efke/adox banding/defects

Photo Engineer · Feb 13, 2007

As an afterthought, you might recall that Kodak moved some film production back from China due to defects. I don't know what products, nor do I know details.

PE

mikebarger · Feb 13, 2007

DW

How could you possibly see anything in Ron's response to be judged as a personal attack?

Long day?

dr5chrome · Feb 14, 2007

..yes, maybe so.. a long day.

..of all the film companies, KODAK was actually of more assistance to us, especially in the beginning.

i remember in 1996 i went to the PHOTO expo show in NYC. I went to the KODAK booth just to show them my chromes, then i was only using TXP.
I put the chromes on the light table to see what reaction i would get. The tech behind the counter was the processing expert at the show [forget his name]. He stood there with his arms folded talking to me as if i were the subject and he was the king. As we talked, the arms came unfolded. He grabbed a loupe as we continued to talk. As he was looking at the chromes he popped up suddenly and said, ill be right back, wait here. i waited there for what seemed to be 5 min. or so. I had 3/4 of the kodaks booth in front of me, all asking me questions. The people at the show soon saw the commotion, and soon i had red-shirts in front of me and a crowd in back of me. It was a moment I have never forgotten. Till that point i had never thought of processing film for a living.

About a year after 911 all the folks I had worked with since then have been laid off from Kodak. The last show we did with kodak was PMA '04 and the VIEW CAMERA show in '04. Ed Warner was our main contact with Kodak, he has since left.

dw

www.dr5.com

juan · Feb 14, 2007

Mirko, I've looked at my film box and it is branded Efke - seems to be my last box so branded. I have some boxes branded Adox that I'll open and try out soon.
juan

Photo Engineer · Feb 14, 2007

Just as an additional comment here.

Thinking over this problem, I remembered another fact. The slower the film is coated, the closer together the banding appears. This is due to the nature of the defect or inadequacies in the coating equipment. A fast coating machine makes for a spread out wave, and a slow speed makes for a short compressed wave.

This may be intuittive to some of the engineers out there, and it is true, so I would expect the problem to be more sever as coating speed is lowered.

I have coated from 10 ft/min up beyond 500 ft/min. I have never seen banding, but I have seen streaks and repellancies. Streaks come from not coating enough emulsion and repellancies and streaks come from surfactant poblems.

Comets, another defect, comes from particles and bubbles.

PE

wildbill · Feb 16, 2007

i've got a box of pl100 in 8x10 and i'm reluctant top open it now. I've have the banding problems with efke 25 quite a bit and it thought it was due to retracting the film too quickly when tank processing. not so. my ilford stuff is fine. very frustrating when you've got a freezer full of the stuff. as for defects that look like dust, i've got tons of those negs too. i hold my holders upside down and blow them out after loading the film. it looks like the spots are in the emulsion

vinny

Zach-Edwardson · Feb 19, 2007

I don't post here that often, but just throwing my hat in the ring, that I shoot a lot of Efke 100 in 35mm, and yet to have a problem.

Scott Peters · Feb 19, 2007

I shoot EFKE 100 8 x 10 and also never had a problem, tray developed too.

doughowk · Feb 19, 2007

Despite my bad experience with Efke 100 in 7X17, I've since ordered Efke 25 in 7X17 and Efke 100 in 8X10; and these boxes/film have no problems. Maybe they had a bad roll or even improved their QA. I hope so because I do like their film.

Photo Engineer · Feb 19, 2007

My sentiments as well.

Why condemn it all. This is why I hate to make sweeping generalizaions.

PE

Alex Hawley · Feb 19, 2007

Photo Engineer said:
A fast coating machine makes for a spread out wave, and a slow speed makes for a short compressed wave.

Ron, any way this can be detected in process? Vibration technology and analysis has developed by a couple orders of magnitude in the last 20 years. Or is there a way continuously monitor the coating thickness as it passes through the various stages?

Photo Engineer · Feb 19, 2007

Kodak uses IR scanners that detect this.

You can use a reflection method or also use an IR scanner that looks through the film.

PE

Colin Graham · Feb 20, 2007

Photo Engineer said:
Kodak uses IR scanners that detect this.

You can use a reflection method or also use an IR scanner that looks through the film.

PE

Sounds costly...Is it out of the range of a '2nd tier' film manufacturer?

avandesande · Feb 20, 2007

You could probably see fringing if you put an unexposed fixed film with the emulsion side against flat glass.

Photo Engineer · Feb 20, 2007

If you are willing to sacrifice a piece of raw film, you can easily see the banding. I posted an example of one brand of film with that banding here on APUG a while back.

PE

Simon R Galley · Feb 23, 2007

Dear DW,

Firstly, I was concerned about your comment that ILFORD never come back to you...I care...so if you any issues with any of our products PM me and I will ensure they are dealt with switly and efficiently. As always PE gives a superb explanation of the issues involved, we use IR scanning online and the computer generated maps are used by our finishing department to cut out ANY suspect areas on the parent roll ( film or paper ) so it is incredibly rare ( but not impossible ) to have a QC on our products. Our QC ( and KODAK, FUJI and the late AGFA ) is almost mind boggling in its complexity, why ? because we cannot see with the naked eye what we have made so for every batch ( product ) made it starts with the raw materials, emulsion manufacture, coating, finishing, release and the actual process at every stage, and continues till the last TEST sample of every film batch made is processed 5 years after manufacture.

But at the end of the day, film choice is incredibly personal, you buy and use what you like, that gives you what you want, sometimes products have little foibles you have to live with..it does not mean you do not love them..ask anybody who has owned an MG motor car....

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN tcehnology Limited

dr5chrome · Feb 23, 2007

Mr. Galley,

Thanks for the response.

We have on several occasions, as have a few of our clients, contacted Ilford regarding issues, concerns or suggestions.

Given that we run 100's of Ilford rolls weekly, HP5 being our highest volume film, one would think that would carry some weight.

To date, this is the only reply we have had from Ilford and you chose to make it on a public forum.

Regarding film manufacture problems, yes, we have experienced these issue's, with Ilford films. It is not often, but it does happen.

When our clients raise a concern and a manufacture defect is apparent, NEG or POSITIVE, our last response is usually good luck getting a reply from Ilford. Sorry, this is our clients and our past experience.

I understand that these things happen. Film making is not perfect.

regards

dw

www.dr5.com

efke/adox banding/defects

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