pared with film with a base color of blue/cyan would certainly make an influence with graded papers.
Sam

 

[Samuel Hotton]

Good morning,
Now that I know that the blue/cyan base color is not something I have caused, I am going to expose a second roll as soon as I have similar lighting to what I had yesterday. Yesterday I processed in Diafine, the next will be with Rodinal 1+50.
After combing the web, it was interesting that I found no mention of the blue/cyan base. Also interesting, that when examining the negatives on the light table, I could not see any of the *glow* that people speak of, and can be seen in some of the pictures posted with this film. I used a Nikon FM with several Nikon lenses, I shot front light, back light, side light, contrasty light and flat light. Not much glow to speak of! Some pictures published on the web look like IR film, I'm puzzled. Might be something to do with the amount of shine on the pressure plate, or something that happens in the printing due to the blue color of the base. Maybe I will see more with the next batch processed in Rodinal. We shall see.
Last night I snipped a bit of unexposed Lucky film and placed it in a small tray of plain water. I did not see any dye color come off the film, I saw no change in the color of the film either. Some say that Lucky film has no AH backing, some say it has a little, I don't know, but I do know that no dye came off this film with the pre-soak that I provided.
Sam H.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

I like Foma films (I like all B&W films ), but somebody told me that he likes films with clear base because he can judge better contrast in darkroom, and easier to decide which grade filter to apply. I am wondering does different color base of some films has an influence on variable contrast papers?

The same thing happened to me with Plus-x when Kodak changes the film. The dark blue-green base made it too hard to evaluate the negatives.

 

[Newt_on_Swings]

Tmax 100 in 120 is on a clear base, and it's wonderful to look at and is great for reducing time on big prints but for smaller stuff times can be super short. And yes the clear base does help a lot when in the darkroom. But a simple contact sheet will tell you more and show you what will actually print out. For VC papers the blue tint does not affect it. Only the yellow and magneta colors, if say printing from a color negative film, that would throw it off. Don't want to throw this topic off but I do remember that there was a small discussion on what color light to focus on with a grain finder may affect sharpness. My grain finder/focus finder has a built in flip out blue filter.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Good evening Mr. Koch, ... Thank you sir. I would have never thought of that experiment with the bleach.
Sam H.

Glad to help. Call me Jerry, Mr is too formal.

 

[Samuel Hotton]

Hello all,
Thanks for the good conversation and thoughts about this film, most helpful. Today, I re-shot the scenes I did yesterday in much the same light and conditions. I processed the film in Rodinal 1+50@ 68 deg F. for 12 minutes. I like the negatives better than the ones in Diafine. The apparent granularity is coarser with the Rodinal. The densities appeared identical from both developers at 100asa. Rodinal negatives appeared sharper when examined with a 12x loupe, grain was very acceptable at 5x. Again, I did not really notice the glow effect other than in one negative, and that was a close up of table ware from about 2 feet away shot with a 50mm Nikon @ f 1.4 The Rodinal negatives will print with grade 2 and the Diafine will print likely with grade 3. The Diafine combo would be good with contrasty light and subjects. I do not personally feel the film curl to be that big of a problem. The results so far tell me that the film is most capable of making quality prints for myself. I think my next test is to try this film in a camera with a more shiny pressure plate, perhaps my old M3 DS with the black glass plate to see if I can get a bit of halation working.
With thanks,
Sam H.