Ripples in the sky

[pschauss]

This was Plus-X developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 12 minutes using a Nikor reel and a generic stainless steel tank. I start with three inversions followed by three iadditional inversions every two minutes. Do I need to agitate more?

 

[Andy K]

My preferred technique is to agitate continuously for the first minute of development, and then for ten seconds every minute.

 

[Ian Grant]

It does look like streaming from the agitation which isn't random enough.

Really you should agitate continuously for the first 30 seconds then every minute, 2 minutes may be OK but when you agitate you need to make sure the tank twists as you do it to get more random agitation. The developer needs to swirl around.

Ian

 

[trexx]

Yes you need more agitation. I do the first 30 sec. and them 10 every 60 sec for a 12min. dev time.
But the lines may or may not be agitation related. Is this 645? ( This will tell the orientation of film in reel.) Is it on all sky or only some? This could be stress marks from camera or loading the film.

 

[Anscojohn]

This was Plus-X developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 12 minutes using a Nikor reel and a generic stainless steel tank. I start with three inversions followed by three iadditional inversions every two minutes. Do I need to agitate more?

******
Yes.

 

[pschauss]

This one was 35 mm. On my 645 shots the lines go the other way. Most of my sky shots have this to some extent if the picture shows a significant amount of sky.

I also see this with Shanghai GP3 (120) and Diafine. In that case, I am following the instructions which say three inversions to start followed by three inversions every minute for both part A and part B.

Is this 645? ( This will tell the orientation of film in reel.) Is it on all sky or only some? This could be stress marks from camera or loading the film.

 

[mattmoy_2000]

Are you certain it's not scanner crud? Check the negative to see if it really looks like that. It looks far too regular to be caused by agitation or lack thereof.

 

[trexx]

Ah, 35mm, the marks are most likely from the sprocket holes and tool little agitation.

 

[erikg]

Streaks are going in the wrong direction to be from the sprocket holes, but it doesn't matter, it is still an agitation issue and you are not doing enough, especially at first. If all of your film looks like this, more or less, that makes it more certain. Follow the above advice and you will be much happier.

 

[Ronald Moravec]

I have cameras like this and I traced it to defective shutter curtains. The were no visable holes and the banding only showed at 1/500 and up. Both were Leica screw mounts.

Pressure from felt traps can also do it.

So can filling the tank through the top. The best practice is to fill the tank with developer and drop the loaded reel in the dark. Unless you have a plastic one that fills bottom up, any other method can but not always may leave marks.

Agitation for 30 sec upon immersion is manditory.

 

[pschauss]

I think that I have figured out what my problem is. When I described the way I process my pictures I left out three key pieces of information, the fact that my posted pictures are scanned wet prints, the fact that I use a Nova slot processor, and the fact that I have not been agitating the paper in the the developer slot. Looking at my prints, I noticed one which was a duplicate of a print with the rippled sky did not have the ripples. I tried reprinting that print plus the one that I posted, agitating the paper gently in the developer slot of the processor. The result: no ripples in the sky.

When I have time I will run some reprints of other shots which showed this pattern.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.