Adotex CMS 20 II Developing Problems and Tips

Hello guys,

I would like to know your opinion about the light spots you see in the picture below.

I took this shot a few months ago and developed it only recently. The film is Adotex CMS 20 II Pro. This is not the only picture of the roll showing light spots, which, however, in other shots appear with different sizes and in different positions. Given this and the fact that in all other rolls I've taken thereafter there is no trace of such spots, I wonder whether they are, rather than light leaks due to pinholes in the curtains, artefacts stemming from a wrong development. Or, in fact, are they tiny light leaks, which become only noticeable at long exposure times?
As you can see, the film is highly scratched too. It was my first experience with it, and I must admit I had some troubles when loading it into the reel. It kind of jammed. The are also "bands", which are likely due to an uneven development. Yet, I was careful during the first 30 sec. of agitation not to be too harsh, and so was I at each single inversion to be repeated every following minutes. Perhaps, the fact that the room temperature was of 26 Celsius degree didn't help. When developed in ADOTHECH IV at ISO 6, the solution must be at 20 degrees; I poured the developer in the tank at that temperature, but the stop bath and the fixer were at room temperature.



Is there anyone familiar with this film who can enlighten me a bit? Thanks a lot!





Best,

Nicola

What you consider as scratches is dust.

Why it settled only in that part of the frame has yet to evaluated.

Thank you dear! Good to know it is just dust and not scratches. Regarding the uneven distribution, I thought that the scratches (dust) were all over the negative, and that they were simply more visible in the lighter and less detailed parts of it. True or not, I can definitely improve in this respect and try to keep the negative away from dust particles.

I still wonder about the cause of the light spots. I really don't know whether they are light leaks or something else; for examples, air bubbles that were not dislodged during the development. In this respect, let me add this: I developed two rolls in the same tank. The light spots are in some frames of one roll and only in a single frame of the second roll. In the second roll, though, tI can see an uneven development in the shots taken at lower exposure values. To give you an example, you can look at the two pictures in attachment. The first one was taken indoor with an EV of 6, the second one outdoor with an EV of 13.

To make things clear. I don't think there is any problem with the film itself. I believe I did something wrong when developing it, and I'm trying to figure out what exactly. Thanks again for your help!

I have never seen marks like that before. White dots with dark tone around them... which on the negative would be black dots with light tone around them. The other stuff appears to be black lint-like stuff stuck to the film...

Assuming you got a full-format 35mm and a reel tank, than most likely the inversion flow takes place along the short sides of the photo, which then contradicts a possible assumption of some surge markes next to those spots.

Curtain pinholes wouldn't show more in longer exposures, they'd show more on frames that sat longer in the gate between advances. Also, they'd be small and fairly sharp-edged, unless the pinholes were large enough or the light bright enough to induce serious halation -- which would look like halation.

Thank you both for your reply, really appreciated. I tried to have a look on internet to see whether I could find any white dots similar to those I got, but I didn't find anything. They remain a bit of a mistery.

4r36 said:

Thank you both for your reply, really appreciated. I tried to have a look on internet to see whether I could find any white dots similar to those I got, but I didn't find anything. They remain a bit of a mistery.

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I've had exactly the same problem with CMS20 II, to the letter, not a variation of the problem but the same thing. Spots like I've never seen them before on any film, what looks like dust or scratches but not added by me, and banding. And it will occur on one negative and the next could be perfect, maybe three exposures later it will show up again. It tends to be at the start of the roll and primarily on a batch I bought early this year, I've used it since from a different batch and it seems ok. The spacing and eventual decline in the spots as the roll is used makes me wonder if the spots and dust/scratches aren't something deposited on the film via rollers in the coating machine?

250swb said:

The spacing and eventual decline in the spots as the roll is used makes me wonder if the spots and dust/scratches aren't something deposited on the film via rollers in the coating machine?

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The coating of this film can be considered top notch. A coating defect is the last I would consider. Aside that I do not even see anything hinting at a coating defect.

I have a fresh box and am not seeing any defects, whatsoever.

4r36, I take it that these spots are in the negative i.e. under a magnifying loupe with the negative on a lightbox you can see the spots and if you can, are they blank or black on the negative?

When they appear on other negatives are they in different places and do they look exactly like the first spots in the sky on the negative you showed us

Try and take a digital pictures of those negatives that are affected and show us these. That way we can be sure that the defects have nothing to do with the scanner

Thanks

pentaxuser

Sorry for the low res quality but I've just copied this from a digital contact sheet done with my Epson. But the results are the same if I use my Nikon Z7, the spots are NOT due to the scanning method. They appear on frames at the beginning of the film, and are random in that the frame before this is clear, and the frame after is clear. Subsequent batches of CMS20 II are also clear of spots. When I was getting these spots I was only using Adotech IV as the developer and following the instructions to the letter, but I'm not blaming the developer as the last two thirds of the roll are clear of faults of any sort.

I've shot quite a bit of this film in 4x5 and 135, always having developed it in Adotech IV similar to you. Regarding the scratches -- I'm quite sure those are, in fact, scratches from handling. The emulsion of CMS II 20 is extremely delicate and scratches easily. My first several 4x5 sheets have similar scratches on them from me learning how to load the film into and out of film holders, as well as into a developing tank. The film base is extremely thin and flimsy for 4x5 film, so it's a bit trickier to handle than something like Tmax 100 or FP4. Accordingly, it can get mangled pretty easily if you're not careful. The 135 version isn't quite as thin, comparatively speaking, as the 4x5 but it is still thin for a film base. The emulsion is soft regardless of format. Great film, but it requires very careful handling.

Regarding the spots, I think we can say with fairly high confidence that these are areas of excess silver density. Why they exist is the question. They could either be the result of excess exposure or excess development, since both could result in anomalously high silver density. One tell-tale sign in the image you showed in post #1 is the presence of "rays" that are shooting out from either side of the spots. The rays exhibit low density, meaning they're characterized by relative underexposure or underdevelopment compared to their respective spots. I can't think of how an exposure problem (e.g., curtain pinholes, condensation, etc.) would produce a low-density/high-density pairing like this. A development problem, however, might. As a hypothesis, it might be that the spots got over-developed for some reason, and then this localized overdevelopment resulted in a simultaneous, localized exhaustion of the developer, which gave rise to the rays. That said, it's not clear to me why the exhaustion would result in a ray-like pattern -- I'd be more inclined to expect a circular pattern, for example.

If you could give us more details on your developing routine, that might help eliminate some possibilities. It would also help if we could see a closeup photograph of the offending negatives on a light table.

Scott J. said:

If you could give us more details on your developing routine, that might help eliminate some possibilities. It would also help if we could see a closeup photograph of the offending negatives on a light table.

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This is a coating problem despite what some disciples of Adox claim. I got exactly the same results as the OP and posted them above.

250swb said:

This is a coating problem despite what some disciples of Adox claim.

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This film is not coated by Adox, thus there is no reason for deciples of Adox to claim anything.

And just that you too got same artefact does not necessarily means that it is a coating error.

250swb, what response did you get when you contacted Adox about your issue?

Thanks

pentaxuser

250swb said:

Well said, a definitive and knowledgeable comment made by somebody who has never used the film. You should really pull you neck in or you could make yourself look even more stupid.

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I was involved in the photochemical industry in R&D in getting a similar film into the market.

250swb said:

I'm sure we would all be interested in your explanation of how two people who don't know each other can get exactly the same artefacts? Did we both win the lottery, a one in a billion chance?

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As I said the artefact does not look to me like a coating defect.

But let us assume it would be a coating defect. How then do you explain that both of you just got the same faulty patch from the master roll into just into your cassettes?
It was you speaking of a one in a billion chance.

And let us assume the artefact was not produced by you in any way. Does that make it then a coating fault?

You just did not understand what I was saying.


I participated in countless artefact discussions here at Apug. Some where straightforward to explain. Others were never solved...

Aside of the straightforward cases most artefacts explanation need full detail on exposure and processing added with physical examination.

{Moderator deletion of response to deleted post}

I believe this film is made by Agfa gevaert and sold commercially as EPM imagelink HD, (which replaced copex hdp), principally as a microfilm hence the extreme constrast the developer tries to tame. Given the archival use it seems more likely to be an issue unique to its use in pictorial photography. (Fujifilm are the other manufacturer still active in microfilm).

Interestingly this review here refers to two rolls affected by ’water spots’

Seventh poster in this chat put this down to finding that any impurities in tank affected development which could be an credible explanation to pursue?

Coating defects:

are the most veiled issues at the industry.

both

-) as artefact itself, which by no means may end in the final product
-) as topic to be discussed

Both of course makes it difficukt to discuss them here.

But what I can say is that at top notch production the coating surface is screened for faults.

Arcadia4 said:

Fujifilm are the other manufacturer still active in microfilm.

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There are more. But Agfa is dominant.

AgX said:

As I said the artefact does not look to me like a coating defect.

But let us assume it would be a coating defect. How then do you explain that both of you just got the same faulty patch from the master roll into just into your cassettes?
It was you speaking of a one in a billion chance.

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It would have been a one-in-a-billion chance for the OP and myself to create exactly the same mistakes during exposure and processing to create the same artefacts.

I was taught film processing in 1974 and have been doing it since then, and one thing I was taught was to never think you've made all the mistakes, because sooner or later if you live long enough you'll eventually make every mistake possible. So to narrow the possibilities down I bought another ten rolls and processed them all in exactly the same way as the faulty films, and they turned out perfect. Equally the faulty films had the artefacts clustered together over six or seven frames, on the first three films they were at the start of the roll so I thought this was the common denominator, but on a subsequent film there was a cluster in the middle of the roll.

So while I would never rule out a mistake on my part the chances of it being a coating fault on a small batch of film becomes ever more likely. Knowledgeable people such as yourself do have a tendency to say 'its never happened to me', as if that is proof something like a coating fault can't happen. But the phrase 'it has never happened to me' is simply ignorance or lack of imagination of what could happen, and it's imagination of what could happen that keeps us as photographers on our toes, looking ahead for potential problems to avoid them, just like a driver going down the road, or at least a good driver going down the road.

250swb said:

So while I would never rule out a mistake on my part the chances of it being a coating fault on a small batch of film becomes ever more likely. Knowledgeable people such as yourself do have a tendency to say 'its never happened to me', as if that is proof something like a coating fault can't happen. But the phrase 'it has never happened to me' is simply ignorance or lack of imagination of what could happen, and it's imagination of what could happen that keeps us as photographers on our toes, looking ahead for potential problems to avoid them, just like a driver going down the road, or at least a good driver going down the road.

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-) I never said "it did not happen to me"

-) I said, a coating defect is the last that comes to my mind

-) I said that a fault outside the user control not necessarily is a coating error

-) I said that some errors could not be explained here at Apug even after long discussion. Partially as we lacked sufficient information on the film affected. (Same applies on the manufacturers themselves in such cases.)

Saying that I am lacking imagination thus is completely unreasoned.
Instead you, after having experienced a defect only once in a similar row, not only are convinced that the cause is located at the manufacturer, but you even insist on where at the production process the defect has been set.
Also keep in mind that this film originates from two manufacturers, with different share in the manufacturing process.

Manufacturers have an archive with defects of any kind. A great lot of these have been published. As said, for good reason manufacturing, especially coating, errors, not. But already what has been published could be an eyeopener to anyone with lack of imagination.

AgX said:

-) I never said "it did not happen to me"

-) I said, a coating defect is the last that comes to my mind

-) I said that a fault outside the user control not necessarily is a coating error

-) I said that some errors could not be explained here at Apug even after long discussion. Partially as we lacked sufficient information on the film affected. (Same applies on the manufacturers themselves in such cases.)

Saying that I am lacking imagination thus is completely unreasoned.
Instead you, after having experienced a defect only once in a similar row, not only are convinced that the cause is located at the manufacturer, but you even insist on where at the production process the defect has been set.
Also keep in mind that this film originates from two manufacturers, with different share in the manufacturing process.

Manufacturers have an archive with defects of any kind. A great lot of these have been published. As said, for good reason manufacturing, especially coating, errors, not. But already what has been published could be an eyeopener to anyone with lack of imagination.

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I guess you want to make the distinction between a coating problem when the film was being coated and a problem with the coating caused after the film was packed. I don't care, it is still a coating problem for the consumer as in the coating for whatever reason didn't work as intended. It is not my intention to twiddle my thumbs waiting until somebody decides in their wisdom a better theory than a fault with the coating, I continue to use the film based on the reasonable assumption it was a short lived occurrence.

You could take some advice from Sherlock Holmes who wisely said 'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.' All you have done is said no to everything, but I have tested the film, I have processed it, I have found problems, I also found the problems went away with a new batch of film. So I now have a working theory. If you are as much of a scientist as you say you are you should recognise that is how experiments often work, the theory can remain valid until somebody disproves it by further work, but you'd be laughed out of the lab if all you did to disprove it was say 'I don't think so'.

pentaxuser said:

250swb, what response did you get when you contacted Adox about your issue?

Thanks

pentaxuser

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Any chance you might be able to reply to my question on Monday

Thanks

pentaxuser