Film Curl ?!#@

I have been shooting a few rolls of Rollei Retro 400 120 roll film and "Holy Cow"!! This stuff curls so bad it almost turns into a tube. I have sleeved one roll and put a book on top of it for a week but it curls right back up in a minute after I take the book off, even while it is still in the sleeve.

I hang to dry with a weighted clip on the lower end but the film still curls. Is there anything else I can do?

that's weird, i've used lots of it in 35mm and it always dried dead flat - flatter than anything else i've used in fact.

not that that helps you in any way, of course ...

The air is too dry. Next time you develop film hang it in the bathroom and then take a hot shower [you, not the film].

My film dries hanging with weights over the darkroom sink. Standard procedure is to leave some residual water in the bottom of the sink while the film dries. This to promote more humidity and a slow even overnight drying process.

Maybe something like this might help?

Ken

A thing you can try (learned it from an old-timer) is to roll the film in the opposite direction to it's natural curl. So roll rather tight with the emulsion outwards and put a sheet of paper over it (roll that as well over the rolled film) so it works as some sort of packaging. Tape the end of the paper so it stays tube-shaped. After one or more weeks it should be straight when you unroll it again. Hope I made sense.

That sounds like a good idea. I'll try the reverse roll with the next roll of film.

Hi

I only get curl in hot (dry) weather & when I use a squeegee cause film drys 4-5 hours note -25C is hot here!

You need to dry film in high humidity so it drys slower or change film type.

Noel

Xmas said:

Hi

I only get curl in hot (dry) weather & when I use a squeegee cause film drys 4-5 hours note -25C is hot here!

You need to dry film in high humidity so it drys slower or change film type.

Noel

Click to expand...

Thanks Noel.

High humidity really isn't an option here except sometimes in the spring.

As for the film, I have about 4 more rolls to shoot (part of a batch of expired film I bought in the classifieds) at which point I won't be using anymore unless I can whip the curl. I usually use TMX, TriX and HP5, which hasn't curled like this.

As I mentioned, when I do get some curl it is usually fairly moderate. TMX almost always dries flat as a board. I thought perhaps this was unique to this film specifically since the curl was so severe but from what I read here it usually doesn't present with this problem for most people.

I have a roll in my GA645 and as soon as I develop it I'll try drying it over a small bowl of water to see if that has any effect. If not I'll give the reverse roll a try.

I've had this issue with some older Fomapan 120 films also, when they used the blue base. The new clear base is better.

The reverse roll-up is a pretty good trick. I usually end up rolling the sleeve up in a roll, against the coil of the film, and stuff it into a round poster mailer for a few days. That works pretty good too.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

I've had this issue with some older Fomapan 120 films also, when they used the blue base. The new clear base is better.

The reverse roll-up is a pretty good trick. I usually end up rolling the sleeve up in a roll, against the coil of the film, and stuff it into a round poster mailer for a few days. That works pretty good too.

Click to expand...

Thanks Thomas. What I have already shot has been sat on, strapped to the glass holder with several pieces of tape, scanned and then stored in strips in a printfile page.

At this point there is nothing on the first two rolls that I would like to enlarge and print, but I might accidentally shoot such a picture on future rolls.

So I'll try all of these ideas in the hopes that I could actually enlarge and print one of these negatives if I were so inclined.

It does curl like crazy, that's correct.
I have also noticed it for 400S.
The thing that I've done so far is that it was hanging for a day, than I have put it into a thin archival folder and I have kept it in a book.
However it yes, curls badly.
Cheers