Problems developing 120 film - suspicion of mould

Hello all, first post here.

I'm an amateur photographer venturing in the analog black and white photography options, developing my own films at home.

I have about ten rolls of development in my curriculum, and I've been using the same D-76 bottle sporadically.

Once I developed a 120 film that came with some weird stuff in the first pictures. At the time I though it could be an old developer, or maybe the result from the tape's glue which I only torn from the backing paper (although that never gave me any troubles before), but thinking it could be related to old developer, I decided to switch to a bottle of old, but unused D-76. Everything seemed to come back to normal, until yesterday, when I cooked a fresh batch of Caffenol C-M, developed a test 6x6 sheet cut off of a Tri-X 400, and then decided to develop a full roll of Tri-X.

The first sheet went ok, but the roll showed the same strange "artifacts" - more prominent at the end of the strip, close to the tape, but with visible spots all along the film.

Could this be related to mould growing on the exposed film? It has been sitting in a small box for about four months. I live in Manaus btw, which is very humid and hot.


Attachments:
Sheet developed normally in fresh Caffenol. +3 stops in Photoshop.
https://flic.kr/p/2emsQFH


First Picture (closest to the tape) from the roll developed on the same fresh Caffenol. +3 stops in Photoshop.
https://flic.kr/p/2fKsZnF


Second picture in the roll. +2 stops in Photoshop.
https://flic.kr/p/TBcYL3

Looks like backing paper that got wet/humid.

koraks said:

Looks like backing paper that got wet/humid.

Click to expand...

Wow, that seems to be simple to solve. Would a pre-bath do it? Shall I pre-bath all my older films from on? Any thing I should change in my workflow because of the pre-bath?

Sorry for so many questions, I'm anxious to develop some more film! ><

Ask as many questions as you want and need. That way we can help you with your problems and you can learn.

For films that have already been damaged by moisture I’m not sure if there’s anything you can do to reverse the effects (someone more experienced may correct me here). I don’t think pre-soaking would make any difference.

Since you live in a very humid region your best defense against this problem will be to keep your film as dry as possible. I suggest keeping rolls sealed in their original foil wrappers until just before you use them and processing them as soon as you can. If you have to wait a while to process them you may want to consider sealing them in zip-locks bags along with packages of desiccant.

You may also want to consider keeping desiccant with your stored negatives as they, too, can be damaged by moisture.

I was seeing evidence of fingerprints on the emulsion.

Pentode said:

For films that have already been damaged by moisture I’m not sure if there’s anything you can do to reverse the effects (someone more experienced may correct me here). I don’t think pre-soaking would make any difference.

Click to expand...

I'll develop some more films as soon as the new batch of XTOL gets into temperature.

If I get those marks again, I think I'll desperately soak the film roll with paper and everything in cold water, and work it into a metal spiral still wet. Any suggestions against this idea?

I do only open the original package right before inserting into the magazine, but I keep procrastinating for developing them. I'll move the used rolls to a dry box where I keep my gear.

glbeas said:

I was seeing evidence of fingerprints on the emulsion.

Click to expand...

Oh in the sheet, right? It's extremely hard to put a "sheet" of normal film cut into the Hasselblad sheet adapter, the base is much much more flexible then a real sheet film. I'm still using this to test combos of film and developer types, times, pushing and pulling etc. You can see the subject isn't the most interesting one, but I'll try to come up with something to reduce the natural film's curling tendency, which would help a lot. Maybe even take sheets to the field to take some more interesting photos!

Thanks for all the help, guys.

And thanks Sirius Glass for encouraging me ask comfortably.

Guilherme Mauricio said:

If I get those marks again, I think I'll desperately soak the film roll with paper and everything in cold water, and work it into a metal spiral still wet. Any suggestions against this idea?

Click to expand...

Not a good idea. The emulsion, which the carrier is mainly composed of gelatin, has been damaged and no amount of soaking will return it to normal. Soaking it with the paper in place will only make it worse and transfer the texture of the paper to the ENTIRE roll. No. Don't do this...

Learn from this experience and adjust your working methods.

Guilherme Mauricio said:

I do only open the original package right before inserting into the magazine, but I keep procrastinating for developing them. I'll move the used rolls to a dry box where I keep my gear.

Click to expand...

Good idea. Film can be very rugged and last for many years, but being overly humid is your #1 enemy.

On the other hand, if you dry out the film too much, it will curl badly and be hard to process. Do yourself a favor and store your film in it's own container. You can keep the container with your other gear, but keep the environment sealed, cool and relatively dry at about 40 to 60% humidity.

The thing with taking long to develop my films is that I'm always looking for trying a new developer, and it takes a while to go through the of developer with some film I haven't tested it with yet. So I just keep gathering undeveloped films for longer then I wanted to.

I'll look into some cigar boxes then. They do a great job at keeping a certain relative humidity...

Thanks for the tips. No soaking films then. Hehe