Does Tape Glow?

cdullaghan · Feb 7, 2013

Okay, I file this in the uneasy category of Things That Don't Make Sense But Were Nonetheless Empirically Observed: When separating 120 film from its paper backing in my home darkroom, I would swear I see a faint glow as I pull off the tape.

Now, there's no explanation I can come up with, unless there's some kind of micro-chemical reaction of the adhesive hitting the air and giving off a tiny puff of luminescence, but I figured I'd ask you guys if I was crazy.

I think it happens with all film, but the most recent experience and the one I'm surest about was Fuji Neopan Acros. Not so much when I pulled off the paper backing, but when I removed the UPC-code strip of tape at the very end/beginning of the roll, I'm sure I saw something. Total darkness, in my bathroom, with my pupils presumably fully dilated from hanging out in total darkness for the five or so minutes it took to get the film spooled onto the reel up to that point. And no, I have no superhuman powers that I'm aware of.

Has this happened to you?

Vaughn · Feb 7, 2013

Yes, you saw something. There was a discussion on this recently here if you want to search for it. It is caused by the physical action of tearing off the tape...the breaking of the bonds, or something like that. I had thought it was a static discharge, but it is more of a physical/chemical reaction.

It is bright enough to expose the film, but the affect has always been very local -- limited to the area under the tape.

AgX · Feb 7, 2013

Triboluminescence

horacekenneth · Feb 7, 2013

My question has always been - is tape onomatopoeia?

Thomas Bertilsson · Feb 7, 2013

If you remove the tape slowly, the effect is decimated or eliminated.

Mainecoonmaniac · Feb 7, 2013

Yes there is a faint glow. I think it's static. But it won't ruin your film if the last frame is far enough from the taped portion when you pull the tape of your film.

cdullaghan · Feb 7, 2013

Nice! Thanks for the reassurance. I did indeed wonder if it could affect the film, if it was real. Static makes more sense than chemistry... and sorry for not spotting the earlier conversation on this.

Count me astonished that this has actually come up before -- and credit that to the formidable exhaustiveness of this forum.

Vaughn · Feb 7, 2013

From Wikipeadia:

Triboluminescence
Ordinary Pressure-sensitive tape ("Scotch tape") displays a glowing line where the end of the tape is being pulled away from the roll. In 1953, Soviet scientists first observed that unpeeling a roll of tape in a vacuum produced X-rays.

dpurdy · Feb 7, 2013

Another glowing oddity... I put rubber bands around my reels so the film doesn't come off in my process. New rubber bands straight out of the bag will give off a glow for a short while the first time they are stretched.

sage · Feb 7, 2013

So do the X rays do anything or are they minimal enough that it doesn't matter?

pentaxuser · Feb 7, 2013

They are powerful. I have a tape of Gloria Estevan and the Miami Sound Machine that has a crackle on it and I was told that this was caused by Fidel Castro facing Florida pulling Scotch Tape to lower the quality of any Cuban exiles' musical recording

pentaxuser

AgX · Feb 7, 2013

sage said:
So do the X rays do anything or are they minimal enough that it doesn't matter?

As already indicated there must be a vacuum to establish an environment where charges are large enough to evoke X-rays.

Loading a camera in vacuum would not be a typical use...

kevs · Feb 7, 2013

pentaxuser said:
They are powerful. I have a tape of Gloria Estevan and the Miami Sound Machine that has a crackle on it and I was told that this was caused by Fidel Castro facing Florida pulling Scotch Tape to lower the quality of any Cuban exiles' musical recording

pentaxuser

:-D

Maybe it was the ghosts of the BBC masts at Daventry. I well remember receiving Radio Moscow on my poorly-shielded stereo system. Ah the happy days of the Cold War...

I have noticed the 'tape glow' phenomenon too but I always thought it was static electricity, which shows how much I know, dunnit.

Cheers,
kevs

gliderbee · Feb 7, 2013

There's a very simple solution to this: don't pull the tape from the film but pull the paper backing from the tape and fold back the tape over the film: that also gives you a much stiffer end to start spooling the film on the reel (I always start from "the other side"). Works great with Jobo reels, but I never tried with Paterson or others.

Stefan

Verstuurd van mijn GT-P7510 met Tapatalk

removed account4 · Feb 7, 2013

when i don't have an enlarger handy to do contact prints,
i usually pull the tape off a 120 roll really fast and chomp on a wintergreen lifesaver ..
it works pretty well

ymmv

NedL · Feb 7, 2013

jnanian said:
when i don't have an enlarger handy to do contact prints,
i usually pull the tape off a 120 roll really fast and chomp on a wintergreen lifesaver ..
it works pretty well
ymmv

If you can do that in a vacuum, you could make your own dental x-rays....

I always fold over the tape on 120 as it goes into the end of the reel too. Someone is going to tell us why that's a bad habit, but so far so good.

Prof_Pixel · Feb 7, 2013

NedL said:
I always fold over the tape on 120 as it goes into the end of the reel too. Someone is going to tell us why that's a bad habit, but so far so good.

I suppose if any paper fibers stick to the tape, they might come off during processing and stick to the film.

TBN · Feb 7, 2013

Yes, the tape glows. Same with opening an envelope - that one also glows.

NedL · Feb 7, 2013

When I was taking the black tape off a bulk spool canister, I was amazed at how bright the green glow was, and glad the tape was on the outside with the film inside!

hgernhardt · Feb 7, 2013

Hm… I wonder…

On my first roll of Delta 3200, I struggled mightily with the tape. It resulted in me worrying the film end quite a bit. I've been wondering if the fogging on the tape end of the film, covering about a frame and a half (6x6cm frames; the length was about the length of film still to be loaded onto the plastic “walking” reel), was an artifact of the tape struggle, the film torsion, or something else.

cliveh · Feb 7, 2013

cdullaghan said:
Okay, I file this in the uneasy category of Things That Don't Make Sense But Were Nonetheless Empirically Observed: When separating 120 film from its paper backing in my home darkroom, I would swear I see a faint glow as I pull off the tape.

Now, there's no explanation I can come up with, unless there's some kind of micro-chemical reaction of the adhesive hitting the air and giving off a tiny puff of luminescence, but I figured I'd ask you guys if I was crazy.

I think it happens with all film, but the most recent experience and the one I'm surest about was Fuji Neopan Acros. Not so much when I pulled off the paper backing, but when I removed the UPC-code strip of tape at the very end/beginning of the roll, I'm sure I saw something. Total darkness, in my bathroom, with my pupils presumably fully dilated from hanging out in total darkness for the five or so minutes it took to get the film spooled onto the reel up to that point. And no, I have no superhuman powers that I'm aware of.

Has this happened to you?

It will have zero to minimal effect. Exposure is Illumination X Time and the illumination is very minimal and the time is very short.

Vaughn · Feb 7, 2013

I like seeing the glow -- it tells me that all is okay and the earth is still spinning even though I am in a dark little room.

Sirius Glass · Feb 7, 2013

Triboluminescence

bsdunek · Feb 7, 2013

desertratt said:
In my day, which is long since gone, the olde tyme news photographers used to glow around 4 p.m. every day. I think they kept a bottle of "glow" in the darkroom.

I've always called it 'Scotch' or 'Bourbon', probably the same thing. After a while I have trouble focusing the enlarger.

Steve Smith · Feb 8, 2013

Thomas Bertilsson said:
If you remove the tape slowly, the effect is decimated or eliminated.

Do you know what decimated means? It means reduced by 10%

Steve.

Does Tape Glow?

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