Kodak Gold 100 C-41 development failure

[mrmekon]

I just tried out one of these C-41 home development kits for the first time, the CineStill 2-part kit, and one 1 of 6 rolls failed. I suspect the film itself was somehow defective, but would like to hear if anybody has alternative opinions or knows something about this particular stock.

The bad film was a Kodak Gold Plus 100, purchased in 2007 and stored at room temperature since. It was the only one of this batch that I developed, the other rolls were all different stock and newer. It came out 100% black (actually dark grey, still technically translucent). End to end, no sign of leader, no edge markings, no sign of any frames. The canister looked normal as far as I could tell.

The camera is known to be good, with good B&W rolls shot both immediately before and after. It was developed in a tank with 2 other rolls that came out fine, so changing bag is clearly good and chemicals were clearly good.

The only things I can think that would cause such even whole-roll failure is manufacturing failure, or somehow this CineStill kit isn't compatible with this particular roll? But my understanding is that C-41 is C-41 is C-41, so it shouldn't be a compatibility problem?

 

[loccdor]

Maybe it was used to test a camera's film advance and completely exposed to light.

 

[MattKing]

The film was fogged in some way.
A lot can happen in 20 years.

 

[mshchem]

Did you open up the actual carton ,box, that contained the suspect film? Sounds like it was exposed to light

 

[mshchem]

The film was fogged in some way.
A lot can happen in 20 years.

+1

 

[mshchem]

Maybe it was used to test a camera's film advance and completely exposed to light.

+1

 

[mrmekon]

Maybe it was used to test a camera's film advance and completely exposed to light.

Not by me, it wasn't. It was used to take vacation photos that will be dearly missed

And in-camera exposure wouldn't kill the edge markings.

The film was fogged in some way.
A lot can happen in 20 years.

I bought it new from B&H and it sat in a drawer. Not much exciting happens in there, I don't think

Did you open up the actual carton ,box, that contained the suspect film? Sounds like it was exposed to light

I discarded the original box 15 years ago, but otherwise it was just sitting in the original plastic canister since then, in a drawer in a closet at typical room temperature.

Storage environment probably isn't related. I had dozens of B&W films from the period stored in the same drawer that I shoot regularly without issue.

 

[MattKing]

I discarded the original box 15 years ago, but otherwise it was just sitting in the original plastic canister since then, in a drawer in a closet at typical room temperature.

I have no particular reason to doubt your recollection of this, but if there ever was a circumstance where rolls from different sources might end up being intermixed, this would be one of them.

 

[mrmekon]

I have no particular reason to doubt your recollection of this, but if there ever was a circumstance where rolls from different sources might end up being intermixed, this would be one of them.

Yep, and I don't disagree with "a lot can happen in 20 years", but I have no explanation for what could happen that would fully fog a 35mm roll and then have it end up back in a canister looking new, with the leader out and everything. I have never in my life yanked a film out in daylight and then manually rewound it

At least the consensus seems to be that the chemicals should have worked, so something was somehow wrong with the film. It was the last roll from that batch, so probably nothing more to worry about.

 

[mshchem]

The ghost of Victor Hasselblad is haunting 35mm film! That's got to be the reason. 6x6 or it gets it!

 

[koraks]

The only things I can think that would cause such even whole-roll failure is manufacturing failure, or somehow this CineStill kit isn't compatible with this particular roll? But my understanding is that C-41 is C-41 is C-41, so it shouldn't be a compatibility problem?

It's not a film manufacturing problem. Kodak would not let film with this kind of defect leave the factory. It just doesn't happen. QA issues on Kodak film are rare to begin with, and if they occur, they are far, far more subtle than this. We can eliminate that option.
As to compatibility of the chemistry: C41 is indeed C41. Your Kodak roll is in principle compatible with the present CineStill chemistry.

The likely cause is severe fogging of the film, due to aging in high-temperature environments (maybe a warm spot in the house during summer?), chemical fogging (sulphur compounds) and/or radiation, including background radiation. The latter is always present of course, but will not typically fog a roll to this degree in this period of time.

Frankly, given the age of this roll of film I wouldn't worry about it for now; if you get similar results on fresh film, then there's evidently a problem.
I'd set the other rolls of film from the same batch aside.

Color film that's 20 years old generally only works reasonably well if it's low-speed and stored under favorable conditions. Even then it will have a high level of fog and it will be far from optimal, but it can work. Stored under uncontrolled, random conditions - don't expect too much of it, one way or another.

 

[Aidan Sciortino]

FWIW i’ve seen this happen with expired gold from this era. My sister had an old roll and I developed it in a tank with some portra and Ektar, fresh C-41 chems from Kodak. Only the gold came out poorly, and it was completely fogged. I’ve also seen other rolls of gold that are this old come out perfectly fine.

Back in 2007 Kodak was churning out hundreds of thousands of rolls of gold weekly. People bought it fresh and shot it fast and got consistent results. Doesn’t shock me that some batches might age differently than others. 18 years is far beyond the anticipated life of unexposed consumer film.

 

[mrmekon]

It's not a film manufacturing problem. Kodak would not let film with this kind of defect leave the factory. It just doesn't happen.

The fact that it's Kodak was my main doubt, indeed. But I heard some of the big companies did have extremely rare bad batches. Kodak seems least likely of all, though.

The likely cause is severe fogging of the film, due to aging in high-temperature environments (maybe a warm spot in the house during summer?), chemical fogging (sulphur compounds) and/or radiation, including background radiation. The latter is always present of course, but will not typically fog a roll to this degree in this period of time.

Frankly, given the age of this roll of film I wouldn't worry about it for now; if you get similar results on fresh film, then there's evidently a problem.
I'd set the other rolls of film from the same batch aside.

For me, this was a perfectly typical roll: I bought a ton of film in 2005-2007 and then took a 15 year break from photography, so I'm still getting through it. It was all stored together, untouched until placed in a camera. The B&W rolls from that era are all perfectly fine for my amateur work. Any age fogging is minimal and easy to print through. The failed color roll is hanging next to a lovely B&W roll from 2003 .

I still have 5 or 6 more color rolls that I'm now highly suspicious of... for only 15 years old, I expected the film to have a slight color shift. Total 100% fogging was very unexpected, and quite concerning for the rest of the rolls. I'm 99.99% sure it wasn't caused by any physical action I did. If it was environmental, it was either something that Gold 100 was somehow extra sensitive to, or it happened before I received the roll.

 

[mrmekon]

FWIW i’ve seen this happen with expired gold from this era. My sister had an old roll and I developed it in a tank with some portra and Ektar, fresh C-41 chems from Kodak. Only the gold came out poorly, and it was completely fogged. I’ve also seen other rolls of gold that are this old come out perfectly fine.

Huh, very interesting! Maybe some batches of Gold had particularly poor longevity. I just hope my old Ektar is still good

 

[koraks]

Total 100% fogging was very unexpected

I agree, but other options don't seem to explain very well what you're seeing. Things would be different if e.g. the bit of film closest to the core of the cassette would have been unaffected, but you state that the entire roll is fogged to the same degree. So whatever happened to the role must have happened to all of it to a similar extent. The only alternative I see is that someone actually took the film from the cassette and exposed it to light, then put it back in - but with Kodak cassettes this is virtually impossible to do without the cassette becoming visibly damaged. Moreover, who the heck would do something like this? It doesn't add up.

If these are rolls of unknown provenance, I suppose it's possible they went through some kind of cataclysmic event, like exposure to very extreme x-rays (multiple passes through harbor freight scanners or something similar). That's a very wild guess, though.

What @Aidan Sciortino says above is interesting. I've shot a lot of Fuji from 20-25 years ago and that was mostly fine. Rare rolls of Kodak 400 and 200 speed CN film from the same era also behaved as you'd expect. But I've never processed Gold 100 specifically that far out of date. So who knows there's something particular about it that makes it age very badly. Could be something silly like some compound offgassing from the glue used to tape the film to the core. Maybe @FredK could comment on this; he's well-versed in such matters, although I doubt he will be able to comment very specifically on Gold 100 from this era.

 

[mrmekon]

I agree, but other options don't seem to explain very well what you're seeing. Things would be different if e.g. the bit of film closest to the core of the cassette would have been unaffected, but you state that the entire roll is fogged to the same degree.

Exactly, I mentally upgraded it to 100% certain I didn't directly cause it when I remembered that it's fogged right up to the spool, including under the tape. I couldn't have done that if I tried. I don't think even x-ray exposure causes such even total failure unless you microwave it for an hour on a rotating dish, heh. Must be a rare catastrophic emulsion failure from age.

 

[koraks]

I don't think even x-ray exposure causes such even total failure

Oh it certainly could, but I couldn't think of a realistic scenario where a roll of consumer film out there on the market would end up in such a situation. So yes, perhaps there's something odd going on with the Gold 100 emulsion from that era that precipitated total fogging over the course of many years.
There's someone called Joe Manthey who used to be active on Photo.net (https://www.photo.net/profile/324525-joe_manthey1). I don't know if they're still around somewhere online and/or could be reached, but he's one of the people who might actually have an answer to this. I don't know whether @FredK whom I referred to recently knows him (or about him), but he might.

 

[Samu]

It's not a film manufacturing problem. Kodak would not let film with this kind of defect leave the factory. It just doesn't happen. QA issues on Kodak film are rare to begin with, and if they occur, they are far, far more subtle than this. We can eliminate that option.
As to compatibility of the chemistry: C41 is indeed C41. Your Kodak roll is in principle compatible with the present CineStill chemistry.

The likely cause is severe fogging of the film, due to aging in high-temperature environments (maybe a warm spot in the house during summer?), chemical fogging (sulphur compounds) and/or radiation, including background radiation. The latter is always present of course, but will not typically fog a roll to this degree in this period of time.

Frankly, given the age of this roll of film I wouldn't worry about it for now; if you get similar results on fresh film, then there's evidently a problem.
I'd set the other rolls of film from the same batch aside.

Color film that's 20 years old generally only works reasonably well if it's low-speed and stored under favorable conditions. Even then it will have a high level of fog and it will be far from optimal, but it can work. Stored under uncontrolled, random conditions - don't expect too much of it, one way or another.

With a film that old, especially if it eas shot years ago (which this film was not), I would probably try to develop it first as a black and white negative, and print or scan what I could from those. Then you van bleach, wash, and tun rhe normal C-41. Sometimes you can recover some pictures in "ancient" color films this way. Of course, this can`t be done with a blix kit, as bleach-fixing after b&e process would result in s blank film. This is of course not a recipe for perfect results, but for recovering something from very old films found somewhere. Scanning and heavy digital editing my be necessary, but I am not very experienced in this field, as I print my color negatives in my darkroom

 

[Truzi]

I'm not sure how helpful this is,, but I once developed 25-year-old Kodak Gold that was exposed in the early 90s and sat in a closet since. It was horrible - age-fog, color shifts, etc. However, it still had identifiable images.

Either 90s vintage Gold had "better" keeping properties, or something else may have happened to your roll.

 

[MattKing]

Huh, very interesting! Maybe some batches of Gold had particularly poor longevity. I just hope my old Ektar is still good

Based on some posts from the late Ron Mowrey (@Photo Engineer) here on APUG/Photrio, I understand that one of the main reasons that the old Ektar was discontinued was that it had unacceptably short longevity.
If Ron was still around, I would guess though that he wouldn't expect any colour film to be reliable after 20 years - they just weren't designed for that back then, and they aren't designed for that now.
In fact, if an improvement in in-date performance could have been designed in to the film at the cost of poor performance a decade later, it would have been.

 

[MattKing]

Back in 2007 Kodak was churning out hundreds of thousands of rolls of gold weekly. People bought it fresh and shot it fast and got consistent results. Doesn’t shock me that some batches might age differently than others. 18 years is far beyond the anticipated life of unexposed consumer film.

A lot more than that.
At the maximum, Eastman Kodak was manufacturing 70 master stockrolls a day of Kodacolor…each and every day – enough to make nearly 3.4 million spools each day. Even in 2007 the numbers were high.

 

[Samu]

Based on some posts from the late Ron Mowrey (@Photo Engineer) here on APUG/Photrio, I understand that one of the main reasons that the old Ektar was discontinued was that it had unacceptably short longevity.
If Ron was still around, I would guess though that he wouldn't expect any colour film to be reliable after 20 years - they just weren't designed for that back then, and they aren't designed for that now.
In fact, if an improvement in in-date performance could have been designed in to the film at the cost of poor performance a decade later, it would have been.

Was PE referring to the shelf life of undeveloped film, or the longevity of negatives?

 

[MattKing]

Was PE referring to the shelf life of undeveloped film, or the longevity of negatives?

Undeveloped film.
Film manufacturers spend a lot of time worrying about making sure that retailers don't sell in-date, sub-standard film.

 

[koraks]

I understand that one of the main reasons that the old Ektar was discontinued was that it had unacceptably short longevity.

IDK, could be. What is certain is that it was an oddball film and that sales figures just didn't justify its uniqueness - i.e. too costly and cumbersome to keep alive. I figure that the 25 speed also put many people off; the film was introduced in the late 1980s and by the early 90's, performance on higher-speed films increased so much in terms of grain, sharpness etc. that people would probably have struggled to see the point of having a 25-speed film.
There's an interesting thread (actually, several) on it on photo.net; e.g. here: https://www.photo.net/forums/topic/172826-kodak-ektar-25-what-was-it-designed-for/
Note this quote from Joe Manthey, who was on the design team of this film (whom I also referred to above):

Ektar 25 disappeared largely because sales were not large enough to make it profitable. It had several unique components in it that weren't shared with any other films, so it needed respectable sales numbers to survive. The internal joke among my colleagues was that I was the largest customer (and mine was free).

What makes me somewhat hesitant about the supposed poor storage claim is that over the years, people have shot and exposed 15-, 20- and 30-year old Ektar and they consistently report surprisingly good results. Use your favorite search engine to find some of those posts and photos, including also here on Photrio.

 

[AnselMortensen]

Is it possible that a curious person found the film, and pulled it out of the cassette hoping to see photos, then rewound it back into the cassette?
There is a story about a courier opening up some of Playboy's 8x10 film holders on the way to a photo lab "because nekkid wimmen".