First film in 20 year on new-to-me GX680II camera - neg oddities (pics)

I'm testing a GX680 I recently bought and my darkroom abilities. I think some oddities in the negs are down to developing, but some not and I'm not sure how they arose or their importance. I'm looking to get info for things I need to address / look for in the second film.

Three Jpegs follow.


1st Jpeg. 1st frame of the roll. Are the marks top of frame due to bubbles, even though they go quite deep? Only top side of the first few frames. Patterson tank asks for 500ml and I used 550ml. Didn't use wetting agent hence large drying mark to center frame. But this is a white paper background and seems quite uneven overall?





2nd Jpeg. Last three frames. The frame on the right has a band of extra density on its left edge. I can't think why this may be the case. It can't be related to the denser neg that side of it? (I actually think some frame edges are bit darker or optical illusion?).






3rd Jpeg. There is some offset to the film edge. Normal? Frame spacing is good. Note a tiny bit of fogging at a regular interval on film edge...leading to what you see in the previous last three frame jpeg, which is a bigger line of fogging. What could be causing this? Is the skewed frame distance to film edge shown, indicating the film not spooling straight, hence also fogging one side?

no comment on the first two, but the fogging at the edge of film is common. Mine gets much worse, (but never gets to the image itself.) I think 120 backing paper isn't perfect and if you shoot in bright lights (as I do) it will allow significant edge fogging.

The film edge artifact is from the backing paper not being spooled tight. Could be tension in the camera that isn't great or it could be that the backing paper isn't great or it could be that the paper loosens a bit as it is being unloaded and sealed. I've not used Kentmere film so can't make any better analysis.

Lemmythink said:

Are the marks top of frame due to bubbles, even though they go quite deep?

Click to expand...

Yup, looks like it.

Lemmythink said:

It can't be related to the denser neg that side of it?

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No, don't think so; you'd have to get some exposure in the space between the frames as well if that were the case. Looks like maybe some kind of reflection, if it's really in the negative and it's not part of some uneven illumination of your backlight/lightbox.

Lemmythink said:

s the skewed frame distance to film edge shown, indicating the film not spooling straight

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No, that would have made the frames angled towards the edge, which is something I've never seen, ever, and I really don't see how it would happen. It looks more like some kind of alignment issue related to the film back to me.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the construction of the GX680 to come up with good camera-related explanations for #2 and in particular #3.

Thanks all. I should have put GX680 in the title (done).

About the bubbles. Don't they seem to be too far down into the negative? I'm not disputing what they are but how come they are so deep? I did strike the Tank down after inversions but on a non-rigid support.

@koraks it is on the neg, and as far as I can remember I didn't move anything between the shots. Next time I will make sure

Congrats; Lemmythink! - These "shadows" are really small - and in general you will kind of always have such tiny shadows, maybe, unless you load and deload them films in total darkness.

Jan-Peter
Lake of Como - Val CHiavenna

Lemmythink said:

1st Jpeg. 1st frame of the roll. Are the marks top of frame due to bubbles, even though they go quite deep? Only top side of the first few frames. Patterson tank asks for 500ml and I used 550ml. Didn't use wetting agent hence large drying mark to center frame.

Click to expand...

koraks said:

Yup, looks like it.

Click to expand...

I can hardly see the bubbles on my monitor, but I trust your eyes and those of @koraks. I had a similar problem, that may have started when our water distribution changed from granitic groundwater to limestone groundwater. I received various pieces of advice on this forum. Increasing the volume to 550ml (Paterson tank, 120 film) gave not improvement. In desperation (pre-wash lives close to stand development, etc...) I resorted to a pre-wash with photo-flo (at nominal dilution). Problem solved. Also helps to bring the dev tank to the target dev temperature.
Please Note. My issues were developing Neopan400 that I hoarded before it disappeared. Issues (related to surface tension) may be different with other films.

Jan-Peter said:

Congrats; Lemmythink! - These "shadows" are really small - and in general you will kind of always have such tiny shadows, maybe, unless you load and deload them films in total darkness.

Jan-Peter
Lake of Como - Val CHiavenna

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I removed the second film yesterday in limited lighting and it developed without any lightbleed showing at all. Thanks for the congrats. It seems the camera is in good condition (only maybe a little wobble on the front standard that might actually be normal) and I'm quite thrilled to have it. Also the lens at full extention is so close to what I want (0.98 reproductions size) I'll not be needing an extentions rail and long bellows. I'm almost pinching myself!

bernard_L said:

I can hardly see the bubbles on my monitor, but I trust your eyes and those of @koraks. I had a similar problem, that may have started when our water distribution changed from granitic groundwater to limestone groundwater. I received various pieces of advice on this forum. Increasing the volume to 550ml (Paterson tank, 120 film) gave not improvement. In desperation (pre-wash lives close to stand development, etc...) I resorted to a pre-wash with photo-flo (at nominal dilution). Problem solved. Also helps to bring the dev tank to the target dev temperature.
Please Note. My issues were developing Neopan400 that I hoarded before it disappeared. Issues (related to surface tension) may be different with other films.

Click to expand...

I took a good look at the film in the tank before I poured out the fix on the next film I developed. There was a lot of bubbles down under the surface (about 1cm or more) in the reel. I had been using inversions. I tried mimicing deep tank development and there was a lot less bubbles captured this way. I think I may go that direction if this persists. But there was also no bubbles showing on the negative development this time, and this time I did also pre-wash with plain water.