Crazed Pattern - Tri-X

Josh T · Oct 30, 2021

Evening,

Hoping someone has seen this before and can give me some idea what's happened. Just developed 4 rolls of 35mm Tri-X in my Paterson tank and all four have the same weird crazing pattern. I am stumped by this I've thrown 40 odd rolls of film through the same combination of camera, film, chemicals and development method with great results until now. Very simple setup - D-76 (1:1), Kodak Indicator Stop, Ilford Rapid Fix. All times according to the datasheet.

The only difference with previous sessions was that I used a brand new bottle of Kodak Indicator Stop - but surely it can't be this? Having done a test with a known good negative I also know it ain't the scanner.

Baffled. Anyone got any ideas?

Pieter12 · Oct 30, 2021

Reticulation. Didi you use really hot water sometime during processing or washing?

Josh T · Oct 30, 2021

Pieter12 said:
Reticulation. Didi you use really hot water sometime during processing or washing?

Hot no, but I did use some warm water from a bath for the final wash out of lazyness.

Bet that was it. Bollocks!

tomkatf · Oct 30, 2021

Classic reticulation...

Josh T · Oct 30, 2021

tomkatf said:
Classic reticulation...

And I've learned a valuable, if expensive, lesson.

Sirius Glass · Oct 30, 2021

Pieter12 said:
Reticulation. Didi you use really hot water sometime during processing or washing?

tomkatf said:
Classic reticulation...

They nailed it.

MattKing · Oct 30, 2021

Reticulation, but you may find that it is particularly emphasized if you are scanning.

Bill Burk · Oct 30, 2021

Josh T said:
And I've learned a valuable, if expensive, lesson.

In my life I have never gotten that, even by trying.

Quite an accomplishment and if you’re careful with temperature it will probably never happen to you again.

gone · Oct 30, 2021

Congratulations! I've never had anything like that happen either, even when I was trying fixer for use as a developer (you just get no images, which is not much fun). This type of learning experience is actually pretty neat, although I'm not sure that a hot water wash would do that. I once developed a roll of 120 Shanghai film, turned the tap on to wash it, and walked away for an hour. Turned out I had accidentally turned on the Hot tap, not the Cold, and steam was coming out of the tank.......the negs turned out perfect. Go figure.

You may have invented a new technique for photography. If you enlarged that shot (maybe just the head) a little more than it should really go, then tried experimenting w/ different filters and papers to up the contrast, you might have a cool mosaic look on the print. But, you would have to remember or discover what went "wrong" on these rolls.

DREW WILEY · Oct 30, 2021

My brother would sometimes deliberately reticulate old thick-emulsion Super-XX sheet film by passing it back and forth between trays of hot and cold developer. Too strong a stop bath can do it with some films, especially if the developer itself was too warm. Indicator stop bath should be well diluted and only be about as strong in yellow color as light piss, for lack of a more noble way of stating it. More modern film emulsions tend to be thinner and less likely to reticulate. HP5 might do it under abusive temps, though it's never happened to me with any film. Now there are - you guessed it - digital apps that replicate this crazed pottery reticulated look. Might make a timely Halloween portrait, ala the diseased Stone Man of Game of Thrones lore.

Alex Benjamin · Oct 30, 2021

Interesting 2016 article on the Ilford website about how to do it on purpose: https://www.ilfordphoto.com/unleash-that-reticulated-film-python/

Patrick Robert James · Oct 30, 2021

As the young'uns say these days, hold my beer...

This happened almost 20 years ago. I was washing some film and went to meet a friend for dinner. Left the film soaking figuring I'd be back in an hour or so. Dinner turned onto a bar and, well, don't think I remembered the film until the next day. That is the full negative. I ended up printing them anyway. Really small. They are bizarrely beautiful prints.

I used to get reticulation like the OP's every now and then with APX400. Kind of surprised that TriX did that. How strong was the stop bath? Did you use it straight by chance?

Huss · Oct 30, 2021

Bill Burk said:
In my life I have never gotten that, even by trying.

Quite an accomplishment and if you’re careful with temperature it will probably never happen to you again.

I got that same exact pattern when my dev and wash's delta was about 10 degrees. Last year. I was mad at myself for getting sloppy.

Kino · Oct 30, 2021

Patrick Robert James said:
How strong was the stop bath? Did you use it straight by chance?

I used undiluted 28% stop once by accident; the negatives curled up into tight, pencil shaped tubes and refused to relax. Think it was Tri-x.

Moose22 · Oct 31, 2021

Kino said:
I used undiluted 28% stop once by accident; the negatives curled up into tight, pencil shaped tubes and refused to relax. Think it was Tri-x.

That's kind of nuts. I almost want to try it with some junk film, just to see it happen. I'm just now back to home developing and am still very ham fisted and can totally see it happening. Wouldn't take too much of a distraction for me to grab the wrong bottle. Like if my room mate saw me working in the kitchen and decided to talk my ear off while I was playing with my chemistry.

So, what happens if you use your full strength stock solution HypoClear instead of your working solution?

Asking for a friend.

radiant · Oct 31, 2021

Patrick Robert James said:
This happened almost 20 years ago. I was washing some film and went to meet a friend for dinner. Left the film soaking figuring I'd be back in an hour or so. Dinner turned onto a bar and, well, don't think I remembered the film until the next day. That is the full negative. I ended up printing them anyway. Really small. They are bizarrely beautiful prints.

Holy crap that looks awesome. So you just left the film in soak for next day after fixing? I must try that!

Don_ih · Oct 31, 2021

I got exactly the same crazed reticulation when I developed a roll of PlusX that had spent about 6 months in my van (going from very hot to cool daily). @MattKing - this is one of those things that do show up very well both scanned and enlarged - maybe even sharper when enlarged.

RalphLambrecht · Oct 31, 2021

Josh T said:
Evening,

Hoping someone has seen this before and can give me some idea what's happened. Just developed 4 rolls of 35mm Tri-X in my Paterson tank and all four have the same weird crazing pattern. I am stumped by this I've thrown 40 odd rolls of film through the same combination of camera, film, chemicals and development method with great results until now. Very simple setup - D-76 (1:1), Kodak Indicator Stop, Ilford Rapid Fix. All times according to the datasheet.

The only difference with previous sessions was that I used a brand new bottle of Kodak Indicator Stop - but surely it can't be this? Having done a test with a known good negative I also know it ain't the scanner.

Baffled. Anyone got any ideas?
View attachment 289553 View attachment 289554

neat trick!

removed account4 · Oct 31, 2021

Josh T said:
Baffled

Josh T I hope you can do this some more when you want this kind of look. for years I've done everything to screw up my film as much as possible to get wonderful serendipitous effects like this. I hope you don't think I am joking, this is wonderful stuff, she looks like a cast member from a sci fi movie!

Patrick Robert James said:
They are bizarrely beautiful prints.

Patrick I hope you made more of these mistakes, they would make a beautiful pages in a small hand crafted book.

John

Patrick Robert James · Oct 31, 2021

Moose22 said:
That's kind of nuts. I almost want to try it with some junk film, just to see it happen. I'm just now back to home developing and am still very ham fisted and can totally see it happening. Wouldn't take too much of a distraction for me to grab the wrong bottle. Like if my room mate saw me working in the kitchen and decided to talk my ear off while I was playing with my chemistry.

vedostuu said:
Holy crap that looks awesome. So you just left the film in soak for next day after fixing? I must try that!

I did it again just this last week. Developed some film at night and forgot I left it soaking until the next day. This time the negs were perfect. Eastman XX and Fomapan 400. I think Agfa APX 400 was easy to reticulate. It would just depend on the film.

Patrick Robert James · Oct 31, 2021

jnantz said:
Patrick I hope you made more of these mistakes, they would make a beautiful pages in a small hand crafted book.

John

I think it was four or five rolls. I did print them years ago just for the heck of it. Super small prints, maybe 3" or so.

radiant · Oct 31, 2021

@Patric Robert James are you sure you didn't use too hot water on that case? Can you provide the look of the reticulation up close on these?

I would really like to learn how to make such reticulation.

MattKing · Oct 31, 2021

Don Heisz said:
I got exactly the same crazed reticulation when I developed a roll of PlusX that had spent about 6 months in my van (going from very hot to cool daily). @MattKing - this is one of those things that do show up very well both scanned and enlarged - maybe even sharper when enlarged.

That is actually quite weird.
Not that the film was damaged, but rather that film storage conditions led to this sort of damage.
I would still suggest trying to optically print those negatives using a diffused light source. The extremely regular and geometric nature of the patterns make me think that there might be some interaction there between the damage and a sensor and some software.
There will still be damage, but it may be pleasing in a different way.

Don_ih · Oct 31, 2021

MattKing said:
That is actually quite weird.
Not that the film was damaged, but rather that film storage conditions led to this sort of damage.
I would still suggest trying to optically print those negatives using a diffused light source. The extremely regular and geometric nature of the patterns make me think that there might be some interaction there between the damage and a sensor and some software.
There will still be damage, but it may be pleasing in a different way.

The negatives I had that had that dried-riverbed emulsion crazing enlarged (using my Chromega) to show the same pattern. It wasn't pleasant.

MattKing · Oct 31, 2021

Don Heisz said:
The negatives I had that had that dried-riverbed emulsion crazing enlarged (using my Chromega) to show the same pattern. It wasn't pleasant.

I've no doubt!
It would be interesting to see how scans from them would appear - how different, or how similar.

Crazed Pattern - Tri-X

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