Maco Aura film scratches

[shyguy]

Good Day. I have been playing with the maco aura ir film lately. I cant seen to load it into my holders with out getting scratches on the back side of it. The toyo film holders I use have a relatively smooth film pressure plate that has never caused problems with other conventional films. I tried placing a sheet of the black separating paper the film is packed with behind it, but it won’t allow the film to fit in the holder that way. Too thick.

So my question is this; is this film that soft? And is there a solution? Also would you know if the regular maco ir film “non-aura” is as soft and prone to scratching?

Any advice you might shed would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

S.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Are you certain the scratching is occurring in loading the holders, rather than (say) in tray developing? How do you develop your sheets?

 

[shyguy]

i use a Jobo tank and reals. I also use the sheet film loader. there is a possibility the loader guide is causing the problem i guess. again i have never seen this with other films, handled exactly the same way.

S.

 

[Donald Qualls]

The Jobo loader would certainly be a place I'd look for burrs and grit. I'd think there's also a risk of scratching the (wet) film when taking it *out* of the Jobo reel -- just touching the edge of another sheet would be enough to do it when the film is wet, and if the film has an anti-curl back coating, you could get scratches on the base side...

 

[shyguy]

Well I’ve done a lights on walk through of the film handling process. There are a couple places where the scratches roughly line up with componentry. I’ll keep at it with a heightened awareness to the potential trouble spots.

Like I have said, I have never seen this with other sheet film I have used in precisely the same manner. It’s curious. It’s bothersome that the maco appears to be so soft and fragile. I appreciate your input. It’s always interesting to go through a process very slowly and deliberately. Like instant replay, you get to see things you don’t usually notice in the normal course of work.

S.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Worth noting that you'll probably find similar problems with Efke films and J&C Pro 100, if you should ever use those; those products also have very soft emulsion. In fact, I've heard that Maco doesn't actually make any film, just relabels, and if so, it's very possible the product they sell is originally Efke (a traffic film emulsion, perhaps, albeit on a different base for sheet film).

 

[boyooso]

This might be a silly question, but:

Are the scratches showing up in prints? I often see scraches on film form the expert jobo drum (the 4x5 version) but I usually don't see that in any print.

I have shot more than 50 sheets of the aura using toyo and rightway film holders and have had NO problems. OR more accurately no problems in the prints I've made.

Corey

 

[shyguy]

yes, they show up in prints. i even tried the various oils trick. no luck

i have seen threads of emulsion get peeled away by the reels, but that is not my problem. these are scratched in the upper 1/3 of the image area.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I recall some reports of similar problems with J&C Pro 100 when it was new -- the upshot seems to have been that very soft emulsions don't mix well with the Jobo 4x5 reel; there's a possibility of the emulsion contacting something inside the reel while wet, which can cause major scratching, even remove small patches of emulsion entirely.

Another possibility is the dark slide. Upper image is lower holder, which is where the dark slide would contact a sheet that was lifting away from the pressure plate in the holder. Heat and humidity could cause this (and this spring seems bad for this, even in Massachusets, based on posts I've read), swelling the gelatin and causing the film to bow, emulsion side out (i.e. away from the back plate, toward the dark slide). Try a few shots in an air conditioned studio for comparison?