Development Marks

It seems that I am having more than my fair share of development problems of late. Here is another one. I have seen these marks before in the past, but thought they were banished after my recent trip to Cornwall where most of my negs were in good shape. What I am doing is not rocket science and my methodology was and does work fine for the most part. However, this stuff always happens on the really important negs!

Here is an example of what I am experiencing. I get blotchy rebates, and banding, sometimes both. I have changed the light traps in ALL my film backs to factory hasselblad traps. Film is either Neopan-400 or TMY-II. It does not seem to matter. I am using Pyrocat 1:1:100 using semi stand, or as Sandy King says, Extreme Minimal Agitation. It has also happened when I develop ACROS in Rodinal 1:50 with agitation every minute.

I've scrubbed my reels more times than I'd care to imagine with boiling hot water and strong bleach with a toothbrush, and or scotchbrite pads.. I've tried either presoak, and not presoaking. I've tried inversion figure of 8 agitation, and combination rolling the tank to minimize air bubbles. It happens in both Steel Hewes reels, or Patterson plastic reels and tanks. nothing appears to get rid of this issue. I do not use photo flo in the tanks. I manually dip the film AFTER the wash and hold both ends of film to form a loop, and run the loop through a bowl of distilled water/photo-flo and am diligent no cross contamination occurs. Photoflo never gets on my reels or in my tanks.

I used fresh chemistry, and did not squeegee my film. What am I doing wrong?? I am at my wits end with this crap anymore. :-( Other folks can be far less diligent in their processing and not have these problems at all. It's just beyond me as to what to try next?

I forgot to add that the neg scans I uploaded into the gallery... ALL of them had to be cropped ot get these issues out of the frame area. As you can imagine I am frustrated as hell.

 

Suzanne, LFN?? sorry not sure what that is?

 

Okay thanks Suzanne, that's very interesting and completely opposite to what I've been led to believe regarding photo flo getting on the reels and tanks as it causes a build up that is supposed to cause development issues like this.

 

Okay, thanks for the details here. Certainly something to try now.... Even though I've heard so many problems regarding photo flo and build up on the tanks/reels.... I guess you can teach an old dog like me new tricks

 

I can also understand the air bubble theory espcially for the blotches on my negs, but still have a hard time beliveing the banding is also airbells??? That looks too uniform. Any theories on that too? I also do not think it's developer related. I have the same problem when using Rodinal and ACROS where agitation is every minute. Even for the semi stand developing with pyrocat, I am agitating every 3 minutes. That's not enough to cause bromide drag problems.

 

Will that try Bob thanks... for the record, I do agitate quite aggressively for the first minute and a half. Especially if I presoak, but usually only for a minute if no presoak.

 

Okay, here is the latest update. At this point, I am not sure the banding is related to filme development. Take a look at the latest negs. These were souped last night after I re-cleaned my tanks and reels in Edwal SIngle soultion tray, dish and tank cleaner. I used distilled water and used fresh chemistry yet again. This time, the banding looks like it's the film back!!! I've changes the light traps twice as well. The last time was to factory Hasselblad traps. You can clearly see the two little dents that give hasselblad negs their signature look in the banding. It's repetitive which would indicate light is being reflected somehow. All of my backs are in good shape, no paint missing, new light traps. What else could be going on? I use a lens shade as much as I can except when I am using filters.... I was not using filters for this shot.

 

Ian, I used stainless reels for these negs. Hewes reels, I had plenty of developer in there. When it happens in the paterson tanks, I develop 3 rolls at a time and fill up with 1500ml of developer. Even if the reels did ride up, they would still be covered. I am begining to think this is being caused during exposure. I have sent this scan up to David Odess to see if he knows about anything of this nature with the hasselblad system. MY gear is in great shape, all backs have new light traps, paintloss is negligible if any on the camera/back mating surfaces. Seems like an internal refelction to me as the two dents are visible on the banding.

 

The interesting thing here is that the two 'dents' are on the side without the light traps and is the side more surrounded by metal and not really much can happen at that side. I will try scanning the same negs 180 degrees around also to make sure it'snot a scanning relfection from the neg!!

 

Okay, after much deliberation, I think I have it nailed. It's not a scientific test but it works for me..... Here are 3 scans of the same neg. Stony Point 12.jpg was placed into my Epson 750m as I normally do and scanned. Stony Point 12a.jpg was rotated 180 degrees and placed into the other side of the neg holder. Stony Point 12c was a scan straight on the bed glass itself with a small piece of glass laid on top... Hence the newtons rings! That said, NO banding.... The mark on the RHS of 12c is actually the glass on top of the neg. Well I'll be a rat's A$$ Not development or camera related at this point..... I guess it just proves that prints are the only way to be sure and that the APUG gods seriously disprove of neg scans!!!

That said, this problem only manifests itself when there is lots of continuous tone like grey sky etc, never for more detailed shot with wide ranging tones are present.

 

Jerry, I do not look at them on a light table. Maybe I should start as I do have a decent 5000k Light table that I do use for my transparencies when I do them.