Can anyone diagnose this problem with bulk-rolled film I bought

[loccdor]

I bought a batch of Double-X rolled into recycled 35mm metal cassettes from an individual. Just developed 2 tonight. One came out fine and the other is showing light intrusion around the sprocket holes, that occasionally goes into the image area. This light intrusion is very consistent from beginning to end of the roll, so I'm thinking it happened in the bulk loading process rather than when it was all in its cassette. Here is the picture of the end of the affected roll.

 

[AZD]

I don’t know for sure, but it looks like the reseller’s bulk roll was opened with the lights on. Light appears to be leaking from both sides to a regular depth, plus the occasional stray beam where the layers of film weren’t in perfect contact.

 

[loccdor]

@AZD Thank you for the information, that sounds very plausible to me. I talked to the seller, he told me to let him know how further rolls go, and he will also send me some free rolls of film.

 

[AZD]

Glad it worked out. Hopefully the next rolls are better.

 

[Kino]

Yup. That is edge fogging.

Double X is a motion picture film; note the B&H barrel perforations. He's probably selling from short ends that have been recanned on set. It's not hard to edge fog the film in the heat of the shoot!

 

[Craig]

Could be the cassette too, the spool end might not be light tight, or the end cap.

 

[loccdor]

Could be the cassette too, the spool end might not be light tight, or the end cap.

I thought about that, but in cases where that has happened to me, the start of the film has a lot more leaking than the end. This is very consistent from start to end of roll.

 

[loccdor]

Yup. That is edge fogging.

Double X is a motion picture film; note the B&H barrel perforations. He's probably selling from short ends that have been recanned on set. It's not hard to edge fog the film in the heat of the shoot!

Thanks. He said he is selling from two 400ft cans and that he has tested some film from both.

 

[loccdor]

Is there a possibility that this could be what's known as "friction fog"?

 

[Kino]

Is there a possibility that this could be what's known as "friction fog"?

You mean pressure fog? Not likely.

Hopefully it's just a bit of "run up" edge fogging that occurs when you load a magazine with a roll and, for whatever reason, you need to recan the load to change film stocks.

If it's that, it should disappear within a few feet of the head of the roll...

 

[Corn_Zhou]

It is possible that the roll had been opened somewhere and seen light. If it is not exposed for too long the inner side would survive but the edge would be 100% cooked.

 

[koraks]

It is possible that the roll had been opened somewhere and seen light. If it is not exposed for too long the inner side would survive but the edge would be 100% cooked.

Precisely. No doubt this is what happened here.

 

[loccdor]

Thank you. Since this happened on a sealed, 400ft roll and the seller has tested it before, I believe it will only affect a few of the cassettes he made, and most should be good. I've actually never seen what a 400ft roll looks like in its can (or understand anything about how motion picture staff handle film) so I am not able to picture the geometry of it all. Closest I got was using a Bolex to make a stop motion film as a 9 year old in summer camp in the 90s. The teacher handled all the development.

 

[koraks]

Since this happened on a sealed, 400ft roll and the seller has tested it before, I believe it will only affect a few of the cassettes he made

I don't think so.

A 400ft roll of film is essentially a thick pancake with a core/hole in the middle. It looks like this entire pancake was taken out of its packaging and exposed to the light. The packaging of a roll of cine film (Kodak) is inside a black plastic bag, and this bag is inside a metal/aluminum can, and the can is taped shut at the end of production/confectioning; the metal can sits inside a carboard box. Opening the thing up involves taking the can from the box, removing the tape, lifting the lid off the can and opening the plastic bag. It's easy. It's also easy to close everything up again, including re-applying the tape, in such a way that it'll be hard to see if the package has been opened.

Here's an illustration:

The metal cans currently used by Kodak are gold colored, but the shape is virtually the same. Not shown in this picture is the textile tape (looks a bit like bookbinder's tape) that goes around the seam. Also not shown is the cardboard box new cans come in. It also looks like the actual roll of film in this image is much less than 400ft, as there is only little margin between the film and the metal can on a normal/full roll.

The light on your film has penetrated the area around the sprocket holes, mostly. Given the fact that the fogging is similar on both edges, it seems the roll was exposed to normal room light or even daylight, and exposure was fairly through - i.e., they took their sweet time having a look at the roll. It's to be expected that the fogging pattern will be similar across the entire 400ft roll. The leader of the roll would have been entirely fogged, including the image area. This will be true for the outer few layers of film. It's likely that the fog will protrude a little less into the image area on some parts of the film, but I don't expect any of this film to be unaffected.

The film you have is basically FUBAR. Too bad! It's best to purchase cine film directly from reputable sellers. I get mine from frame24.co.uk; I think in the US, there are more choices.
Sadly, one part of the current trend of using cine film for still photography involves a cottage industry respooling the film into 35mm cassettes, where quality control is mostly lacking. Most of the time, there are no big problems, but your case illustrates that things can go horribly wrong, and when it does, sellers are apparently not always upfront about it.

 

[loccdor]

Thank you, @koraks, a lot of detailed information there as always. I just finished scanning the roll, luckily, by my standards, it wasn't fubar, I counted only 2 frames that the problem made a big impact on. It helped that I was shooting snowy scenes. It's a possibility, but I wouldn't jump to dishonesty on the part of the seller - any number of people could have opened the can, and I don't know if his testing included viewing the sprocket area or not, so it's conceivable to me that he might have missed it. Or, the can might have been opened by someone other than him, after he had already tested it.

 

[koraks]

I wouldn't jump to dishonesty on the part of the seller

No, you're right. There's a good chance he acted in good faith.

I don't know if his testing included viewing the sprocket area or not

I can't imagine someone testing film and overlooking this fog. The film was either not tested, or the person who interpreted the tests is not familiar with film.