Can negatives "bleed"?

Tom Kershaw · Nov 5, 2009

I've seen this effect on occasion when processing film in Paterson tanks.

Tom

mooseontheloose · Nov 5, 2009

The scans

Here's a scan of a couple of frames (excuse the dust).

Photo Engineer · Nov 5, 2009

That does not look like classic bromide drag. Bromide drag is more diffuse.

This is dark on the negative and light on the positive, so the density goes the wrong way as well.

PE

Steve Roberts · Nov 5, 2009

I'm astounded by that, which is far more pronounced than I'd expected. I think light-piping is out the window. I know nothing about bromide drag, but if it's driven by gravity, aren't the stripes going the wrong way, ie horizontally when the film's in the tank rather than vertically? (Apologies if I'm totally off the wall with that comment).

Steve

fschifano · Nov 5, 2009

Ok, that is wierd! I'm reaching here, maybe a dirty lens causing some flare?

mooseontheloose · Nov 5, 2009

I've never seen it before either -- that's why I was kind of stumped. I am shooting with a Bronica SQA (I think this was the 50mm lens), which is kind of new for me (I've had it since May) and exposures ranged between 1-30 seconds. I haven't done a whole lot of low-light work with the camera so far, but it seems to me to be more of a chemical/development problem than a lens problem, because I just don't understand why or how that could happen as a result of the hardware.

DWThomas · Nov 5, 2009

Good grief! Winding the film before the shutter closes? The fineness of the lines and pronounced uni-directional effect seem like more than a development or light pipe thing (but I'm running mostly on intuition here). That said, I have noticed, at least in 120, the base of Acros is one of the clearest, which I would suppose would be more prone to light piping - but I would expect more of a halo effect from that.

My 1.3 cents (after taxes)

DaveT

Kirk Keyes · Nov 5, 2009

Yeah, looks like the winder is pulling the film before the shutter has closed. It certainly is not bromide drag.

DWThomas · Nov 5, 2009

Since Bronica got mentioned ...

For time exposures using the T setting on the lens, the shutter stays open until you push the slider back -- could that be happening here?

DaveT

Mike1234 · Nov 5, 2009

mooseontheloose said:
Here's a scan of a couple of frames (excuse the dust).

Photoshop will fix that.

Tom Kershaw · Nov 5, 2009

DWThomas said:
Since Bronica got mentioned ...

For time exposures using the T setting on the lens, the shutter stays open until you push the slider back -- could that be happening here?

DaveT

Thinking about it (I've not looked at the negatives for a while), I did get these white lines once or twice when using the 'T' setting on the Bronica SQ lenses.

Tom

Mike1234 · Nov 5, 2009

BTW... it's impossible for this to be the "bromide runs" because the streaks go horizontally during development. If your bromide was diahreal it would run 90 degrees the other way (downwardly, not sideways). I suspect shutter problems... stays open a bit until fully advanced then closes fully.

mooseontheloose · Nov 5, 2009

Actually, I think I can see it as a shutter problem. This is not the first time I've shot at dusk or in dark locations with specific sources of light...but that was towards the end of my trip in Japan. Guess I'll have to do some testing on all my lenses to make sure everything's working as it should.

fschifano · Nov 5, 2009

Easy enough to confirm if it is or is not a shutter problem. Go and make some more exposures under similar circumstances, but with some of them replace the lens cap before you close the shutter. If in fact, these streaks disappear when you do that, there's your answer. The film is advancing before the shutter is completely closed. If not, then it's something else.

DWThomas · Nov 5, 2009

mooseontheloose said:
Actually, I think I can see it as a shutter problem. ..... Guess I'll have to do some testing on all my lenses to make sure everything's working as it should.

I just wonder if you were doing the long exposures correctly. I have an SQ-A and what got my attention was your mention of exposures up to 30 seconds, as the SQ-A only goes to 8 seconds under camera control. With the "T" mode, the shutter is opened via pressing the cable release or button, but it has to be closed manually to end the exposure, although I suppose winding the crank to the next frame eventually resets the shutter also, but alas, probably not without moving the film past the still open shutter.

I guess that manual closing method saves using battery power, but I have visions of jiggling the camera trying to flip the little slide to close the shutter. With pinpoints of bright light like you have there, that jiggle could produce a weird little spider web of light trails - but at least, not long streaks. In camera, the top of the image is toward the take-up spool, so it makes sense that winding the film with the shutter open would create trails toward the bottom of the image.

As you might guess from my weasely-worded qualifying phrases, I've probably taken one exposure with the "T" mode since I got the camera three years ago! (But the manual is pretty clear about this particular operation.)

DaveT

Photo Engineer · Nov 5, 2009

You can get horizontal bromide drag through unidirectional agitation, but it is rare. In any case, this looks more like film movement while the shutter is open than anything else, but there are no other ghost images. I think I would expect that to happen if it was film movement.

PE

Mike1234 · Nov 5, 2009

Photo Engineer said:
You can get horizontal bromide drag through unidirectional agitation, but it is rare. In any case, this looks more like film movement while the shutter is open than anything else, but there are no other ghost images. I think I would expect that to happen if it was film movement.

PE

While I do respect your scientific expertise I emphatically disagree. At worst, you might see horizontal smearing of bromide runs but I sincerely doubt it. And they certainly wouldn't be so linear and sharply defined. There is no question in my mind that the shutter is opening slightly on advance and fully closing after full advance. There simply is no other logical explanation.

Ray Rogers · Nov 5, 2009

Mike1234, I think you are mis reading the post.
I think we all agree, this cannot be bromide drag. It seems to be film movement during exposure.

Note that it seems that
1. The length of the "light streaks" are nearly the same no matter where they begin
2. They are unidirectional and do not radiate from the source

I suspect if the OP works backwards,
he will find that the "drag" direction is consistent with film advancment directon.
ie. the primary image preceedes the drag

However, I agree it is unusual that we see no other "ghost" images except from the light sources...
One expects them.
If the shutter were insufficiently opaque, ghosts might be avoided, but under ordinary conditions, I would expect more than just the light sources themselves to "drag".

Perhaps they are just in that "sweet spot" where only the light source is strong enough to record....

Photo Engineer · Nov 5, 2009

Mike1234 said:
While I do respect your scientific expertise I emphatically disagree. At worst, you might see horizontal smearing of bromide runs but I sincerely doubt it. And they certainly wouldn't be so linear and sharply defined. There is no question in my mind that the shutter is opening slightly on advance and fully closing after full advance. There simply is no other logical explanation.

Mike;

I never said they would resemble what we see here. In fact, I say just the opposite.

They can be quite linear but not sharply defined. They look, in fact, just like the sideways bromide drag. In practice, any monodicrectional agitation method can cause drag, even diagonal if the agitation is appropriate to the resultant direction.

Bromide drag around sprocket holes can be circular in effect, surrounding the sprocket holes and overlapping into the image area.

PE

Mike1234 · Nov 5, 2009

Ray Rogers said:
Mike1234, I think you are mis reading the post.
I think we all agree, this cannot be bromide drag. It seems to be film movement during exposure.

Note that it seems that
1. The length of the "light streaks" are nearly the same no matter where they begin
2. They are unidirectional and do not radiate from the source

I suspect if the OP works backwards,
he will find that the "drag" direction is consistent with film advancment directon.
ie. the primary image preceedes the drag

However, I agree it is unusual that we see no other "ghost" images except from the light sources...
One expects them.
If the shutter were insufficiently opaque, ghosts might be avoided, but under ordinary conditions, I would expect more than just the light sources themselves to "drag".

Perhaps they are just in that "sweet spot" where only the light source is strong enough to record....

Photo Engineer said:
Mike;

I never said they would resemble what we see here. In fact, I say just the opposite.

They can be quite linear but not sharply defined. They look, in fact, just like the sideways bromide drag. In practice, any monodicrectional agitation method can cause drag, even diagonal if the agitation is appropriate to the resultant direction.

Bromide drag around sprocket holes can be circular in effect, surrounding the sprocket holes and overlapping into the image area.

PE

Yeah, I guess I'm more tired than I realized. Going to bed now.

MattKing · Nov 6, 2009

Rachelle:

Are the lines parallel to the direction of film movement when winding, or perpendicular to that direction?

Did someone sneak in and jiggle your camera when you weren't looking?

Matt

mooseontheloose · Nov 6, 2009

Matt,

It appears to be parallel to the direction. The most likely scenario, posted above, is that the shutter was not closed properly when I wound it. However, it seems strange that there is no other obvious signs of camera shake to the rest of the image, just the lights. That being said, in my mind, that seems to be the most likely scenario.

I just finished developing another roll of film that was shot at low light with lamps in the foreground but it doesn't exhibit this phenomenom. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to what I was doing at the time (!), or I have a bit of a shutter issue with the lens in question. In any event, I'll retest everything and go over the manual again. I find the Bronica a strange beast to get used to, compared to all of my other cameras.

polyglot · Nov 6, 2009

The lights are so very much brighter than the rest of the scene - 8, 10 stops or more - and they're streaking in the mid-tones. That means the rest of the image will be about 6 stops below the point at which it will not register at all on the film while being wound along. Therefore you would expect to see streaks of the light sources only.

My first thought was a pinhole in the shutter, but I don't know your camera nor even that it has a focal-plane shutter. Winding while the shutter is open due to a misunderstanding of T mode would definitely explain it.

AgX · Nov 6, 2009

The first impression I had was: camera movement.

But then one would hardly see such regular stripes, nor them going vertical in more than one exposure: Except it was some tripod-head issue.
But then still there would be no cause for the lines going beyond the frame edges.
Film motion in relation to the body while exposing explains it all. To me.

dancqu · Nov 6, 2009

Bromide Inhibits Development

Photo Engineer said:
That does not look like classic bromide drag.
Bromide drag is more diffuse.
This is dark on the negative and light on the positive,
so the density goes the wrong way as well. PE

I was about to point that out. Just a ditto. Dan

Can negatives "bleed"?

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