Help with solving serious negative malfunction

Tony Egan · Aug 27, 2020

Hi,
Would appreciate some opinions about what caused the defects in these negatives (attached photos). A bit of background. I occasionally shoot some test rolls for a camera repairman friend. These negatives came from two different rolls of Ilford FP4 120 film shot on a 6x6 and 6x4.5 camera. Film expiry was 2022 and stored indoors at room temps inside black plastic storage canisters. Developed in Xtol stock (replenished) at standard time and temp I use consistently. I also developed a roll of 35mm TriX at the same time with same developer and it was fine.

Theory: this film was left over from a long overseas trip last year through Scandinavia and Iceland and went through airport hand luggage scanners about 8 or 10 times. However, film developed from same batches when I returned was satisfactory. Does this look like XRay affected negatives? Has anyone seen something similar or suggest a different conclusion about what might has caused this pattern?
Thanks in advance,
Tony

p.s. The strong highlights in shot b are white clouds.

glbeas · Aug 27, 2020

Classic signs of humidity affecting the emulsion on improperly stored film with a paper backing. The backing absorbs the moisture and being in contact with the emulsion make the mottled effect. Some brands of film are affected worse than others, I would presume that has to do with the quality of the paper used in the backing.

Donald Qualls · Aug 27, 2020

That's the current issue some Ilford films are having -- that is, it's a film defect, nothing to do with the camera, or with airport x-rays. The mottling is a form of wrapper offset, where the backing paper interacts chemically with the emulsion to produce fogging at the points of contact, which shows as a texture in the negative or scan. If you still have the necessary data (batch number, mainly) you can probably get replacement film from your national Ilford distributor.

AgX · Aug 27, 2020

That is the classic artefact of rollfilm stored in extrem humid conditions over a long period.
However recently such cases repeatedly appeared at Apug with the users denying any abnormal storage.

IlfordPhoto meanwhile realized this too.
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/ilford-statement-on-120-roll-film-mottling.173575/

Try to rembember how you stored your film, to establish whether this is caused the classic way or not.

removedacct1 · Aug 27, 2020

Tony,
I agree with the rest: this is the result of exposure to high humidity for a time, which triggers a reaction between the backing paper and the film. It can be an unpredictable effect, presenting itself at times you wouldn’t expect it to be a problem.
I had it happen once on an early winter morning when out photographing a foggy field. All it took was 30 minutes in a cold foggy environment to trigger the effect.

laingsoft · Aug 27, 2020

Svema Foto 64 has this issue as well on most rolls I've tried. I think it's either the gelatin degrading, but humidity makes sense.

Sirius Glass · Aug 27, 2020

Definitely not x-rays. The problems are film storage in damp heat and a paper backing problem.

Tony Egan · Aug 27, 2020

Thanks all. The humidity on backing paper makes sense and I don't think I can lay too much blame on Ilford! In 25 years of shooting 120 I have never seen this before but these rolls were handled a bit differently to my normal practice. While in Iceland I removed the rolls from the cardboard and foil wrapper and had them ready to go inside those 5-roll black plastic containers and the remainders have been there for over a year in a cupboard in my study. I normally only ever unwrap just before loading. I live in a 120 year old double brick house which suffers from rising damp and mould probelms in dark corners. I guess the pesky humidity has worked its way inside. I had a close look at the backing paper and I think I can see faint evidence of mottled discoloration looking at the white side. Lesson learned but no damage done to important shots.

Having said this, I was also burned a few times by the TMY backing paper text leakage problem and swore off Kodak after that. I do wonder if there has been a decline in the quality and consistency of backing papers over time.

MattKing · Aug 27, 2020

Tony Egan said:
I do wonder if there has been a decline in the quality and consistency of backing papers over time.

There are very few entities left with the capability of making it. And the inks have changed, as have the emulsions on film.
Your description of how the film was handled matches pretty closely the ideal environment for problems - the sort of environment that might have caused problems at the beginning of those 25 years - either with Ilford, or with Kodak film.

Sirius Glass · Aug 28, 2020

Tony Egan said:
Thanks all. The humidity on backing paper makes sense and I don't think I can lay too much blame on Ilford! In 25 years of shooting 120 I have never seen this before but these rolls were handled a bit differently to my normal practice. While in Iceland I removed the rolls from the cardboard and foil wrapper and had them ready to go inside those 5-roll black plastic containers and the remainders have been there for over a year in a cupboard in my study. I normally only ever unwrap just before loading. I live in a 120 year old double brick house which suffers from rising damp and mould probelms in dark corners. I guess the pesky humidity has worked its way inside. I had a close look at the backing paper and I think I can see faint evidence of mottled discoloration looking at the white side. Lesson learned but no damage done to important shots.

Having said this, I was also burned a few times by the TMY backing paper text leakage problem and swore off Kodak after that. I do wonder if there has been a decline in the quality and consistency of backing papers over time.

I load unopened roll in the unopened foil packs into the five roll and ten roll plastic cases. I open the foil only just before I start the roll.

Tony Egan · Aug 29, 2020

Sirius Glass said:
I load unopened roll in the unopened foil packs into the five roll and ten roll plastic cases. I open the foil only just before I start the roll.

Good advice. If I ever want to try to save time and space again, I will only go this far!

Tony Egan · Aug 29, 2020

MattKing said:
There are very few entities left with the capability of making it. And the inks have changed, as have the emulsions on film.
Your description of how the film was handled matches pretty closely the ideal environment for problems - the sort of environment that might have caused problems at the beginning of those 25 years - either with Ilford, or with Kodak film.

A few years ago my Aunt gave me two rolls of undeveloped Kodak 120 film in really poor shape. It was shot at least 40 years before and the wrapping was loose. I told her it was probably badly fogged and there would be nothing there. I doubled development time and actually got a few recognisable images from the film - but nothing like the mottling I recently experienced! Yes, unfortunately, I think quality standards have declined somewhat.

MattKing · Aug 29, 2020

Tony Egan said:
A few years ago my Aunt gave me two rolls of undeveloped Kodak 120 film in really poor shape. It was shot at least 40 years before and the wrapping was loose. I told her it was probably badly fogged and there would be nothing there. I doubled development time and actually got a few recognisable images from the film - but nothing like the mottling I recently experienced! Yes, unfortunately, I think quality standards have declined somewhat.

Sadly, I think that this example just illustrates how difficult it is to deal with the backing paper issues that arise - they are unpredictable at best.
Wrapper offset was much more prevalent in the 1960s and earlier. As volumes increased and manufacturing in those volumes improved, it became less prevalent. Now that volumes are smaller, manufacturing sources have been changed, industry practices (new ink and fewer paper options) have changed, shipping volumes and shipping methods have gotten worse, warehousing of inventory has just about disappeared and we have the internet to allow us to share problems world wide, the prevalence is on the upswing again.
We would have never had had a problem with the Kodak 120 films if their volumes had remained high enough to permit them to profitably continue making their own. When they ran out of their glut of inventory and were forced to try to get someone else to make it for them, it turned out that their old backing paper couldn't be replicated elsewhere.

Help with solving serious negative malfunction

Tony Egan

glbeas

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AgX

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laingsoft

Sirius Glass

Tony Egan

MattKing

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Help with solving serious negative malfunction

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