Defects after developing Ilford Delta 400

[Sérgio Lemos]

Hello everyone,

I'm beginning to photograph with film. To get started I shot two rolls of Ilford Delta 400, had one developed in a lab and one developed at home.

I've noticed some defects in the roll that I developed at home, and I would like to know your opinion about them.

First, the most noticeable defect consists of some white lines. As you can see here:

These lines are perfectly straight and consistent across all frames. I'm not sure what could be the cause of this problem.

The second thing that I've noticed is that my films have some black stains on their borders:


From what I've seen in other websites/forums, those black stains could be produced during the development process.

I haven't noticed any of these problems in the film developed by the lab.

One last thing that I've noticed is that the film developed by the lab seems to have a "cleaner" image, with less pronounced grains. I'm not really sure why.

I've used Ilford Ilfosol 3 at 1+9 for 7 minutes, agitating for 10 seconds every minute. Unfortunately, I could not measure the temperature of the water when developing the film, maybe that has caused me some trouble as well.

Any tip or opinion will be very welcome.
Thank you very much!

 

[Truzi]

Was the same camera used for both rolls of film?

In the first picture, are those lines on the negative itself? It looks like an artifact from scanning. Put the same negative in the scanner, but facing the other way and see if the lines are in the same spot on the image. Alternately, use a magnifying glass, loupe, etc. to view the negative (or take a cell-phone picture of the negative and post it for us).

The second picture - and this is just a guess - seems like the reel may have prevented the chemicals from reaching that area, or a small light leak. Either way, if it does not enter the image area, it's not really a problem.

Finally, others with far more experience than I will comment soon.

 

[pentaxuser]

The black streaks on the edges of the film look similar to the kind of edge streaks I have seen on 120 film when the backing paper was not wound tightly enough and some light got under the paper's edges and onto the film. How this has happened with 135 film I don't know but I think it has to be a light leak.
Are you basing your less pronounced grain on naked eye observation of the lab negs and your negs? Even with a high magnification loupe more grain is difficult to see.

I take it that neither of your films have been scanned? We may be back to the old problem of trying to differentiate a development process issue from a scanning issue.

pentaxuser

 

[Agulliver]

The marks in the rebate area of the film look like a common phenomenon where the edge of the spiral reel simply prevents some chemicals from acting on the film. It often happens, and is not a defect or a concern.

The first picture could be a scratch, or could be a scanning artefact. Are you able to photograph the negative? Or as suggested scan it facing the other way?

 

[Sirius Glass]

The lines on the photograph are scratches, probably from the camera film path or if 35mm the felt cassette pads. The edge stains are from chemicals not getting to the edges because of the reel and those stains are of no concern.

 

[pentaxuser]

The edges presumably never see the light of day in the cassette or camera or when loading onto a reel. If they stick to the reel then as has been said no chemical gets to those parts so they remain undeveloped, fixed or stopped. Once the film is hung up to dry wouldn't those untouched parts appear the same way as a leader cut off from the film prior to processing? When I leave my grey unprocessed leader on the bench it remains grey. So once the film is out of the tank and the unprocessed edges get their first blast of light why do they go black as if they have been exposed to light and then processed?. In the same way that my leader remains grey but goes black but only if I try and process it.

There may be flaws in my reasoning above but I am trying to work out how the edges get to black?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[rpavich]

I'm so glad you brought up the thing about the edge stains....that was driving me batty! I couldn't figure out what was doing it. Glad to know it's nothing.

 

[Sirius Glass]

One could take the film and put it in a tank, not on the reel and use hypo to clear the stains and then rewash plus PhotoFlo.

 

[jeffreyg]

The streaks are white so they would be dark or more dense on the negative. Transilluminate the negatives and see if they are there. If not as mentioned it most likely is from the scan.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/