Kodak TMAX100 with XTOL - Camera or development issue?

AgX · Sep 5, 2017

Thank you for that hint!

I do not remember that ever happening, but did not expect it either, as I never thought of it. To the contrary, sometimes the ratchet mechanism was advertized as yielding the chance to advance/cock in steps.
I shall check with my camera models.

Dirty Fool · Nov 13, 2017

Just to give a late update on this topic myself: I think it's safe to say the camera works flawlessly, I shot a roll of color film with it to be certain there is no light leak and that turned out great. The last roll of B&W was also as expected without streaks and without having some exposure on the space in between the frames so it must have been a half cocked shutter problem as suggested.
At least I've learned a few interesting things about both the camera and the development process:
- don't rewind with a half cocked shutter
- to wash the film properly doing it the Ilford water saving way
- replenish the Xtol or use it diluted for one shot development (although I'm still using a 2l bottle for all the Ilford 120 hp5 film for now, done 4 rolls now with a fresh bottle and will use longer development times later on as found in the manual)

I'm now waiting for an old LF 4x5 press camera to arrive for which I already purchased the Fomapan 100, 200 and 400. Looking forward to see a nice 4x5 negative

Thanks for all the help so far!

Kind regards,
Davy

trendland · Nov 13, 2017

Dirty Fool said:
Hi guys,
I'm newly registered to the forum but the APUG has been a source of information ever since I started shooting MF film earlier this year.
After getting pretty good results with the MF, I purchased a 35mm rangefinder (Yashica Electro 35GX) and shot 2 rolls so far to test the camera: one TMAX400 which ended up being very nice and one TMAX100 which is causing me a headache...

The negatives ended up looking like this:
View attachment 185889
The space in between the frames isn't transparent as it would normally be, there are also lines through the images, sometimes faint sometimes more defined, almost like the excessive emulsion wasn't washed off properly.
View attachment 185890

So, now to the developing part, done manually in a Patterson tank:
Developer 500ml XTOL Stock: 5m 45s at 24 degrees Celsius (This is +15% since the 1liter of developer was used 7 times before - mixed in April this year and stored in an air free capped plastic bottle)
Stop bath 500ml: 30 seconds
Fixer Ilford Rapid Fixer 500ml: 5m at 24 degrees Celsius => This came out purple !
Wash with 23 - 25 degrees tap water: 2m
Final rinse with 2.5ml Kodak Photo Flo in 500ml Demineralised water: 1.5 to 2m => This came out purple !

I must admit that the developer has some sludge on the bottom of the bottle and although I shake the bottle before use every time, I don't check if all the sludge is gone, the whole solution gets a beige milky cast to it... This hasn't caused any issue before but if I messed up this might be important...

The oddities in the development process and the almost perfectly developed first roll shot with the camera makes me think I messed up during the development of this roll, but I cannot explain why the film is completely transparent near the edges of the strip while there appears to have been some exposure in between the frames.
I've checked the camera lens after this roll with a flashlight, the (leaf) shutter isn't letting any light pass through...

As you all can tell, I'm not an expert at this and I'm still learning.

Kind regards,
Davy

with a very first look it is identyfied to be a shutter problem of your camera !

with regards

Kodak TMAX100 with XTOL - Camera or development issue?

AgX

Dirty Fool

trendland

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