"pinholes" on HP5+

[Angelo di Mango]

Have you ever noticed pinholes on HP5+, when i say pinholes, I mean hundreds of them, very tiny white spots on the print. I want to stress that I do not think that the process is faulty as I do not have this problem with my other films (FP4 and FOMA).
I use Tanol developer.

 

[GeorgK]

"Pinholes" are holes in the emulsion, so they would produce BLACK dots on the print.

 

[Angelo di Mango]

"pinholes" is just a word it means that there are hundreds of very tiny spots on the film which give WHITE spots on the print.

 

[polyglot]

Perhaps your negatives are dirty? White spots all over the print would seem to imply that. Is this just one roll or a repeatable thing?

 

[Ian David]

I have recently been having similar problems with FP4 sheets with XTOL. Hundreds of tiny little disruptions in the surface of the wet sheen when I look at the drying sheets from a certain angle. They are not visible to the naked eye once the negs are dry, but they show up again as many tiny white spots when printed...
It is not dust. It is very annoying.
Ian

 

[Angelo di Mango]

I am positive it is not a question of dust or dirt as the Fp4s which are hanging dry next to the HP5 are just great.
This problem has affected three rolls of film so far, I was wondering if the developer had something to do with it as i read that some peolple had problems with Hp5 and pyrocat.
see:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[polyglot]

That person was getting black dots on the print (pinholes in neg), not white dots. Not that I have any further suggestions as to the cause; just noting that you seem to each be having the opposite problem.

Can you see the black bits in your negative? Do they look like a grain clump? Infectious development?

 

[Chazzy]

You might try messaging Simon Galley from Ilford. In the past, when people have thought that there might be some defect in their film, he has asked them to send him a negative for examination under a microscope. It might be that they could give you an exact answer about the nature of the problem.

 

[Mark Layne]

Are you using a strong acid stopbath?

 

[Angelo di Mango]

No acid stop bath Mark, in fact i use a non acid sequence : presoaking in distilled water / Tanol / wash 1mn in distilled water / homemade fixer TF2 (akalin fixer.)

 

[Mahler_one]

I agree with Charles....contact Simon ASAP, and provide the details including the emulsion number if you still have such. Please let us know what you and Simon have discovered...thanks.

Incidentally, I too thought that pinholes alluded to holes in the negative which should subsequently print as dark dots on the print....no emulsion at the holes, light goes through unimpeded, dark spots on the paper. What am I missing?

 

[erikg]

The thread title should really be changed, what is being described are not pinholes. Using the term is just adding confusion.

 

[Angelo di Mango]

I have sent a message to Simon Galley.
Sorry about the title "pinholes" which is misleading ..

 

[Ian David]

I have sent a message to Simon Galley.
Sorry about the title "pinholes" which is misleading ..

Good on you Angelo
Please let us know what Simon has to say.
Thanks
Ian

 

[richard ide]

I ran into a similar situation many years ago although with different films. It was caused by fixer contaminated developer. IIRC very little fix caused the problem.

 

[Simon R Galley]

Dear All,

I have passed this to our technical people to speak to Angelo.

We have no QC issues outstanding with any film at this time, but we will need to examine the film with our EM microscope, only way.

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

 

[urbatschek]

"Pinholes" HP5 in Moersch Tanol

Hello Angelo,

why don´t you drop Wolfgang Moersch a quick mail? As far I can remember, there have been similar problems regarding Tanol and HP5 due to certain emulsion number HP5´s. You can reach Wolfgang (who is extremely helpful and never seems to sleep ;-) ) at: wolfgang@moersch-photochemie.de

Greetings, Mirko

 

[Ronald Moravec]

Silver precipitates out of used fixer and the little black specs stuck to the next film. Washing will not remove them, gentle abrasion before the film dries will at a risk of scratching.

You can filter 95% with a quartered Bounty paper towel. No other brand.

You can also mix twice as much fix as you need and syphon off the top or you can just make the fix one time use and finish it up on test prints.

Look at the bottom of the fix bottle for black flecks.

 

[Laurent]

A similar issue has been reported on the French Forum http://www.galerie-photo.info/forumgp/read.php?2,9931

In that case, the batch was 46CHB1CO1/01

 

[Mahler_one]

Dear All,

I have passed this to our technical people to speak to Angelo.

We have no QC issues outstanding with any film at this time, but we will need to examine the film with our EM microscope, only way.

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

But Simon, these were apparently NOT pin holes as most of us understand pin holes to be. With the utmost respect to Angelo, the issue does NOT appear to be with the HP5 emulsion, but with some processing difficulty. A previous poster advised that the title of the thread be completely changed so as to reflect the reality of the situation. Do as you think correct, but to spend hours searching for emulsion defects with a microscope...well, pardon me for saying that you might be going well beyond what is necessary. Such actions as to quality control obviously are what most of us know Ilford does, and why we buy Ilford film. Nevertheless, the defects described are not pinholes.

 

[Krzys]

I have recently been having similar problems with FP4 sheets with XTOL. Hundreds of tiny little disruptions in the surface of the wet sheen when I look at the drying sheets from a certain angle. They are not visible to the naked eye once the negs are dry, but they show up again as many tiny white spots when printed...
It is not dust. It is very annoying.
Ian

I can report the exact same experience with that combination, only 120 film.

I do not trust XTOL anymore. Fuzzy stuff growing in my stock solution and pinholes in the film, no thanks.

 

[Ian David]

But Simon, these were apparently NOT pin holes as most of us understand pin holes to be. With the utmost respect to Angelo, the issue does NOT appear to be with the HP5 emulsion, but with some processing difficulty. A previous poster advised that the title of the thread be completely changed so as to reflect the reality of the situation. Do as you think correct, but to spend hours searching for emulsion defects with a microscope...well, pardon me for saying that you might be going well beyond what is necessary. Such actions as to quality control obviously are what most of us know Ilford does, and why we buy Ilford film. Nevertheless, the defects described are not pinholes.

Mahler_one - I wouldn't worry yourself sick. It is clear from reading this thread that the problem is not pinholes as that term is commonly understood, but rather solid specks. However, I think that will be clear to Simon, and also to any Ilford techs who look at this thread. If the techs don't think it is worth their time, I imagine they will let Simon/Angelo know.

Who knows what the problem is? Nobody here seems to have a solid answer. So I look forward to hearing whether Ilford can offer any thoughts.

Ian

 

[Simon R Galley]

Dear all,

Our tech service will find out what it is and let Angelo know.

I am 99.99% sure its not the film but when you buy our products its all part of the service.

As to the emulsion 'batch' mentioned ( on the French forum ) that is not relevant I am afraid, the last batch of HP5+ performs exactly the same as the 1st batch and the 483 batches in between.

Regards

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

 

[clayne]

I can report the exact same experience with that combination, only 120 film.

I do not trust XTOL anymore. Fuzzy stuff growing in my stock solution and pinholes in the film, no thanks.

XTOL will never cause pinholes in any film. Did you use distilled water btw? It's abnormal for any culture to be growing in XTOL. If it's white specks, just filter it or dump it. White precipitate is normal if XTOL is exposed to air (not something you particularly want though).

 

[Angelo di Mango]

I am going to send one of my negs to Simon for examination.
More about it later then....