Olympus XA + Portra 800 streaks across scans

Jo Cau · Dec 18, 2020

Hi all,

I just got some scans back of a roll of Portra 800 I shot with an Olympus XA and needless to say, I am super bummed. I have shot many rolls of that film with that specific camera and never got any issue in the past. The only new player in the process is the lab. On most shots -not really depending on exposure- I get those green vertical streaks across the photos. It is more visible in the low-light areas but I have it across all shots, even in highlights. It also happens throughout the roll, not necessarily more at the beginning or the end.

This roll was developed and scanned at a new location I have never worked with before, so I am trying to understand where the issue is coming from.

I appreciate any insight you might have. Thanks!

Kino · Dec 18, 2020

Gotta see the negatives or it's all pure speculation...

DonW · Dec 19, 2020

Looks like a scanner issue.

Donald Qualls · Dec 20, 2020

DonW said:
Looks like a scanner issue.

I agree. Someone needs to improve the filtering in the power supply for their scanning light source. Show those images to your lab, they should give you a rescan at no charge (insist that they fix their power issue first, obviously).

Jo Cau · Dec 20, 2020

Thanks for the insights! I am getting the negatives back in couple days, we'll see what they say but I am bit more hopeful my film is not actually ruined!

Sirius Glass · Dec 20, 2020

We have have to see the negatives and it is probably a scanner issue. Talk to the photo finisher.

Huss · Dec 20, 2020

As everyone has mentioned, need to see the negs to be 100% sure. But the camera can't do that to the film so either the lab bolloxed your film in development, or they messed the scans. Or both.
Who was the lab? Thedarkroom?

Jo Cau · Dec 21, 2020

I haven't seen the negatives myself yet but they got back to me and said it was light leaks from the sprocket holes, which is weird because in the film report there wat not note about light leaks.. We'll see when I get the negatives back. Thank you all!

The film was dropped at a place that is a partner of this forum

Donald Qualls · Dec 21, 2020

Jo Cau said:
I haven't seen the negatives myself yet but they got back to me and said it was light leaks from the sprocket holes, which is weird because in the film report there wat not note about light leaks.. We'll see when I get the negatives back. Thank you all!

The film was dropped at a place that is a partner of this forum

Sounds like BS to me. The streaks aren't spaced 8 to the frame as the perfs are. They're much too close together.

Huss · Dec 21, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Sounds like BS to me. The streaks aren't spaced 8 to the frame as the perfs are. They're much too close together.

Yeah, I count 25 streaks. This actually makes it worse, as now they are trying to pass the buck on their mistake.
Correct response would be 'sorry we messed up, let's make it right'.

MattKing · Dec 21, 2020

They may not have even looked at the negatives themselves.

Donald Qualls · Dec 22, 2020

MattKing said:
They may not have even looked at the negatives themselves.

Which is another part of the problem.

You know, for the price of sending out your film five or six times, you can get enough Flexicolor chemicals to process hundreds of rolls yourself...

Dennis-B · Dec 24, 2020

I've had film developed and scanned a a couple of local places up until around 3 years ago. I weighed the costs, saw that I had thousands of negatives and transparencies that needed scanning, and opted to buy the Epson V850. Money well-spent. I control all the input and output. I always decline the offers and options.

PS - Most of the local places only offer JPEG's. I like TIFF output, or both.

Jo Cau · Dec 29, 2020

Hi all, following up on my issue here. I got the negatives back and the same stripes show on there so I am not sure what happened. Seems too linear to be light leaks to me but I am also not knowledgeable enough to be certain. I did notice the issue started past that damaged hole you can see on the photo, the film is also bent a little in that area. I guess I am just trying to understand where it came from so I can either fix my camera, not re-do the mistake I might have made...etc. Just trying to figure it out before I load another roll.

Let me know if you have any insight or advice, thank you very much!

Sirius Glass · Dec 29, 2020

Jo Cau said:
Hi all, following up on my issue here. I got the negatives back and the same stripes show on there so I am not sure what happened. Seems too linear to be light leaks to me but I am also not knowledgeable enough to be certain. I did notice the issue started past that damaged hole you can see on the photo, the film is also bent a little in that area. I guess I am just trying to understand where it came from so I can either fix my camera, not re-do the mistake I might have made...etc. Just trying to figure it out before I load another roll.

Let me know if you have any insight or advice, thank you very much!

View attachment 262517

You need to take these negatives back to the photo finisher and ask them what they did to cause these streaks. Bring the earlier films too to show that the problem is not an one off problem. Among others things the photo finisher needs to replace the damaged film too.

Kino · Dec 29, 2020

That looks like a machine-stop, processing failure to me.

I know of no earthly way a camera could cause that issue...

Huss · Dec 29, 2020

They owe you a roll of film and an apology.

There is zero way you or your camera did this.

There are quite a few site sponsors... who did you use?

Donald Qualls · Dec 30, 2020

That definitely looks like light fogging from here, but I agree, your camera couldn't have done that. To me, it looks like a bad light seal between a cassette and machine, possibly triggered by the damaged sprocket -- but their machine should be able to tolerate that level of damage, surely with no worse effect than damaging a single frame at the point the damaged film passed the light seal. If it's happened on other rolls as well, it's a systematic problem with their machines.

Jo Cau · Dec 30, 2020

Thanks all for looking into it. I'll bring that up with the lab and see what they say. Film was dropped at Freestyle and processed by Richard.

I sort of feel better knowing the problem doesn't seem to be user error on my part. I am sure if it's their machine I won't be the only one bringing up the issue either.

Jo Cau · Dec 31, 2020

Ending this thread with the lab's response after seeing the same photo of the negatives I posted:
I can honestly say I see this everyday that I'm here and it's not exclusive to Olympus XA. I also have this same old point and shoot and I love it. If you look at the sprocket hole near the zero mark at the bottom you can see that's it's torn. The teeth didn't catch the film sprockets and that could be for many reasons. When it happens at the beginning of the roll it could be because it wasn't loaded properly, when it happens at the end of the roll it's usually on rolls where the shooter tried to squeeze a few more exposures on the roll.

So I guess I'll never really know what happened

But thanks y'all for helping out and happy new year!

Anon Ymous · Dec 31, 2020

When I saw the sample you uploaded, my first thought was kink/stress marks. Does the film show any kinks where there's increased density? If yes, that would explain it.

PS Happy new year

Donald Qualls · Dec 31, 2020

Jo Cau said:
Ending this thread with the lab's response after seeing the same photo of the negatives I posted:
I can honestly say I see this everyday that I'm here and it's not exclusive to Olympus XA. I also have this same old point and shoot and I love it. If you look at the sprocket hole near the zero mark at the bottom you can see that's it's torn. The teeth didn't catch the film sprockets and that could be for many reasons. When it happens at the beginning of the roll it could be because it wasn't loaded properly, when it happens at the end of the roll it's usually on rolls where the shooter tried to squeeze a few more exposures on the roll.

So I guess I'll never really know what happened

But thanks y'all for helping out and happy new year!

If I were face to face (even through those acrylic barriers businesses often have up these days) I'd ask how the devil he thinks the single torn sprocket hole is the problem, when I'm asking about the stripes running across the print?

Olympus XA + Portra 800 streaks across scans

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