Is this halation?

[scarwire]

I recently developed this, and I thought my fellow forum users' expertise could help me solve a small mystery: what caused the light background surrounding the two people in the photo? Look especially at the dark background next to the arm of the woman on the left: it seems like the light from her arm has somehow made the background itself lighter.

Could this be halation? I've seen example illustrations of halation before, but the size of the effect always seemed a lot smaller.

Context: I took this on Kentmere 400, which I developed myself in Rodinal at 1+50. (Yes, it's a combination that produces a lot of grain, but I decided it would be all right on a 6 x 4.5 negative.) The camera was a Bronica ETRS, and I was also using a green-yellow filter, if that makes any difference. There were a couple of other similar photos on the roll, taken in the same light, that also display this effect.

 

[John Salim]

Looks like flare to me.
Were you using a lens hood .... were the lens and filter clean ???

John S

 

[John Wiegerink]

I recently developed this, and I thought my fellow forum users' expertise could help me solve a small mystery: what caused the light background surrounding the two people in the photo? Look especially at the dark background next to the arm of the woman on the left: it seems like the light from her arm has somehow made the background itself lighter.

Could this be halation? I've seen example illustrations of halation before, but the size of the effect always seemed a lot smaller.

Context: I took this on Kentmere 400, which I developed myself in Rodinal at 1+50. (Yes, it's a combination that produces a lot of grain, but I decided it would be all right on a 6 x 4.5 negative.) The camera was a Bronica ETRS, and I was also using a green-yellow filter, if that makes any difference. There were a couple of other similar photos on the roll, taken in the same light, that also display this effect.

Maybe slight over-exposure and over-development? Seeing the negative would help.

 

[scarwire]

Interesting: I've always lived by the rule that it's better to overexpose film than to underexpose it, but I was pretty careful with my exposure here, and I developed using the usual times from Massive Dev Chart.

Can overexposure and/or over-development lead to the kind of loss of detail that appears around the figures in this image? It's even more visible on the negative than on the positive image:

 

[scarwire]

Looks like flare to me.
Were you using a lens hood .... were the lens and filter clean ???

John S

No lens hood. And the filter might not have been absolutely squeaky clean!

I associate lens flare with the beams of light that can streak across an image, usually when the light source is in the field of view or close to it. Here, the sun was almost directly behind me. Is it still possible to have flare in that situation?

Thanks to both of you for your advice.

 

[Ian Grant]

Interesting: I've always lived by the rule that it's better to overexpose film than to underexpose it, but I was pretty careful with my exposure here, and I developed using the usual times from Massive Dev Chart.

Can overexposure and/or over-development lead to the kind of loss of detail that appears around the figures in this image? It's even more visible on the negative than on the positive image:

Yes over exposure and over development degrade sharpness, as well as tonality..

Ian

 

[Ivo Stunga]

Halation on a triacetate base could be hard to achieve... But K400 is cheap and maybe AH properties aren't up to the task?!

This reminds me a bit of scanner Sensor Bloom. I have a little of it on my K400 pushed to 800, in a contrasty scene. Have to pay attention now in projection - if this is on film, or scanner produced artifact.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

If it's Kentmere 400, then it is most likely halation effects. K400 has an inferior anti-halation layer....which I like!

 

[koraks]

It's not halation. See here:

There's some blooming, but not a whole lot.

Most of the contrast problem is likely due to flare/glare.
How clean is the lens used for this photo? Also check the inner glass surfaces. Bad cases of oily aperture blades etc. end up looking like this as well, but just a lot of dirt on the front or rear surface can do this, too.