C-41 processed as GREEN

BrianShaw · Oct 19, 2015

I recently had a roll of Kodak Gold 200 processed that came in an old camera. The camera and the film has rather uncertain history, but it was a point-and-shoot Olympus that may have gone from US to Serbia/Croatia and back. The roll was partially shot so I finished it off and had it processed. The film had faint images but was completely transparent green, including the rebate. All of the rebate markings looked relatively normal. The lab indicated that the roll hay have been expired or otherwise "damaged". I have seen all sorts of things from expired/damaged film but not green like this. Is this something that I simply have never experienced or what?

Photo Engineer · Oct 19, 2015

Extreme safelight fog.

PE

BrianShaw · Oct 19, 2015

Interesting. Thanks.

The lab indicated that "fumes" may be the cause. The odd thing is that the film was uniformly green from tip to tail, including all of the leader. When in the camera the film was stored at frame 4 (or so) so the vast majority of the film was within the canister.

Photo Engineer · Oct 19, 2015

You don't know what the photo lab or previous owner(s) of the film did.

Some strong industrial fumes could do this, but the fumes at that level would be kinda extreme for the holder of the film.

PE

BrianShaw · Oct 19, 2015

The prior owner of the camera and film was my Mom. I'm fairly sure that she wasn't exposed to high levels of industrial fumes. And all I know about the photo processor is that the second roll of similar film (but of known origin) was fine. Everything this lab has done for me before has been fine. I'll chock this up to an odd coincidence and be thankful that there was nothing much of value (and probably nothing much of photographic interest either). Thanks for your insights!

David Lyga · Oct 20, 2015

I will both dutifully and profoundly echo PE here.

For literally a YEAR I wondered why my C-41 negatives had an ugly green cast, throughout, not only on the picture frame. (I even begged APUG to help me on this.) It was only after a year of utter exasperation that I 'discovered' that the red light on my extension cord was to blame. So weak was this light that I NEVER thought that this was the cause of anything so nefarious. I used to manually bulk load film with this light on (five feet from film) and that, alone, fogged the film.

Moral: It is amazing how sensitive to red color film is. - David Lyga

Xmas · Oct 20, 2015

Hi David

I needed to remove the strip light from my dark room and replace with tungsten, the fluro had an afterglow.

If you can see anything in a dark room after 15 minutes you can raise the fog level of modern film.

Noel

BrianShaw · Oct 20, 2015

Thanks very much, David. This was so green I thought it was Irish film!

David Lyga · Oct 20, 2015

What happens is that the film usually does process an image, but that image is lacking in contrast and makes miserable, dull prints. - David Lyga

BrianShaw · Oct 20, 2015

Yes, there were images.... miserable images but present nonetheless.

Andrew K · Oct 20, 2015

Back when I managed a camera store here in Australia around 15/18 years ago there was a batch of film floating that had a fault and certain layers were not coated correctly in manufacture..

I can't recall what the film was, but I recall it was a Kodak retail film, and the processed negs looked terrible - a greenish/brown. And yes, they had normal edge markings

Only way the photo's could be saved was to print them black and white..

Could yours be one of those films?

trythis · Oct 20, 2015

Any chance it was a reloaded canister?

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OzJohn · Oct 20, 2015

Andrew K said:
Back when I managed a camera store here in Australia around 15/18 years ago there was a batch of film floating that had a fault and certain layers were not coated correctly in manufacture..

I can't recall what the film was, but I recall it was a Kodak retail film, and the processed negs looked terrible - a greenish/brown. And yes, they had normal edge markings

Only way the photo's could be saved was to print them black and white..

Could yours be one of those films?

Around that time there was a line of supposed Kodak film being flogged in "dollar shops" here in Oz. It produced greenish negs and printed very poorly. The boxes were styled like Kodak boxes but carried the trade name "Kodakcolor" not "Kodacolor". It was claimed on the box that the film was packaged in Spain. As far as I know Kodak did not make or package film in Spain and I never believed that Kodak actually made this particular film. OzJohn

David Lyga · Oct 22, 2015

Andrew K said:
Back when I managed a camera store here in Australia around 15/18 years ago there was a batch of film floating that had a fault and certain layers were not coated correctly in manufacture..

I can't recall what the film was, but I recall it was a Kodak retail film, and the processed negs looked terrible - a greenish/brown. And yes, they had normal edge markings

Only way the photo's could be saved was to print them black and white..

Could yours be one of those films?

I believe that this was a B&W Kodak TMAX 100 batch from the late 1990s. - David Lyga

C-41 processed as GREEN

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