Overexposed lines on film

snusmumriken · Mar 3, 2022

I'm not a MF guy, so forgive me being unsure about this.

How is it that we see the word 'Kodak' and the frame number within the image area on your contacts? Is that off the backing paper? If so, doesn't it imply you have a significant light leak in your camera?

...which would take us right back to the beginning...

Vania · Mar 3, 2022

snusmumriken said:
I'm not a MF guy, so forgive me being unsure about this.

How is it that we see the word 'Kodak' and the frame number within the image area on your contacts? Is that off the backing paper? If so, doesn't it imply you have a significant light leak in your camera?

...which would take us right back to the beginning...

No I am just using some old fogged films in order to test the evenness of development. I don't see how a light leak would do that though... and it is not a light leak for multiple reasons already detailed. The cause of the issue is uneven development happening in the first seconds of development. Now I need to figure out why and how to nullify it. I also realise now that I don't know how much evenness I can expect from an inversion development, hence my experiment suggestion.

pentaxuser · Mar 3, 2022

Vania said:
No I am just using some old fogged films in order to test the evenness of development. I don't see how a light leak would do that though... and it is not a light leak for multiple reasons already detailed. The cause of the issue is uneven development happening in the first seconds of development. Now I need to figure out why and how to nullify it. .

From what I have read of your processing regime it sounds exactly like what most of the rest of us do so we should have the same problem, should we not?

Also I cannot think of a reason why the first few second of development would not "even" itself out over the time it takes to do a complete development. In theory and short of placing the reel into an open tank of developer all other ways involve the bottom of the film in the reel getting developer first but if the interlude between contact of the developer with the bottom of the film and top was crucial then this issue would apply all the time to all users?

pentaxuser

Vania · Mar 3, 2022

pentaxuser said:
From what I have read of your processing regime it sounds exactly like what most of the rest of us do so we should have the same problem, should we not?

Also I cannot think of a reason why the first few second of development would not "even" itself out over the time it takes to do a complete development. In theory and short of placing the reel into an open tank of developer all other ways involve the bottom of the film in the reel getting developer first but if the interlude between contact of the developer with the bottom of the film and top was crucial then this issue would apply all the time to all users?

pentaxuser

Exactly why I was curious to see if others would get the same result if shooting a grey card -1EV ! Maybe what I am seeing now is obvious because I am shooting a grey card and looking for it. In most normal images it probably won't show that much anymore. But still it's there. I just used a higher dilution and it still is perceptible. So next step is another developer.

Regarding the first few seconds, I am as puzzle as you are but I am referring to Anchell quote which seems consistent with the fact that doing 1 min initial agitation Immensely reduce the problem : « Agitation [...] first benefit, preventing chemical defects, is accomplished within the first minute of development. This is because there are certain irreversible chemical defects that can begin within that time. If allowed to begin, they become worse during the course of development. The solution is continuous agitation for the first 50 to 60 seconds. »

otto.f · Mar 6, 2022

I found this on the LFF:
any impurities, especially metal ions, can cause issues with the development. I started washing/scrubbing everything before using it, made sure to use distilled water, and didn't have the problem again.
This was about white spots in the final print, but I don't know how metal ions behave and if they can stand in line caused by some reel or so

Vania · May 16, 2022

For futur reference to those who might find it interesting, here is a copy of an email to Ilford which sums up all my testing. In the end I just cannot develop with HC110/Ilfotech HC anymore :

I also wanted to let you know the result of my extensive testing. To cut to the point I managed to isolated the cause and I am about 99% sure the steaks are caused by the developer as testing with ID11 are streak free. But of course things are a little more complicated.

The developers that cause this are HC110 and Ilfotec HC. I have tried 2 bottles of Kodak one and 1 bottle of Ilford and all gave the same streaks, rolls after rolls, with more or less intensity depending on the agitation pattern. Usually the more agitation with just enough developer to cover the reel(s) the less streaking. A 1 minute initial agitation have a strong positive impact. Pre-wetting might provide some improvement but it did not have a clearly noticeable effect. I have not tried another type of liquid developer yet.

I have tried every possible agitation method except continuous and always get some form of streaks. I have used many different tanks and reels as well (Paterson and metal with hewes reels).

The puzzling thing is that I gave 2 rolls to a lab that uses HC110 1+47 and they came out normal.

I do mix my developer well, at 20°C and usually do a large batch at 1+31 because it last for so long. I have tried different dilutions as well with no effect.

My stop bath is a Tetenal acetic acid diluted to 2%. I am thinking about using just water to see if it makes a difference…

Fixer is Hypam 1+4.

I hope maybe you can make some sense out of this. Please let me know if you do !

foc · May 17, 2022

Thanks for the update. At least you know that ID11 works for you. It sounds strange that the lab processed HC110 didn't produce streaks but yours did.

Maybe it was tha bad vibes after all.

snusmumriken · May 17, 2022

Vania said:
The developers that cause this are HC110 and Ilfotec HC. I have tried 2 bottles of Kodak one and 1 bottle of Ilford and all gave the same streaks, rolls after rolls, with more or less intensity depending on the agitation pattern. Usually the more agitation with just enough developer to cover the reel(s) the less streaking. A 1 minute initial agitation have a strong positive impact. Pre-wetting might provide some improvement but it did not have a clearly noticeable effect. I have not tried another type of liquid developer yet.

I have tried every possible agitation method except continuous and always get some form of streaks. I have used many different tanks and reels as well (Paterson and metal with hewes reels).

The puzzling thing is that I gave 2 rolls to a lab that uses HC110 1+47 and they came out normal.

I do mix my developer well, at 20°C and usually do a large batch at 1+31 because it last for so long. I have tried different dilutions as well with no effect.

My stop bath is a Tetenal acetic acid diluted to 2%. I am thinking about using just water to see if it makes a difference…

Fixer is Hypam 1+4.

I hope maybe you can make some sense out of this. Please let me know if you do !

I can't make any sense of this at all, but it is striking that you get this problem with syrupy HC-110 and Ilfotec HC but not with powder ID-11; and that @logan2z in this other thread has also had a persistent streak problem using HC-110 but hasn't yet tried ID-11. And yet both of you take care to mix the developer well.

logan2z · May 17, 2022

snusmumriken said:
I can't make any sense of this at all, but it is striking that you get this problem with syrupy HC-110 and Ilfotec HC but not with powder ID-11; and that @logan2z in this other thread has also had a persistent streak problem using HC-110 but hasn't yet tried ID-11. And yet both of you take care to mix the developer well.

Amazing how similar this problem is to the one I've been describing in the thread that @snusmumriken referenced. I'm still struggling to find the cause. I hope one of us does soon or I may lose my mind

I'm going run another test roll and change up my agitation method. If that fails to yield any improvement, I'm going to try a different developer. I've also thought about getting the Jobo roller but I feel that's just throwing more money at the problem without really determining the root cause. How many people have successfully developed film without a rotary processor??

Sirius Glass · May 17, 2022

logan2z said:
How many people have successfully developed film without a rotary processor??

I did that for only fifty years without problems. Then I bought the Jobo processor for the temperature control and was blown away by the consistency of rotary processing, especially 4"x5".

logan2z · May 17, 2022

Sirius Glass said:
I did that for only fifty years without problems. Then I bought the Jobo processor for the temperature control and was blown away by the consistency of rotary processing, especially 4"x5".

Right, that's what I was trying to say (although maybe not that clearly) - people have been successfully developing film for decades using inversion processing, so I should be able to make it work too. I might try rotary processing at some point but I feel like I should be able to get good results with inversion processing as well.

snusmumriken · May 17, 2022

logan2z said:
Right, that's what I was trying to say (although maybe not that clearly) - people have been successfully developing film for decades using inversion processing, so I should be able to make it work too. I might try rotary processing at some point but I feel like I should be able to get good results with inversion processing as well.

Without question!

Vania · May 18, 2022

logan2z said:
Amazing how similar this problem is to the one I've been describing in the thread that @snusmumriken referenced. I'm still struggling to find the cause. I hope one of us does soon or I may lose my mind

I'm going run another test roll and change up my agitation method. If that fails to yield any improvement, I'm going to try a different developer. I've also thought about getting the Jobo roller but I feel that's just throwing more money at the problem without really determining the root cause. How many people have successfully developed film without a rotary processor??

The problem is remarkably similar not to say the same. I have tried all possible inversion method over probably more than 2 dozen development, it's not it. Although 1 minute initial agitation and just enough developer developer to cover the reels improved things noticeably.
I can think only of 3 probable causes to this :
1. A recent change in one component at both Ilford AND Kodak...
2. The syrupy nature of the developer and an inability to mix it well enough for some strange reason.
3. Some chemical reaction with the stop bath. I have just recently seen this happening systematically on paper although the streaks are not similar they are evocative of the issue. My Bergger paper would streak every time I put it in a 2% acetic acid bath (tetenal). Always at the same place (see pictures). When I switched to water the problem stoped.
I am curious what do you use as a stop bath ? Have you tried water only ?
It may be possible also that HC110 require constant agitation as I have seen a thread of someone solving similar issue with a Jobo doing manual rotary processing. In any case if you don't want to invest switch to another developer it should solve the problem. ID11 does it for me so far. It's a pity for me because I really liked the punchy negatives I get with my HC110 development at 1+31. And I don't think I can achieve quite the same look with other developers.

logan2z · May 18, 2022

Vania said:
I am curious what do you use as a stop bath ? Have you tried water only ?

I've been using Ilford Ilfostop. I have not tried water only.

I'm not a chemist, but I'm curious why plain water would act as an adequate stop bath.

logan2z · May 18, 2022

Vania said:
I can think only of 3 probable causes to this :
1. A recent change in one component at both Ilford AND Kodak...

That seems incredibly unlikely. Also, I'm using the old formulation of HC-110, a bottle I purchased a few years ago.

Vania said:
2. The syrupy nature of the developer and an inability to mix it well enough for some strange reason.

Hard to believe that this could be the issue given that HC-110 has been used by a great many photographers for decades without issue. I'd also expect more randomness to the issue than the very straight, evenly spaced streaks you and I are getting if the issue was poorly mixed developer. But I could be wrong.

Vania said:
3. Some chemical reaction with the stop bath.

That's something I hadn't considered. I assume that means you haven't tried water as a stop yet?

Vania · May 18, 2022

logan2z said:
I've been using Ilford Ilfostop. I have not tried water only.

I'm not a chemist, but I'm curious why plain water would act as an adequate stop bath.

It's not a stop bath in the sense that it does not stop the developper's action but rinse it off. I haven't tried it yet but if going this way I would definitely elect a 2 bath fix. Since we are not using the same stop this seems less likely, but still worse a try.

Apart from that, if you consider that only HC110/Ilfotech HC produces this artefact it really narrows down the possible cause(s). We just need to figure out what makes HC110 so specific. I can think of 3 things :
1. It's syrupy
2. It's a highly active, high contrast developer. But then I tried higher dilution with dev times over 10 minutes and still got the streaking.
3. It keeps forever.

I remember a long time ago when I used to develop in PMK, before I fell in love with HC110, the required agitation was 2 inversions every 15s to avoid artefacts. Maybe that can be a step before the Jobo rotary process. But from all my testing I think the best that can be achieve is to make the streaks barely visible, but there is always some trace of it.

I still can't help but wonder how I developed 100s of rolls with HC110 for so many years with the same equipment and no issues of the sort except maybe a couple times...

pentaxuser · May 18, 2022

I have seen a suggestion made that the "syrupy" HC110 which vania has needs a lot of very thorough mixing to ensure consistency but given how many users there are you'd imagine that even if only a few fail to mix it thoroughly enough that would still constitute enough "failures for this to be more well known

For what it is worth a water stop if it is thorough enough in terms of fills and dumps does stop developer but takes longer. I can see how a water bath might allow development to continue and if this continuation was a large enough portion of a short development time then I can accept that a water stopped bath negative may be more developed that a acid stopped bath negative but it certainly isn't clear to me what the link might be with these lines /streaks

pentaxuser

Vania · May 18, 2022

pentaxuser said:
I have seen a suggestion made that the "syrupy" HC110 which vania has needs a lot of very thorough mixing to ensure consistency but given how many users there are you'd imagine that even if only a few fail to mix it thoroughly enough that would still constitute enough "failures for this to be more well known

For what it is worth a water stop if it is thorough enough in terms of fills and dumps does stop developer but takes longer. I can see how a water bath might allow development to continue and if this continuation was a large enough portion of a short development time then I can accept that a water stopped bath negative may be more developed that a acid stopped bath negative but it certainly isn't clear to me what the link might be with these lines /streaks

pentaxuser

Because it does so on some paper as I detailed in a previous post with pictures to illustrate

pentaxuser · May 18, 2022

Vania said:
Because it does so on some paper as I detailed in a previous post with pictures to illustrate

Ah, I thought we were talking about film development around which the problem centres.. Yes paper development is, I agree, a different kettle of fish and an acid stop bath is clearly necessary

pentaxuser

Vania · May 18, 2022

pentaxuser said:
Ah, I thought we were talking about film development around which the problem centres.. Yes paper development is, I agree, a different kettle of fish and an acid stop bath is clearly necessary

pentaxuser

Sorry not at all what I am saying. If you read just a couple post up you will see that I have systematic streak with paper and acid stop bath. it's all explained in the post.

logan2z · May 18, 2022

pentaxuser said:
I have seen a suggestion made that the "syrupy" HC110 which vania has needs a lot of very thorough mixing to ensure consistency but given how many users there are you'd imagine that even if only a few fail to mix it thoroughly enough that would still constitute enough "failures for this to be more well known

That's why I doubt this issue has anything to do with insufficient mixing of HC-110. If it were that difficult to mix sufficiently I'd expect that there would be many more instances of this issue being discussed online.

Regardless, I may try to develop a roll using some of the Ilford DD-X I have on hand to see if that resolves this. Either that or develop a roll using HC-110 dilution H to try a more dilute developer with a longer development time.

Or both

Vania · May 18, 2022

logan2z said:
That's why I doubt this issue has anything to do with insufficient mixing of HC-110. If it were that difficult to mix sufficiently I'd expect that there would be many more instances of this issue being discussed online.

Regardless, I may try to develop a roll using some of the Ilford DD-X I have on hand to see if that resolves this. Either that or develop a roll using HC-110 dilution H to try a more dilute developer with a longer development time.

Or both

Tried dil H quite a few times already same result...

logan2z · May 18, 2022

Vania said:
Tried dil H quite a few times already same result...

Hmm, ok. Then I think I'll go the DD-X route for the next roll.

Can't be any worse...

Vania · May 18, 2022

Please let us know of the result ! That was definitely on my to do list, another liquid developer.

I wonder what we do or use in common that sets us apart from the rest of HC110 users... and if there are regular HC110 users in these threads.

logan2z · May 18, 2022

Vania said:
Please let us know of the result ! That was definitely on my to do list, another liquid developer.

Will do. Hoping to get to it today and should have scanned negatives by tomorrow.

Vania said:
I wonder what we do or use in common that sets us apart from the rest of HC110 users...

Good question. It's possible that many people just scan their negatives and are perfectly happy to clone out defects in Lightroom.

When I was sending film off to a commercial lab for processing I would often get back negatives that had various defects - water marks, the odd scratch, etc. This is a well-known/respected lab here in California, and I wondered why they weren't inundated with complaints. But I suspect about 99.9999% of their customers scan and fix defects digitally so these issues aren't a big deal to them and so they never complain - at least that's my theory. I doubt this applies to the majority of the Photrio crowd, however, so maybe there simply aren't that many people here using HC-110.

Or you and I are horribly unlucky...

Overexposed lines on film

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