Most of the film I developed came out blank?

Gabe · Jun 12, 2020

Hello, first time trying c41 and it looks like I did something very very wrong. Ihttps://imgur.com/a/n85AwHD
It looks as though only 8 of the pictures developed on both my rolls of film. I used a Patterson reel and tank to put the film on, I used brand new Arista c41 chemicals. I used a sous vide to keep the temp of the chemicals and a thermometer to get the developer water up to 120f and the blix to 125f. I used a beseler motor base to cause continuous agitation to the film during the process. I’m not sure what I did wrong. If anyone could enlighten me I’d be very thankful, as I’m pretty frustrated that I lost these pictures. Thanks

AgX · Jun 12, 2020

The rebate signing is going through the whole strip, thus at least basically your processing was right. (Also there hardly is a processing error that starts and stops at full frames.)

The issue is at exposure.

Gabe · Jun 12, 2020

Gabe said:
Hello, first time trying c41 and it looks like I did something very very wrong. Ihttps://imgur.com/a/n85AwHD
It looks as though only 8 of the pictures developed on both my rolls of film. I used a Patterson reel and tank to put the film on, I used brand new Arista c41 chemicals. I used a sous vide to keep the temp of the chemicals and a thermometer to get the developer water up to 120f and the blix to 125f. I used a beseler motor base to cause continuous agitation to the film during the process. I’m not sure what I did wrong. If anyone could enlighten me I’d be very thankful, as I’m pretty frustrated that I lost these pictures. Thanks

AgX said:
The rebate signing is going through the whole strip, thus at least basically your processing was right. (Also there hardly is a processing error that starts and stops at full frames.)

The issue is at exposure.

Weird because I used 2 different cameras. A canon t70 and a nimslo. It doesn’t make sense that two different cameras had the same malfunction. And also I can see that some of the pictures were almost on the film strip but for some reason only a sliver of the picture is there. Like this https://imgur.com/a/IhGYddA

koraks · Jun 12, 2020

It still looks like a problem with exposure rather than development. I've never seen an example before where no development at all took place at the center of a film strip, while the edges are fully development. I'm not even sure it's physically possible to achieve it with the setup you used, even if you deliberately tried.

How are your b&w films turning out, assuming you have also shot and developed b&w film?

Gabe · Jun 12, 2020

koraks said:
It still looks like a problem with exposure rather than development. I've never seen an example before where no development at all took place at the center of a film strip, while the edges are fully development. I'm not even sure it's physically possible to achieve it with the setup you used, even if you deliberately tried.

How are your b&w films turning out, assuming you have also shot and developed b&w film?

Yes I have developed black and white pictures and they have turned out fine. I’ve developed a lot of black and white pictures, no problem. I’ve also developed color albeit in a classroom instead of using an at home setup, so I’m pretty familiar with developing film. I’ve never had something like this happen before and I’m just confused.

koraks · Jun 12, 2020

Ok, so that probably excludes any very obvious issues such as failure to correctly load the film onto a development reel.

Having another look at the strips, I think you need to analyze them separately.
The first example from the nimslo camera looks like it has 8 frames that are correctly exposed and development looks OK (although we obviously can't assess things like gamma and color rendition, but's let set that aside for now). Edge markings along the entire length of the film look OK. There are no half-developed frames or soft edges anywhere, so the most logical conclusion is that for some reason, only 8 frames were actually exposed and the rest of the film just didn't see any light.

The second example from your t70 is more tricky. Here the edge markings look pretty much normal as well, save for some small oddities in a few places that are possibly caused by the emulsion touching the reel in that spot; nothing out of the ordinary so far. The half-developed images are much more difficult to explain, however. Is the entire roll the same way, or are there frames that are developed to a larger extent - or the opposite, that are altogether missing? The only thing I can come up with so far is the film being stuck to itself in the center of the strip preventing developer from reaching that area, but that would be unlikely to be the case along the entire length of a roll.

One thing you could try is taking a decently long length of film, say half a 36 exp. roll (or even a full roll) pull it out of the canister in broad daylight so as to fog it entirely, and then develop it as you did with the earlier films. If there are any severe problems with developer not reaching the emulsion somehow, it should show up this way while excluding potential issues with exposure & cameras.

Gabe · Jun 12, 2020

koraks said:
Ok, so that probably excludes any very obvious issues such as failure to correctly load the film onto a development reel.

Having another look at the strips, I think you need to analyze them separately.
The first example from the nimslo camera looks like it has 8 frames that are correctly exposed and development looks OK (although we obviously can't assess things like gamma and color rendition, but's let set that aside for now). Edge markings along the entire length of the film look OK. There are no half-developed frames or soft edges anywhere, so the most logical conclusion is that for some reason, only 8 frames were actually exposed and the rest of the film just didn't see any light.

The second example from your t70 is more tricky. Here the edge markings look pretty much normal as well, save for some small oddities in a few places that are possibly caused by the emulsion touching the reel in that spot; nothing out of the ordinary so far. The half-developed images are much more difficult to explain, however. Is the entire roll the same way, or are there frames that are developed to a larger extent - or the opposite, that are altogether missing? The only thing I can come up with so far is the film being stuck to itself in the center of the strip preventing developer from reaching that area, but that would be unlikely to be the case along the entire length of a roll.

One thing you could try is taking a decently long length of film, say half a 36 exp. roll (or even a full roll) pull it out of the canister in broad daylight so as to fog it entirely, and then develop it as you did with the earlier films. If there are any severe problems with developer not reaching the emulsion somehow, it should show up this way while excluding potential issues with exposure & cameras.

So I uploaded the whole roll of the T70 negatives to an album on imgur for you to look over and maybe that’ll help you figure things out. https://imgur.com/a/5roxbZu The nimslo I can understand since I’m still figuring that camera out. The T70 is the real head scratcher to me. I’ll see if I can try out what you said to see if that works to show me what’s wrong with it because I would very much like to get to the bottom of this.

koraks · Jun 12, 2020

Looks like your t70 has a problem with its shutter or mirror flip mechanism.

Edit: if I were to propose a more specific hypothesis: the mirror takes too long to flip up.

AgX · Jun 12, 2020

At first glance the T70 images may be the result of wrong flash synchronisation too (check image orientation with shutter-movement direction).

Donald Qualls · Jun 12, 2020

I agree on the T70 -- either flash at too high a shutter speed or some combination of a shutter capping early or mirror flipping slow. I'd have to see the frames well enough to tell what was up and down in the camera to say more.

Bob Carnie · Jun 12, 2020

Film looks processed , can see rebate and numbers.... something wrong at exposure

Sirius Glass · Jun 12, 2020

One of the cameras appears to have never advanced the film, so the film was not on the take up spool. Shoot a roll on each camera with different subjects and then process.

Randy Stewart · Jun 13, 2020

The T70 ises a vertical travel metal shutter. Most likely it is not operating properly. It looks like it starts okay, but then the following curtain caps almost immediately. In any event, this is clearly a camera operation problem, not a processing issue, notwithstanding the odds of problems with two cameras at the same time.

railwayman3 · Jun 13, 2020

I'm not familiar with the particular cameras, but, assuming they rely on batteries, were these batteries fresh ? Sometimes a weak battery, near the end of its life, can manage to take one or two shots, then fail until it's had a time to recover enough voltage to manage one or two more.

koraks · Jun 13, 2020

Randy Stewart said:
The T70 ises a vertical travel metal shutter. Most likely it is not operating properly. It looks like it starts okay, but then the following curtain caps almost immediately. In any event, this is clearly a camera operation problem, not a processing issue, notwithstanding the odds of problems with two cameras at the same time.

I sort of agree, but the problem in my eyes is the very soft/long transition between the exposed and unexposed part of the frame, suggesting the cause is fairly far from the focal plane. That's my primary reason for believing it may be related to the mirror and not the shutter.

A battery issue is unlikely in my opinion. These types of cameras either fire, or they don't. If the battery is low (as detected by the cameras electronics) it'll just display a "battery low" indicator and refuse to function. If they do manage to operate on a low battery, the shutter sequence works fine, but the mirror remains flipped up after the shutter closes and the film fails to advance. It's extremely unlikely (and probably even technically impossible) for partly exposed frames to occur due to low battery conditions. At least in these fairly "modern" Canon types.

AgX · Jun 13, 2020

koraks said:
I sort of agree, but the problem in my eyes is the very soft/long transition between the exposed and unexposed part of the frame, suggesting the cause is fairly far from the focal plane. That's my primary reason for believing it may be related to the mirror and not the shutter.

Good point, I dit not realize such transition.

foc · Jun 14, 2020

koraks said:
I sort of agree, but the problem in my eyes is the very soft/long transition between the exposed and unexposed part of the frame, suggesting the cause is fairly far from the focal plane. That's my primary reason for believing it may be related to the mirror and not the shutter.

+1

Can the OP take off the T70 lens and look at the mirror and fire a shot at say 1/30 shutter speed or slower (with no film if possible) and see if the mirror lifts completely out of the way.
Then open the camera back (again no film in camera) and look through the shutter as you fire a shot, you should see a clear unobstructed view through the camera.

Maybe even post a photo of the above.

Most of the film I developed came out blank?

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Most of the film I developed came out blank?

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