New type of manufacturing defect of FP4+ in 120: line on the back of a roll

Steven Lee · Oct 4, 2022

In August, I purchased a 10-roll "cube" of FP4+ in medium format. Every roll from that batch had exactly the same problem: a strange vertical line going across the entire length of a roll, shown as semi-transparent line on my scans without well-defined edges as shown below:

Upon examining the negatives, I quickly found the line on them, so it clearly was not a scanning problem. What was interesting is that it's not an emulsion defect. The line is clearly visible on the back side of the film, i.e. the side which usually is covered by the backing paper.

Closer examination with a high-powered loupe (can't share here because I can't take photos at this magnification) revealed that it's not a scratch, but a strange abnormality in the thickness of the film base. It is only visible at certain angles, I did my best to try to capture it on a cell phone here:

So I reached out to Ilford, and yes indeed - they had a manufacturing incident recently. Here's their response:

"I can confirm that the defect was unfortunately as I suspected - its a gel backing line. So huge apologies on behalf of our company - a sI apprecate its disappointing for you to have ruined images/films. Your signed number 4651 - links to carton batch 05CFN1C01-2/01-2"

They are exchanging the defective rolls.
Sharing here. Be aware.

Bill Burk · Oct 4, 2022

Wow! Wonder how it would print on a diffusion enlarger? (Not sure it would help because scanner light is diffuse, but you never know… the line might disappear.

albada · Oct 4, 2022

Bill Burk said:
Wow! Wonder how it would print on a diffusion enlarger? (Not sure it would help because scanner light is diffuse, but you never know… the line might disappear.

Steven, if you don't mind, could you mail a frame to me or somebody else who has a diffusion enlarger? We will print it and post the results. Bill might be correct about the line vanishing.
You can PM me or anybody by hovering your mouse over his name on the left side of a posting, and clicking "Start conversation".

Steven Lee · Oct 4, 2022

@albada done

AgX · Oct 4, 2022

What Ilford, strange enough, did not say is that one still may save the image.

possible means:

-) diffuse lighting
-) laquering the film

the most likely sucessful one
-) removing that backing layer chemically

Photomultiplier · Oct 4, 2022

I was thinking about using drum scanner fluid on the negative carrier when i saw the picture of your damaged film.
This fluid makes a lot of damages invisible. Maybe it depends on the refractive index and the shape of the unevenness.

Helge · Oct 4, 2022

Liquid scanning it will probably make it close to invisible.

Helge · Oct 4, 2022

Photomultiplier said:
I was thinking about using drum scanner fluid on the negative carrier when i saw the picture of your damaged film.
This fluid makes a lot of damages invisible. Maybe it depends on the refractive index and the shape of the unevenness.

Great minds and all that. ;-) in the same minute.

Anyway, naphtha is essentially scanning fluid. Just don’t light it on fire.

mshchem · Oct 4, 2022

So this is an opaque line in the film base? Is it a crease?

Steven Lee · Oct 4, 2022

@mshchem not quite, because a crease would affect both sides. This is more like a very slightly etched uniform groove. Extremely faint and hard to see at a straight angle, but quite apparent if the light bounces just right like on some sections in the photo.

Ilford provided more detail:

"... one of our newer QC staff who wrote down the position of a gel backing line (yours) to be rejected by finishing, but in error got its position out by 100mm. So finishing actually rejected what was in reality a good slit, and the slit with your line, went unseen..."

So they caught it during QC but sometimes humans make mistakes. Things happen. No biggie. And I applaud Ilford for same-day response and transparency. Will continue to shoot exclusively Ilford B&W films.

Photomultiplier · Oct 4, 2022

Wow, this is first class! Such a detailed analysis and explanation towards the customer is seldom heard of.
Very nice, i am impressed.
Mistakes happen, even in the best teams and companies.

Andrew O'Neill · Oct 4, 2022

Gulp! I'll check my stash of FP4. Did they say if it was limited to FP4 or others?

Edit: Yup. I've got a brick matching that batch number. I'll shoot off a roll and check it.

mshchem · Oct 4, 2022

Steven Lee said:
@mshchem not quite, because a crease would affect both sides. This is more like a very slightly etched uniform groove. Extremely faint and hard to see at a straight angle, but quite apparent if the light bounces just right like on some sections in the photo.

Ilford provided more detail:

"... one of our newer QC staff who wrote down the position of a gel backing line (yours) to be rejected by finishing, but in error got its position out by 100mm. So finishing actually rejected what was in reality a good slit, and the slit with your line, went unseen..."

So they caught it during QC but sometimes humans make mistakes. Things happen. No biggie. And I applaud Ilford for same-day response and transparency. Will continue to shoot exclusively Ilford B&W films.

I don't know how the film folks keep all these things straight. I watched the Smarter Everyday video about Eastman Kodak making film, looks like EK and Ilford use Human folks to watch for this. I really appreciate Harman being upfront about this situation. Doesn't sound like you will have any problems getting replacements.
I bet the technician and the QC folks learn from this. Thanks for your post.

albada · Oct 5, 2022

Andrew O'Neill said:
Gulp! I'll check my stash of FP4. Did they say if it was limited to FP4 or others?
Edit: Yup. I've got a brick matching that batch number. I'll shoot off a roll and check it.

A check probably won't help. Based on Ilford's explanation, only one slit out of several slits was faulty in that batch. So if there were 10 slits coming out of the machine, for example, then a roll would have only a 1-in-10 chance of being bad. I suggest asking Ilford whether they will replace your brick. Or assume that naphtha in a glass carrier will conceal the flaw.

Andrew O'Neill · Oct 5, 2022

albada said:
A check probably won't help. Based on Ilford's explanation, only one slit out of several slits was faulty in that batch. So if there were 10 slits coming out of the machine, for example, then a roll would have only a 1-in-10 chance of being bad. I suggest asking Ilford whether they will replace your brick. Or assume that naphtha in a glass carrier will conceal the flaw.

I've stuck a suspect roll in a camera (Holga Pan 120 because I'll get through it faster LOL), develop and see. Fingers crossed!

gone · Oct 5, 2022

Thanks for the heads up. Illford's response was very different than Kodak's when I contacted them about their defective developer packaging. It took lots of emails to get to the "right" person, who agreed there was a problem and promised to send me replacement developer.

That was a year ago and I'm still waiting. More emails to Kodak were never answered. I still buy Kodak developers, but only the old developers on eBay in the good packaging.

logan2z · Oct 5, 2022

Andrew O'Neill said:
Gulp! I'll check my stash of FP4. Did they say if it was limited to FP4 or others?

Edit: Yup. I've got a brick matching that batch number. I'll shoot off a roll and check it.

Are those batch numbers on individual boxes of film? I had a look at a box of 120 FP4+ in my fridge and don't see any numbers that have a similar form to those in the OP's post. There's a number right above the stamped expiry date, but it doesn't look anything like the posted batch number.

ags2mikon · Oct 5, 2022

I'm impressed. Here is a company that stands up and takes responsibility for their problems. This is why we need to support companies like Harman. They have been there for us through thick and thin adding new product along the way. They have some things I am not the biggest fan of but, they do better than most of them at being reliable. I just ordered more Harmon film yesterday.

Andrew O'Neill · Oct 5, 2022

I just processed a roll. After a quick glance, I couldn't see anything. Once they have dried, I will take a much closer look.

pentaxuser · Oct 5, 2022

Andrew O'Neill said:
I just processed a roll. After a quick glance, I couldn't see anything. Once they have dried, I will take a much closer look.

What isn't clear to me, Andrew is whether this line such as the OP could see on the negs will show up in prints from such negs that are printed in an enlarger and on darkroom paper

As far as I can ascertain the OP hasn't tried to make a darkroom print from the affected negs and indeed may not be a darkroom printer so the answer remains unknown

pentaxuser

Steven Lee · Oct 5, 2022

@pentaxuser I shipped the negatives to @albada who'll do a wet print and share the details.

pentaxuser · Oct 5, 2022

Steven Lee said:
@pentaxuser I shipped the negatives to @albada who'll do a wet print and share the details.

Thanks for the answer, Steven

pentaxuser

Andrew O'Neill · Oct 5, 2022

I just examined the roll I processed this morning. The line is definitely there. I could clearly see it with a loupe.

AgX · Oct 5, 2022

Steven Lee said:
Ilford provided more detail:

"... one of our newer QC staff who wrote down the position of a gel backing line (yours) to be rejected by finishing, but in error got its position out by 100mm. So finishing actually rejected what was in reality a good slit, and the slit with your line, went unseen..."

So they caught it during QC but sometimes humans make mistakes. Things happen. No biggie. And I applaud Ilford for same-day response and transparency. Will continue to shoot exclusively Ilford B&W films.

But this also shows that at the final product testing to catch such fault nonetheless at least a sample from each pancake would be necessary...

A completely automated system, detecting the position and lenght of such scratch should have got out the respective strip at converting.

albada · Oct 5, 2022

@pentaxuser , I'll print those negs with a diffusion enlarger.
If that fails, then with Steven's permission, I could also try putting a few drops of naphtha on the base side of the neg and sandwiching it between glass, as was suggested above.

New type of manufacturing defect of FP4+ in 120: line on the back of a roll

Steven Lee

Bill Burk

albada

Steven Lee

AgX

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Helge

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Steven Lee

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Andrew O'Neill

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gone

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Steven Lee

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New type of manufacturing defect of FP4+ in 120: line on the back of a roll

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