Issues with negatives...

I had posted this on RFF earlier in the week without anyone being able to identify whats happened here with these strange marks. The best suggestion I've had to date was to send the results to Ilford for a response but in the meantime I would still like to see if anyone else can narrow down whats happened here.

The film shown is HP5, although I had similar issues on some rolls of FP4 developed recently. All the film was purchased new in 2004 and has been frozen since purchase but has been thawed out for a few days and refrozen 3 times due to moves. It is unlikely to be a camera issue as the FP4 and HP5 were shot in different cameras; and certainly not shutter marks on the HP5 as the camera had a leaf shutter. It also isn't due to any kind of double exposure. Any thoughts appreciated...

It might have been better to keep posting in the other thread If there is no double exposure of someones net curtains (agreed that this is rather unlikely in the circumstances) then I'd say it looks like x-ray damage. One would expect effects from water-damage (freeze/thaw condensation) to be less regular, though I have only seen that from an extreme-rain accident where maybe more water was involved. Have the house moves been inter-country where the container or packages have been subject to a random-search?

Initially I thought "double exposure", but then I saw that the pattern extended into the margins. It looks almost as though some fabric has imprinted itself onto the emulsion....light leak in a changing bag?

I've never had any probs on freezing/unfreezing film, and age of film shouldn't be a major issue, from 2004. Was the film kept well sealed in its original factory packing before use (thinking condensation)?

railwayman3 said:

Initially I thought "double exposure", but then I saw that the pattern extended into the margins. It looks almost as though some fabric has imprinted itself onto the emulsion....light leak in a changing bag?

Click to expand...

Hmmm... there's another commonality I hadn't thought of. All this film was spooled [reels loaded] in a Harrison pup tent and the first time it was used.

Spooled? So it was rolled from bulk ?
That would have been good information to have

pdeeh said:

Spooled? So it was rolled from bulk ?

Click to expand...

No ...just spooled from the canister onto the reels

When I first looked at the 2nd image, it looked to me to be two pieces of wood aligned horizontally with a screw hole in the woman's hip. Does that help with the puzzle?

Simon Galley from Ilford might spot this thread but he may be tied up at the Focus on Imaging exhibition in Birmingham(U.K.) this week.

I'd contact Ilford direct. The people there are usually very helpful

pentaxuser

Looks like you need to check the pup tent for light leaks and/or try a roll that you load in a closet or some alternative dark place if you don't have a dedicated dark room.

pentaxuser said:

Simon Galley from Ilford might spot this thread but he may be tied up at the Focus on Imaging exhibition in Birmingham(U.K.) this week.

I'd contact Ilford direct. The people there are usually very helpful

pentaxuser

Click to expand...

I had already messaged Ilford from their web siteband asked for an email address to first send these files but haven't had a reply as of yet...

bdial said:

Looks like you need to check the pup tent for light leaks and/or try a roll that you load in a closet or some alternative dark place if you don't have a dedicated dark room.

Click to expand...

I agree... the lines look like fabric... before I saw "pup tent" I thought the film came in contact with a drying screen.
I bet the tent has some of that rubberized stuff missing or cracked, and you were in a bright place. The pattern is there where the film came in contact with the tent, and shows up as just some less intense fog where it was distance away.

I wouldn't bother Ilford with this... I once thought I had bad paper from Kodak as a younger man, I showed it to and "old salt" who asked me a few questions and we figured out it was my fault pretty quickly.

Edit... after looking at film edges........On the OTHER HAND... bother Ilford... I am bemused with the interaction of the pattern with the sprocket holes.... Keep us posted...

Put a nice bright lightbulb with extension cord inside your light tent, turn it on and then turn the lights out in the room. You might just have a brand new Christmas tree with lights included.

The pattern looks like drapes or fabric of some sort. Probably not x-rays. Too regular for that.

The pressure plate on my Pentax KX has a pattern on it very similar to the 'fabric' pattern showing in your negatives.

But I agree to test the changing bag for light leaks.

I'm leaning away from the light leak in the tent theory. The pattern seems too consistent for that. I would think that light coming through into the tent would affect the film differently depending on how long sections of the film were exposed. When I put film into the reel in my darkroom, I am not consistent in how fast I do it; some parts of the the film would almost certainly be exposed to that light longer than other parts.

I can't think of what this might be, but I don't think it would be related to light coming into the tent.

It looks to me like the film had adhesive tape stuck to it that was later peeled off. Pulling away sticky tape gives off light - [url]http://ksj.mit.edu/tracker/2008/10/bbc-disc-mag-science-news-etc-scotch-tap[/URL]

It looks like the tape was applied to the base side of the film and the 'texture' of the image is due to the tape coming away in little jerks resulting in flashes of light.

This may be the reason that the image 'curls' around the sprocket holes.

I'd say, unless the OP had applied tape at some time, is that this is a factory problem. Possibly from the tape used to hold a bulk roll before the film was spooled into individual cassettes?

Nicholas Lindan said:

I'd say, unless the OP had applied tape at some time, is that this is a factory problem.

Click to expand...

I've certainly had no tape against on the film. However, as a factory issue, I assume it would also be unusual to be from 2 coating lines - HP5 and FP4 - although all the film was purchased at the same time.

I recently had a similar failure with a changing bag that the rubber coating had deteriorated and light leaked in through the 'armpits' of the bag. Similar 'fabric' pattern, just a little finer because of the threads per inch in the sleeves. Ninety percent probability it's the Harrison although that is a very good product. Do the test in a darkened room with a maglite inside the bag. That's how I found my problem.

Wouldn't a light leak in the bag show up a little less defined? As in, not as sharp and clear, without any motion blur as it is in these photos? Somehow my limited knowledge of exposure fights me on agreeing that a split second of complete non-movement of your hands inside the tent would generate these markings. Unless the deterioration is so bad that it's pretty much a sieve, which you should have probably notice without any problems. And then the strange pattern around the sprocket holes also makes that hypothesis unlikely.

I have no better answer for you other than contacting Ilford. Maybe shooting Simon a PM here might get you a little closer to an answer.

aleksmiesak said:

Wouldn't a light leak in the bag show up a little less defined? As in, not as sharp and clear, without any motion blur as it is in these photos? Somehow my limited knowledge of exposure fights me on agreeing that a split second of complete non-movement of your hands inside the tent would generate these markings. Unless the deterioration is so bad that it's pretty much a sieve, which you should have probably notice without any problems. And then the strange pattern around the sprocket holes also makes that hypothesis unlikely.

I have no better answer for you other than contacting Ilford. Maybe shooting Simon a PM here might get you a little closer to an answer.

Click to expand...

Depends on how far away the film is from the light leak as to what the pattern will be.

Is the emulsion perfectly smooth in those areas? I wonder whether this is some weird form of reticulation or the emulsion sloughing either during manufacture or processing. Just a guess.

If it is some sort of a light leak, it had to occur while the film was moving.
I know you said this problem occurred independent of the camera but let's just make an assumption in order to come up with a hypothesis then work from there: Suppose that you were winding or rewinding the film (in the camera) and the back or body of the camera vibrated open, slightly. A very thin sliver of light would penetrate and make a line across the film. If the film was moving and this hypothetical gap in the camera body was vibrating open and shut, it would cause a "strobe" effect which would imprint a series of roughly parallel lines on the film.

Now, extend this metaphor. It doesn't necessarily have to happen inside a camera. It could occur during manufacture, somehow. It could occur as you are bulk loading film from spool to cartridge if the cover of the loader vibrates open. It could occur if there is a gap in the lips of the film cartridge, either in storage or handling, before or after being shot. It could also occur while processing. Let's say the developing canister has a small crack in it.

What is the distance between these sets of marks? If you coil the film up so that the marks line up, does the diameter of the coil match the diameter of your developing reels, the film cartridge or the bulk spool? Determining this could help you narrow down the location where the problem occurred.

If the film came out of the fridge too quick and adhered to the pressure plate this would be a possible are to look, it does look like something is stuck to the film or making a direct impression

I have never seen any thing like this and would be interested how this plays out.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

The pressure plate on my Pentax KX has a pattern on it very similar to the 'fabric' pattern showing in your negatives.

But I agree to test the changing bag for light leaks.

Click to expand...

craygc said:

I've certainly had no tape against on the film. However, as a factory issue, I assume it would also be unusual to be from 2 coating lines - HP5 and FP4 - although all the film was purchased at the same time.

Click to expand...

That does make the sticky-tape hypothesis a bit shaky (er, demolishes it entirely). It also makes it highly unlikely that the same problem would happen on two different production runs.

If it were any sort of light fogging then the pattern wouldn't 'go around' the sprocket holes - it would be even it that area and the sprocket holes would be just holes.

I still think it looks like something was sticking. Possibly Ilford film doesn't like freeze/thaw cycles - but if one 'wrap' of film stuck to the one below it then there should be artifacts from two sets of sprocket holes.

What were the common factors between the HP5 and FP4? You mentioned freeze/thaw cycles. I have done that countless times and never seen anything like it. I have a personal crusade to get the famed 'condensation' and all the sorts of other postulated evil doings due to not thawing film in the politically correct manner: I make it a point of honor to take film straight from the freezer to the camera to taking pictures whenever I can. I have never had any sort of problem with this practice. Thermodynamics says it is nigh impossible to get condensation on the film (engineering degree - EE, but one year of thermo). But then, I shoot Kodak film exclusively.

Was the pattern exactly the same on the two instances? It would be a rare thing to happen to one coating line, that it would happen to two - a case of Douglas Adams' "Infinite Improbability Principle"?

I love a good mystery...

Just for some better images I've shot everything again and larger. [This link] represents all the frames from one roll. [This link] represents all the frames from a second roll. BTW, I have no way of knowing if these two rolls were in the same tank for development. I also tried to magnify this even more [link here]. The pattern seems very uniform parallel to the length of the film but wavy running across the frame. I think this probably rules out the imprint of a material pattern - one direction of the weave would not be so uniform while the other was not.

Today I have also locked myself in a darkroom and thoroughly checked the pup tent with a bright torch - no holes found - didn't really expect any as its a new tent and there were at least 4 rolls in there at any one time and the damage on the HP5 is only reflected on a couple of rolls.

Again as a note to address some oversights above: this is NOT bulk loaded film. Just normal canisters

If you look at the edges of frame 13A, you can see that the exposure patterns curve into the centres of the sprocket holes and that there is no pattern to the right of each sprocket hole.

That makes me believe that it is either stress-exposure or triboluminescence (tape-ripping glow) caused by the film sticking together and then being pulled apart as it comes out of the cassette. Note how the no-pattern part is upstream of the sprockets (comes off first); this is consistent with the way the film comes off the cassette; once the trailing edge of film in a hole (unexposed) is lifted, the leading edge catches. It pulls away along the edges first, then the corners, working its way towards the centre of the sprocket hole. You can see each curved line is a "click" where a mm of film pulled away across the width of the roll.

The sticking could by caused by moisture getting in on a refreeze cycle. The pitch of the exposure pattern also makes it look like the sticking was mostly on one side of the spool and running freely on the other side.

Further evidence of sticking is in comparing 13A with 14. 13A has clearly stuck to 14 at the sprocket holes, which stressed 13A and exposed it. However, you can see that the tension of 13A pulling away has loosened the sprockets of 14 so that when it was then pulled from 15, the ripping happened in the middle with no exposure around the sprockets because they'd already been loosened.

Edit: looking at the high-res scans, the lateral lines really do look like stress marks from sticking - you can see a dense bit where it catches, then it fades away to the next click. I don't know what would cause the longitudinal lines, unless it's some regular pattern in the stickiness of the film (but why!?).