Messed up Negatives, me or the lab?

TJPope · May 20, 2020

So I just got two rolls of 120 back from the lab, first ones I've shot with the camera so who knows perhaps I did something wrong. The first frame of both is partially exposed to light and the last frame has some crazy blue staining on it.

Camera is a Hassy 500c. Film was loaded and unloaded in a dim room and only spooled to just before the arrow so I don't think I would have exposed it to light in loading. The blue... I seriously have no clue what could have caused that.

I've attached images, sorry about the background but I don't have a Lightbox. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated so I know if I need to change something about what I'm doing or to stop using my local lab and send my film out. Or bite the bullet and dev myself, it's the temps and keeping them right that keeps me away.

Thanks!
-T.J.

kevs · May 20, 2020

Hi TJ, welcome to Photrio.

It looks like an in-camera light leak so I wouldn't go blaming the lab just yet. I'd check the back and darkslide; or try using another back if you have one. Light leaks can be tricky to pin down; if this only occurs on the first frame of every roll, I'd check around the feed and take-up chambers. You might have a light leak that is blocked by the bulk of film on the spool, or the film could be moving out of the light leak as the spool gets used up.

Developing colour film is as easy as developing black and white. Temperatures are quite easy to control over the short 3min 15 sec development time at 38 degs C., and with C-41 only the timing and temperature of the developer need to be accurately controlled, the bleach and fix (or bleach-fix) can safely have a larger margin of error.

gdavis · May 20, 2020

TJPope said:
I've attached images, sorry about the background but I don't have a Lightbox.

Just hang up a white sheet or even a piece of paper in front of the window.

Or bite the bullet and dev myself, it's the temps and keeping them right that keeps me away.

Have you done B/W? If you can do that, the temp for color isn't that big of a deal. Just get a plastic tub with some water. Get a cinestill TCS-1000 if you don't mind spending the money or a cheap sous vide heater (do a search to read about the debates between these two options and decide for yourself) to maintain the water bath temp. Keep the chem bottles and developing tank in the warm water bath, just take the the tank out to fill/drain/agitate. Times are shorter than B/W so you want to be a little more precise, but pretty easypeasy.

Sorry, don't have any advice about your problem.

Here is a current thread about the heaters:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/is-the-sous-vide-the-diy-jobo.175380/

TJPope · May 20, 2020

kevs said:
Hi TJ, welcome to Photrio.

It looks like an in-camera light leak so I wouldn't go blaming the lab just yet. I'd check the back and darkslide; or try using another back if you have one. Light leaks can be tricky to pin down; if this only occurs on the first frame of every roll, I'd check around the feed and take-up chambers. You might have a light leak that is blocked by the bulk of film on the spool, or the film could be moving out of the light leak as the spool gets used up.

Developing colour film is as easy as developing black and white. Temperatures are quite easy to control over the short 3min 15 sec development time at 38 degs C., and with C-41 only the timing and temperature of the developer need to be accurately controlled, the bleach and fix (or bleach-fix) can safely have a larger margin of error.

I thought about a leak, but I've never had one that evenly distributed itself across the film like these two things. Both rolls have about the same amount of light contamination on the first frame (White light turning the film dark) that just cuts in a perfect line partway through frame 1. And about the same amount of the blue on the last frame, the blue is the one that confuses me as that should indicate that both rolls somehow were exposed to a colored light source, right? The neg is extremely vivid blue in person.

The frame one issue ends at different spots from the top of the film on each roll, but the blue is in the exact same place on both. Just held them up to each other and it overlays perfectly.

As for trying another back, I'll have to dig out my 645 back and try that as my other 6x6 needs to go in the shop. Probably try a roll of color in the Bronica as well since I know that doesn't have leaks. (Only shot B&W so my first MF color developing experience with this lab, but their 35mm color hasn't had any major issues other than their horrible scans before I got my own scanner).

gdavis said:
Just hang up a white sheet or even a piece of paper in front of the window.

Have you done B/W? If you can do that, the temp for color isn't that big of a deal. Just get a plastic tub with some water. Get a cinestill TCS-1000 if you don't mind spending the money or a cheap sous vide heater (do a search to read about the debates between these two options and decide for yourself) to maintain the water bath temp. Keep the chem bottles and developing tank in the warm water bath, just take the the tank out to fill/drain/agitate. Times are shorter than B/W so you want to be a little more precise, but pretty easypeasy.

Sorry, don't have any advice about your problem.

The white paper idea is so simple, yet something I didn't even think of. Or a white screen on my monitor should work as well... Thanks!

And thank you both for the info on developing, I've done plenty of B&W but always avoided color as I heard of difficulties with the temps. Being able to experiment with pushing and pulling color is something I'd like to do as well...

Saganich · May 20, 2020

I think a light leak across the entire frame indicates a shutter issue, sticky auxiliary shutter? Whereas a light trap issue would only partially expose frame and be directional.

TJPope · May 20, 2020

Saganich said:
I think a light leak across the entire frame indicates a shutter issue, sticky auxiliary shutter? Whereas a light trap issue would only partially expose frame and be directional.

Tested the aux as soon as I got the camera and it doesn't seem to have any issues. Should also see evidence of that on the middle frames as well. It's just the start of the film to part way in to the first frame at a different distance on each roll and then the vibrant blue on frame 12 in the exact same spot on each roll.

Like nothing I've ever run into or as far as that color goes, even heard of previously.

kevs · May 20, 2020

TJPope said:
I thought about a leak, but I've never had one that evenly distributed itself across the film like these two things. Both rolls have about the same amount of light contamination on the first frame (White light turning the film dark). And about the same amount of the blue on the last frame, the blue is the one that confuses me as that should indicate that both rolls somehow were exposed to a colored light source, right?

Not necessarily; if only a small amount of leaked light hits the film, the fogged area appears red-ish in colour prints, the complementary colour of which is cyan (blue-green) on the negative. I've attached an example of this effect below on 35mm film. It *is* possible the lab messed up but that's quite unusual, and the regularity of the fogging across multiple frames on multiple films is more suggestive to me of an in-camera leak.

Seeing the entire exposed film would help too; not necessarily me but others here with the same camera as you (I have a Bronica SQ-B).

Good luck, I hope you manage to track down the source of the problem.

ozphoto · May 21, 2020

If the light leak on both rolls is pretty much identical, I'd be 99% discounting the lab and looking at a possible leak on the film-back or the camera. The lab would be pretty hard-pressed to expose a couple of rolls almost identically.

What is most confusing to me though, is that you have described fogging to only the first and final frame - which is weird, as I'd expect a drastic leak to affect the middle frames as well. Only thing I can possibly think of is that the darkslide may not have been slid all the way in at the beginning of the roll (when loading) nor slid all the way in after exposing that last frame and then the back was taken off?

ie: It was slid in just enough to not show the "curve" of the darkslide, but not enough to fully seal the back, thus letting in a sliver of light. Once on the camera (if the back wasn't removed again until finished shooting) it was "light-tight" and exposing away was fine, but once it was removed, it leaked light through an "imperfect" seal.

Naturally, I could be waaaaay off, in which case thoroughly disregard my post!

pentaxuser · May 21, 2020

kevs said:
.

kevs the attached file in your post is colour but has Ilford on its edge markings. Is this an Ilford colour film of great vintage when Ilford entered the colour neg market? If so what's its age?

Thanks

pentaxuser

kevs · May 21, 2020

pentaxuser said:
kevs the attached file in your post is colour but has Ilford on its edge markings. Is this an Ilford colour film of great vintage when Ilford entered the colour neg market? If so what's its age?

Thanks

pentaxuser

I thought someone might notice that. It's an old neg from 1986, "Ilfocolor HR 400" is signed on another strip of the same film. IIRC, at that time Ilford had one of the "big five" makers package colour film for them. The semi-circular 'bite' would probably give the game away to an expert. I think I had a very light-leaky Zorki 4 at the time, that's why it's a good exemplar of a tiny bit of extraneous light hitting the film.

pentaxuser · May 21, 2020

Thanks for the reply, kevs

pentaxuser

kevs · May 21, 2020

TJ, I've just found the following thread in the MF forum that might be helpful to you: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...-my-hasselblad-500c-m-it-didnt-go-well.171777. Short summary (ignoring the off-topic chat): Hasselblad backs are prone to light leaks and need their light-tight seals replacing every few years.

Good luck with it,
kevs

TJPope · May 21, 2020

Kevs,

Having never shot much color before this year, that's good to know about the color of leaks, this is more sapphire blue but close enough I imagine. I'm used to B&W so was thinking in the mindset of "shouldn't it just be denser".

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out! I was actually planning on getting a CLA on the body, lenses and backs over the summer as one lens is a bit sticky at longer shutter speeds and I have no idea when it was last done for any of it.

Oz,

Yeah, beginning of the strip and the end. The start has the area of uniform darkening, could be my loading procedure but I'm pretty sure I'm not pulling too much film before loading, and the line is kind of perfect which would be impressive if I did that too. The end has the blue, now if you put the two strips lined up end to end, the blue is in the exact to the mm same location, so I would have had to have the film loaded to the exact same to the MM place in order for a light leak to do that, right? I might have, but I was thinking something in the developing process might be messed up. Only shop left in the area, and sometimes I question exactly how professional things are run there. Like the 4 rolls I got back yesterday were just kind of tossed into a box with no protection and a few other things along the way. So I just kind of suspected it was a result of something they did.

The middle frames are all perfect, no random dark or color spots. I actually don't remove the back from the camera at any point in time since my 2nd back needs repaired and I'm waiting until things settle down to do that. Just pop out the side door, load up, shoot, wind all the way, pop out the side door and remove the film. I put some better images of the film in here, the more I look at it the more I notice bits on the sides that look more like light leaks as well, but still they don't go the entire roll, just where you see them in those pictures.

ozphoto · May 22, 2020

Looking at those, it's possible that it's a processing issue - but obviously difficult to be 100% sure. Maybe just ask for a non-exposed roll to be run through - if there's *any* fog, you'll know right away that it's not you.

koraks · May 22, 2020

ozphoto said:
Looking at those, it's possible that it's a processing issue

The pattern of the fog makes a cause in the chemical part of the processing extremely unlikely. It could be a proble while loading the films into the development machine, but an in-camera or user-related cause is much more likely.

ozphoto · May 22, 2020

koraks said:
The pattern of the fog makes a cause in the chemical part of the processing extremely unlikely. It could be a proble while loading the films into the development machine, but an in-camera or user-related cause is much more likely.

Yes, I should have been clearer: I have used the term "processing" as an all-around lab term, most certainly not a chemical issue, but rather a loading issue, if the lab is indeed at fault.

TJPope · May 23, 2020

I'll probably try a few more and see what happens. Make sure I'm being ridiculously meticulous in my loading and unloading to make as sure as I can that I'm not at fault and see what happens.

Thanks to everyone who commented, your thoughts and greater expertise is appreciated!

mohmad khatab · May 24, 2020

kevs said:
Not necessarily; if only a small amount of leaked light hits the film, the fogged area appears red-ish in colour prints, the complementary colour of which is cyan (blue-green) on the negative. I've attached an example of this effect below on 35mm film. It *is* possible the lab messed up but that's quite unusual, and the regularity of the fogging across multiple frames on multiple films is more suggestive to me of an in-camera leak.

Seeing the entire exposed film would help too; not necessarily me but others here with the same camera as you (I have a Bronica SQ-B).

Good luck, I hope you manage to track down the source of the problem.

I don’t know - you are where you can get a colorful Ilford Roll.
I think it was produced since the 1960s.

foc · May 24, 2020

Do you know what type/make of processing machine the lab used to develop your film?

I can't see how a dip & dunk machine could cause such a light leak (IMO it is not a chemical problem).
If it was a leader card fed processor, then the film would be loaded (in a dark box/bag) into a dark film cassette and spliced to a leader card. If the dark film cassette wasn't snapped shut or the light trap faulty then it would cause a light leak.
The only other thing I can think of (with a processor like above) is that someone opened the film loading door on the machine while the film was extracted from the dark cassette. Again this shouldn't happen as the machine locks the door and even if the emergency release button was used, the machine would alarm. In theory, all this could happen but I have never seen it.

IIRC the Ilford HR colour film from the mid 1980s was made by Agfa.

Donald Qualls · May 24, 2020

Those look like somewhat worse versions of the leaks I had in the (so far) one roll I've processed from my RB67, which I'm reliably informed are due to bad light seals in the film magazine, specifically the hinge. Leak runs across the full frame and rebate, with a sharp cutoff on one end and a soft fade on the other. It's light leaking into the takeup chamber, cut off by the bend the film makes coming from the gate around the roller to the takeup spool, and faded on the other end by the shadow of the roll itself.

The frame 1 leaks you show would have actually been produced after frame 1 was wound on, with frame 2 in the gate. You can test this by taping over the hinge (with black electrical tape or gaffer's tape) on your film magazine immediately after loading (film still at the arrows, before advancing to frame 1). This should completely eliminate this leak source (though you may have another producing the edge fogging). Assuming this fixes the problem, it's a simple job to get a foam kit for your film back from John Goodman (a member here, though I don't recall his user ID), clean out/up the old deteriorated foam, and install the new -- runs around an hour the first time you do it, might get it to as little as fifteen minutes for this kind of job if you do it enough (which you won't; once per magazine and it'll last many years).

Dmosher · May 24, 2020

If it was an in camera leak as opposed to the in the back then it would be only in the image area since the back masks off the non-image area. I don't think its the dark slide light seal because you would see more gradation from one side to the other. I don't have an empty back to look at right now so its hard to envision. I would still think a light leak between the insert and the insert holder would show gradation from one side to the other.

I'm leaning towards in error at the lab in processing. I'll even go so far as to say they use a leader card type machine where the film is placed in a clam shell type cassette and then taped to a leader card, two, side by side, and then placed into a loading bay in the machine. If the door on the loading bay wasn't shut completely then this would expose two rolls in very similar ways. If you do an image search for Noritsu leader card cassette you'll find pictures of the cards and cassettes I'm referring to. I can't find a photo of them in use, but imagine a small leader of film sticking out of the cassette and being taped to the leader card. you place this all in the machine and close the door. The machine then engages the card and pulls that through the processing tanks, dragging the film our of the cassettes. There should be interlocks to prevent you from opening the door while the film is still in the loading area and the machine should start pulling the machine through unless the door is completely closed but at this point all these machines are old enough that those safeties could be compromised. though if they have a dip and dunk machine all that speculation is pointless..

TJPope · May 24, 2020

Thank you all for the continued suggestions!

The thing about a Hassy back is that the insert is on the side of the back, it doesn't open up like a clamshell like a Bronica. So if it were leaking I'd expect it to be stronger on one side of the image than the other. I'll try some tape around anything that could leak on my next roll and see what happens as that's a good way to rule out the back leaking.

As for the processing machine, I have no idea what type their using or how well maintained it is. I think my plan is to take the currently loaded roll, load the next and tape everything and then send those with a few others I have off to somewhere like the darkroom as their prices are fairly comparable to my local lab when getting dev only. I'll have samples loaded normally, taped and then samples from two different labs. If the normal rolls have issues, it's my camera or loading / unloading technique. If none of them have issues, it's the lab.

Thank you again to everyone for the ideas and insight! It's really appreciated and has me with a plan to figure out where the problem is!

Messed up Negatives, me or the lab?

TJPope

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