Does this look like "light leak"

digital&film · Oct 23, 2015

Does this look like "light leak" or are the highlights blown out due to poor development? Camera is a Yashica Mat 124G with Tri-X.

banandrew · Oct 23, 2015

Was this a flatbed scan of a negative? I don't see anything that looks like a light leak. Doesn't look like the highlights are blown either, I'm pretty sure you can darken them in lightroom/photoshop if you desire.

RobC · Oct 23, 2015

nothing looks blown out to me. It looks a little pale and soft to me but that could be scanning for all I know. There is plenty of detail throughout the image.

If you saying the background building is lighter than it should be then that will be either because the contrast range between dog and background was too great for the devlopment time you used or becasue you have slightly over exposed the negative or a combination of both. I rekon half a stop less exposure of the negative nad approx 10% less dev time may have been better but you should be able to get a decent print from that negative.

Show us a photo of the neg against a well illuminated white background which will tell us more.

digital&film · Oct 23, 2015

banandrew said:
Was this a flatbed scan of a negative? I don't see anything that looks like a light leak. Doesn't look like the highlights are blown either, I'm pretty sure you can darken them in lightroom/photoshop if you desire.

Commercially developed and Noritsa scan

Hatchetman · Oct 23, 2015

That could be from a perfect negative. You could print that any way you want.

digital&film · Oct 23, 2015

Here's the scan without using LR to export..

Old-N-Feeble · Oct 23, 2015

It looks fine to me.

digital&film · Oct 23, 2015

Thanks- I'll have Ilford develop a roll and scan some Delta 400, always have good results with Ilford.

Mike Bates · Oct 23, 2015

Light leaks usually appear as white streaks or blobs and often near one edge of the film. I don't see anything in the image that jumps out as a light leak.

I also don't see blown highlights, i.e. areas where detail is lost due to exceeding the density limits of the negative. I see a rather flat, low-contrast image that is typical of negative scans. If you print it at about grade 4, you'll see a lot more pop.

Can you be more specific about your concerns?

RobC · Oct 23, 2015

if lab are doing scans for you then you'll get whatever they give you which may be good or bad but I'd say neg is perfectly good and would print very well. My suggestion above was being very picky. There is no evidence of a light leak that I can see. And becasue its a lab scan which will normally get everything from the neg thats there, the result can look a bit soft which is probably whats happened here. You will nearly always need to tweak lab scan for optimum contrast, brightness and possibly levels too.

Playing with first image you posted and just adding some contrast it gives it more "pop" but some whites in top right are just blowing by doing this. Also we don't know how black thos patches in the dog really are but all in all any exposure or dev problems are really neglible from what we can see.

pbromaghin · Oct 23, 2015

digital&film said:
Does this look like "light leak" or are the highlights blown out due to poor development? Camera is a Yashica Mat 124G with Tri-X.

Nice crop! You got rid of some mostly extraneous junk and really made the subject stand out.

banandrew · Oct 23, 2015

pbromaghin said:
Nice crop! You got rid of some mostly extraneous junk and really made the subject stand out.

I agree, it was a very nice crop, well done OP, won't take much to get a nice print out of this.

railwayman3 · Oct 23, 2015

There is a sort-of "glare" at the bottom right quarter, but I'm sure it's not a light leak, just the brightness of the background. I'm sure that it could be subdued in printing.

Sirius Glass · Oct 23, 2015

It looks good to me. The lighter portion in the lower right is the light reflected from the white wood behind the stair banister.

amilic · Oct 30, 2015

Looks clean to me.

Heres one of my light leak examples:

Obvious on the left. I've had my magazine repaired but have yet to test it since. They found that the side where the dark slide is was slightly bent, perhaps from previous owner dropping it. Before it was repaired, I placed some black sticky tape over the side and had no issues.

Does this look like "light leak"

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