Problems with vivitar slide printer / 690 film

[Marco Buonocore]

Hello,

I grabbed a vivitar slide printer at a charity shop. Would love to use it for little polaroid transfers, so I gave it a test run with some 690 film.

This is the result - anyone care to diagnose what the problem may be?

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It was a shot of a cliff face, and the yellow strip in the center was not on the original slide.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[eumenius]

Hmmm, the only thing that comes to my mind is that the rollers in Polaroid holders are contaminated, that's why the picture is marred. The whole Vivitar thing is so easy that there's nothing to give such an effect, on my opinion. You don't see this strip while focusing, do you?

 

[photomc]

Would agree that either a problem with the rollers or perhaps a problem with the film itself. You should be able to remove the rollers and clean them with some alcohol.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Seems to me there might be two related problems here -- one is the yellow strip, the other is the almost-white area at the left side. Both could come from outdated or poorly stored film, and the strip could come (as suggested) from a foreign object in the rollers -- I'd look for one of the white tabs that's gotten caught up in the rollers. Alternately, if you didn't pull the white tab completely off, it might have gone through with the print and resulted in squeezing the developing gel out by way of its non-zero thickness, which would cause an undervedeloped area.

The white area at the left seems to have a similar strip, and further looks as if you didn't pull the print with a single, smooth motion, but stopped partway; that could again lead to an underdeveloped area, which would be light (because less dye transferred before you peeled the print).

BTW, you can open the back of the film unit, remove the rollers and clean them, and put it all back together without disturbing the film pack, and lose no more than one frame, possibly not even that. That will also let you be sure the next white tab is under the door edge, rather than between the rollers when you close the door.