Fog

I had bought ten rolls of "cold stored" Ektachrome 120 a while back from a major supplier. Since I can't find the receipt to verify it, I won't name names.

I took one of the rolls to the Comanche National Grasslands. The snakes, scorpions, heat, and especially the bugs were all tempered by the thought of those big, beautiful 6x9 images from the Bessa. This was the first roll I developed, and to say it was a disappointment is an understatement.

The film must have been hit with massive X-rays. The whole roll is fogged. There is just a faint ghost of the image and the framelines. So now I have nine (quite expensive) rolls that may or may not be any good. My thoughts are to respool it for 620, and in the process snip a half inch or so off the end as a test strip. Is there any way to determine if the film is good without doing a complete development of each strip?

BTW, the next roll of Provia came out fine.

Since the original post engender so much interest, I figured folks were anxiously awaiting an update. In case anyone was wondering, batches of film do get exposed to massive X-ray doses on occasion; 10 out of 10 rolls were ruined.



For the first ones I put a loop of thread around the light baffle and hung a paper clip from that. By the last three strips I had lost enthusiasm and just tossed them all in to the tank. They didn't get fully developed, but enough to show they were ruined.

So sad.

"cold stored" for how long? And we need a definition of "cold stored". Even in a fridge, Ektachrome will start to go bad after 5 years. And I am not sure those look like x-ray damaged films.

Agulliver said:

"cold stored" for how long? And we need a definition of "cold stored". Even in a fridge, Ektachrome will start to go bad after 5 years. And I am not sure those look like x-ray damaged films.

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It would be most unusual for any chromogenic film to have all of the dye couplers not only degrade completely, but to all do it at the same rate. There is an active thread here now for Velvia expired 18 year and it looks pretty much like new film.

This issue was certainly not caused by age. In addition to the Bessa I had my OM-4T loaded with Ektachrome that is at least ten years old. This film came out fine. Some frames were under exposed by about 1/2 stop, but I suspect that had more to do with the midsummer sun on the high plains desert than anything to do with the film.

I also tested samples of the 120 to verify that it was fogging and not some other issue related to the dye couplers. These samples were run thru just the color developer and the blix. The dyes all developed and rendered the yellow/brown, nearly opaque look as expected.

It would be interesting to know if anyone has ever seen this sort of complete degradation caused by any combination of age and storage conditions. But the one thing that will certainly do it is a massive blast of x-rays.

I have transported lots of film through X-ray scanners in airports, sometimes repeatedly, but never had/saw such results. Also: some folks who did report issues, reported wavy patterns and the like, not complete fogging. I wonder, what else may have gone wrong with this film.

Where do you propose the film received such a massive and uniform dose of x-rays?

Kodak has a page detailing X-ray damage to film caused by security scanners and it is not uniform, but as Rudeofus says wavy patterns. Like Rudeofus I've travelled many times with film, sometimes through 7 airports each time having film scanned, and have never as much as seen anything detectable with the eye or a loupe.

SHould your film also have edge markings?

Rudeofus said:

I have transported lots of film through X-ray scanners in airports, sometimes repeatedly, but never had/saw such results. Also: some folks who did report issues, reported wavy patterns and the like, not complete fogging. I wonder, what else may have gone wrong with this film.

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Agreed....I have only had one film damaged by being X-rayed in transit, and this caused definite wavy patterns (exactly as Kodak suggest). There were still remains of the images and edge markings (35mm) visible.

As regards age and "freezer" deterioration, I use quite a lot of older and frozen films, including Ektachrome, and the only recent issue I have found was a very slight colder drift on some Ektachrome expired 2006, this easily cured with a weak 81 filter on subsequent films from the same batch, or a tweak of correction on a scanned image. TBH, I've never seen overall fogging or complete loss of image other than from obvious light fogging or bad chemicals ?

Agulliver said:

Like Rudeofus I've travelled many times with film, sometimes through 7 airports each time having film scanned, and have never as much as seen anything detectable with the eye or a loupe.

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I never mentioned or even proposed that this was caused by carry on baggage scans at an airport. The fact that these do not damage film has been discussed to death. I specifically said "massive" x-rays of the sort that checked baggage or cargo can be exposed to. As for producing a wavy pattern, that would certainly depend on how uniformly it was exposed.

Agulliver said:

SHould your film also have edge markings?

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Yes, it should. Except the film has been fogged and the frame lines are only left as faint ghosts. If you look at the original image I posted you can see the ghosts of both the frame lines and the image. The image was similar to this and it looks exactly like an image exposed on pre-fogged film.

railwayman3 said:

There were still remains of the images and edge markings (35mm) visible.

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Which is the same as what this film showed.

railwayman3 said:

, I've never seen overall fogging or complete loss of image other than from obvious light fogging or bad chemicals ?

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There is not complete loss of the image; the ghost of it is clearly visible. As for bad chemicals, ten out of ten rolls showed the same problem and all ten rolls were developed in the middle of a batch of chemicals that had no problems with the rolls before or after these.

Where do you propose a film would encounter such a catastrophic exposure to X-rays?

Airport hold baggage scanners do the "wavy lines" type of damage - as recorded by various experiments carried out by Kodak and other independent organisations. Nobody has never achieved total fog of a photographic film with any kind of airport equipment or other security scanner.

Part of my job involves being the supervisor/custodian of several highly active radioisotopes including radium which puts out so much alpha, beta and gamma radiation that it is beyond my rate meter to measure. I've actually experimented fogging film with this and still not totally fogged it.

I'm at a loss to explain what your film encountered but I do not believe it was x-rays.

Agulliver said:

Where do you propose a film would encounter such a catastrophic exposure to X-rays?

Airport hold baggage scanners do the "wavy lines" type of damage - as recorded by various experiments carried out by Kodak and other independent organisations. Nobody has never achieved total fog of a photographic film with any kind of airport equipment or other security scanner.

Part of my job involves being the supervisor/custodian of several highly active radioisotopes including radium which puts out so much alpha, beta and gamma radiation that it is beyond my rate meter to measure. I've actually experimented fogging film with this and still not totally fogged it.

I'm at a loss to explain what your film encountered but I do not believe it was x-rays.

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I really think that the OP needs to consider what you say before settling on a "massive" dose of X-rays is the cause.....where could such a dose (and with such an even exposure) come from, unless the films were unrolled or deliberately exposed. But to consider (and try to eliminate?) all other possible causes of fogging:-

Manufacturing fault - not very likely, with a top-end brand, and such a serious fault would almost certainly have appeared on other films from the same batch number.
Freezing - should improve lasting ability, rather than cause deterioration.
Heat - possible ??
Damp - certainly possible, but seems to more often result in mottling on roll films ?
Light - obviously always the main cause of fogging(!), but light leaks usually result in uneven fogging, and a major all-over light exposure would fog to black (or clear film if reversal) and destroy any latent image.
Age - more likely to cause color casts than overall fogging, as the individual emulsion layers are unlikely to deteriorate at the same rate.
Processing - exhausted chemicals, temperature error, light leak, use of incorrect safelight.....but the OP assures not.
Camera fault - could an intermittent fault (hot conditions, weak battery on a dependent camera?) cause gross underexposure to leave framelines with some image, which might then perhaps be accentuated by some other issue (heat?).
Chemical Fumes or Gases - were the films stored in a room, darkroom or cupboard (and maybe outside the manufacturer's sealed packing) where there were any chemical fumes or gases, e.g. solvents, cleaning fluids, gasoline,
vehicle exhaust fumes.
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thuggins said:

I had bought ten rolls of "cold stored" Ektachrome 120 a while back from a major supplier. Since I can't find the receipt to verify it, I won't name names.

View attachment 226547

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I understand your reluctance to say who the supplier was but I presume you contacted the supplier about this disaster. If so, what did the supplier have to say about it, such as how long had it been cold stored, what other film was cold stored in the same place and what problems if any had the supplier had with other customers?. Again I presume that the supplier had a lot more than these 10 rolls in the cold store. How does the film get to you from the supplier? Is there anything in the delivery chain that might help explain it?

I don't know how to ask these questions without appearing to doubt your tale and conclusion as to cause but what the supplier had to say might help to get to the bottom of this.

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

I understand your reluctance to say who the supplier was but I presume you contacted the supplier about this disaster.

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I went thru four years worth of receipts and discovered that I buy a butt load of film. But the one receipt for this film was nowhere to be found. I buy film from about a half dozen different places, and even if I think I remember which company this came from it would neither be proper nor productive to contact them without full order details.

railwayman3 said:

I really think that the OP needs to consider what you say before settling on a "massive" dose of X-rays is the cause.....where could such a dose (and with such an even exposure) come from, unless the films were unrolled or deliberately exposed. But to consider (and try to eliminate?) all other possible causes of fogging:-

Manufacturing fault - not very likely, with a top-end brand, and such a serious fault would almost certainly have appeared on other films from the same batch number.
Freezing - should improve lasting ability, rather than cause deterioration.
Heat - possible ??
Damp - certainly possible, but seems to more often result in mottling on roll films ?
Light - obviously always the main cause of fogging(!), but light leaks usually result in uneven fogging, and a major all-over light exposure would fog to black (or clear film if reversal) and destroy any latent image.
Age - more likely to cause color casts than overall fogging, as the individual emulsion layers are unlikely to deteriorate at the same rate.
Processing - exhausted chemicals, temperature error, light leak, use of incorrect safelight.....but the OP assures not.
Camera fault - could an intermittent fault (hot conditions, weak battery on a dependent camera?) cause gross underexposure to leave framelines with some image, which might then perhaps be accentuated by some other issue (heat?).
Chemical Fumes or Gases - were the films stored in a room, darkroom or cupboard (and maybe outside the manufacturer's sealed packing) where there were any chemical fumes or gases, e.g. solvents, cleaning fluids, gasoline,
vehicle exhaust fumes.
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That is an interesting list. I will be sure to check my E-6 safelight. There are various places on the interwebs where heat damage has been addressed. It can cause color shifts, but not this sort of fogging. It used to be quite common for film to be left in hot cars for the duration of one's vacation with no perceptible problems.

The film was not in the original foil envelopes, but I don't know that Ektachrome was always packaged that way (e.g. bulk or multi-packs). All the rolls did have the original paper tape and none were physically damaged in any way. That is the essential fact here --> The film was fogged, not "damaged". As shown above, the ghosts of the image and the frame lines are visible. Apart from being subject to a gamma ray burst from a dying neutron star (which I do not believe happened in this case), the only thing I know of that can expose film thru multiple layers of backing paper are x-rays.

The fixation on "wavy lines" is particularly interesting. I've seem my share of x-ray images and none of them had wavy lines or any other sort of false features. If x-rays were inherently susceptible to such problems it would render them pretty much useless for medical diagnostics. These patterns may show up sometimes on film run thru x-ray scanners, but the millions of x-ray images take over the past 100 years are clear evidence there is no reason to assume they must always occur.

The X-ray machines used for medical diagnosis bear little resemblance to those X-ray CT scanners used at airports and allegedly by some postal services.

The films were not in their original packaging? I'd say you have a clue there. I would never buy roll film that was not in it's sealed foil package, and as far as I am aware it's been sold like that for many decades. I've been buying 120 film since 1978 and have used 120 roll films which expired in the 60s and were packed in foil packages. Those packages keep out not only light but prevent the film from becoming too moist (especially if moved from a cold place to a warm place) and from gases interfering with the film or backing paper. Conceivably if this is old film *anything* could have got in there if the foil packs were missing.

You mentioned having them yourself for "some time" before shooting and processing. How were they stored in this time?

If you think you know who you bought these films from it is still worth contacting them. They will presumably have sold many more such films and might even have had feedback/complaints about them and have already investigated. Though a reputable supplier selling roll film without it's foil package is a head-scratcher.

I'd agree with Aguilliver above, there is something very odd if film has been supplied without it's sealed foil package....in my experience it's always packed in this, in either single or pro-packs, and I've seen professionals who, even when operating quickly, and having taken films out of the card packets for speed and convenience, never rip open the foil until ready to load the film.
(The old Orwo films even had neat little aluminium pots, like big versions of the old Kodak 35mm cans, and I believe that some of the smaller makers (Adox. Rollei ? ) use plastic pots).

Might you have been sold some film where the outer cartons and foils have been damaged (damp?) and these then removed to hide the damage? Or to hide a long-passed expiry date?