Rotary processing and surge marks/bromide drag?

[pentaxuser]

Since I last posted to this thread, I've developed two more rolls of 35mm film. I used inversion agitation for both, following Ilford's method of 4 inversions during the first 10 seconds of every minute. I did deviate a bit and performed gentle inversions continuously over the first 30 seconds of development. I also finger-squeegeed the film (the horror! ) after the final rinse since that seems to have eliminated the frustrating streaking I have been experiencing for months.

The first roll of film looked great - no streaking and no signs of the issue that I spoke about at the start of this thread that sort of looked like surge marks or bromide drag on a couple of frames.

On the plus side, it seems that the streaking I was experiencing before has been resolved by finger-squeegeeing the film.

I have been finger squeegeeing for years and largely I follow the Ilford method with the addition of the first 30 secs being continuous

I wonder, can we classify the above as the "British way is best?" No, on second thoughts just ignore that line. The best way is the one that works

Seriously I hope this is a permanent cure and not just another false dawn

pentaxuser

 

[logan2z]

Glad it got better. Sorry it didn't go away.

Most development hapens in the first 30-60s, so continous agitation can make a difference there. (And you already do that, but maybe a full minute would improve things a little bit?)

And I recently read about someone who avoided bromide drag by agitating vigorously, not carefully. Maybe that's something to try?

PhotoFlo never worked at 1:200 for me. It always gave drying marks of some kind. I have hard water here, about pH 8, maybe that is why. I settled on 3-4 drops of 10% PhotoFlo per 100ml of tap water which works well. That's 1:4000 to 1:5000. Not quite an homeopathic dilution, but still pretty weak.

Good luck!

Thanks. I'm probably going to up the agitation frequency to 4 inversions every 30s rather than every minute just to see how that goes. As @Don Heisz suggested way back at the beginning of this thread, the relatively high dilutions of HC-110 and Rodinal that I've been using may require more frequent agitation to avoid this issue.

I'm just happy to see a few rolls without the streaking that I've been experiencing for so long. Hopefully I can keep that at bay while I work to eliminate this last issue.

 

[logan2z]

I have been finger squeegeeing for years and largely I follow the Ilford method with the addition of the first 30 secs being continuous

I wonder, can we classify the above as the "British way is best?" No, on second thoughts just ignore that line. The best way is the one that works

Seriously I hope this is a permanent cure and not just another false dawn

pentaxuser

I'm sure the Ilford method is effective for many people, but I may need additional agitation since I'm using fairly high dilutions. At some point I might start to back off on the dilution of HC-110, but I'm sticking with dilution H for now to keep the number of variables to a minimum.

Finger-squeegeeing seems to be working for me to eliminate streaking. I might be able to increase the dilution of the Photoflo mixture so that squeegeeing isn't required, but I'm not going to rock the boat at this point

 

[Craig]

HC-110 is a high energy developer, I wonder if that is part of the problem? I'd be inclined to get a litre package of Perceptol and develop as you used to and see if there are any marks.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Since I last posted to this thread, I've developed two more rolls of 35mm film. I used inversion agitation for both, following Ilford's method of 4 inversions during the first 10 seconds of every minute. I did deviate a bit and performed gentle inversions continuously over the first 30 seconds of development. I also finger-squeegeed the film (the horror! ) after the final rinse since that seems to have eliminated the frustrating streaking I have been experiencing for months.

The first roll of film looked great - no streaking and no signs of the issue that I spoke about at the start of this thread that sort of looked like surge marks or bromide drag on a couple of frames. The second roll of film also looked really good and again showed no signs of streaking. However, one frame did show the surge/bromide drag sort of marks I experienced a couple of rolls ago that prompted me to start this thread (see top edge of image below):

Since the decreased density corresponds to the space beneath the sprocket holes maybe Bromide drag is the culprit. Maybe I need to increase the frequency of agitation since I'm using a pretty dilute developer.

On the plus side, it seems that the streaking I was experiencing before has been resolved by finger-squeegeeing the film. Maybe I've been using too much Photoflo for my particular environment although I'm using the recommended 1:200 dilution and distilled water in the final rinse. I'm using a clean nitrile glove when squeegeeing the film so I'm not concerned about scratching the film. On the downside, I seem to have a new issue with possible Bromide drag. I'm going to tweak my agitation frequency and hopefully that'll eliminate this.

Great, you have improvement. So added agitation has eliminated most of the problem.

 

[logan2z]

Great, you have improvement. So added agitation has eliminated most of the problem.

Thanks. Yes, I think I may finally be converging on a process that works for me.

 

[john_s]

Glad it got better. Sorry it didn't go away.

Most development hapens in the first 30-60s, so continous agitation can make a difference there. (And you already do that, but maybe a full minute would improve things a little bit?)

And I recently read about someone who avoided bromide drag by agitating vigorously, not carefully. Maybe that's something to try?

PhotoFlo never worked at 1:200 for me. It always gave drying marks of some kind. I have hard water here, about pH 8, maybe that is why. I settled on 3-4 drops of 10% PhotoFlo per 100ml of tap water which works well. That's 1:4000 to 1:5000. Not quite an homeopathic dilution, but still pretty weak.

Good luck!

I've read a few times recently, in the context of extreme minimal agitation/ semi-stand, that it's vital in order to avoid unevenness that the initial agitation must be thorough, often recommended at least 2min continuous inversion. I know that the OP isn't into EMA, but I mention it as it does seem that the beginning of development is critical.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I've read a few times recently, in the context of extreme minimal agitation/ semi-stand, that it's vital in order to avoid unevenness that the initial agitation must be thorough, often recommended at least 2min continuous inversion. I know that the OP isn't into EMA, but I mention it as it does seem that the beginning of development is critical.

When the manufacturers have spend millions of dollars on R&D and recommend agitation patterns, why would anyone with much less experience think that they are better experts and will get better results with stand or semi-stand development? Why not experiment unrolling an exposed film to direct sunlight to make sure that two electrons have been captured by every grain of emulsion?

 

[john_s]

When the manufacturers have spend millions of dollars on R&D and recommend agitation patterns, why would anyone with much less experience think that they are better experts and will get better results with stand or semi-stand development? Why not experiment unrolling an exposed film to direct sunlight to make sure that two electrons have been captured by every grain of emulsion?

That was not my point. But thanks for reminding us that since companies like Kodak have stopped research into black and white films, there will not ever be any new knowledge.

 

[MattKing]

That was not my point. But thanks for reminding us that since companies like Kodak have stopped research into black and white films, there will not ever be any new knowledge.

Eastman Kodak still has an R & D department - in fact if Covid 19 hadn't happened I think you would have seen further re-introductions of some older film products, using the currently available constituents and manufacturing, and incorporating some nice improvements..
The R &D department is far smaller than in the past, and financially constrained, but it was that department that was integral in dealing with the wrapper offset debacle.

 

[Sirius Glass]

That was not my point. But thanks for reminding us that since companies like Kodak have stopped research into black and white films, there will not ever be any new knowledge.

Please site your information about the R&D at Kodak. Aside from the fact that the past research showed that my statements are time invariant.

 

[Steven Lee]

@Sirius Glass I got curious and a 2 minute search revealed a bunch of research positions at Eastment Kodak with PhDs and masters:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-p-hill-17200666/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/haoyan-wei-aab3523/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-irving-028769112/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-moghadam-ph-d-7843b0a5/

These profiles definitely work in R&D. This is just a tiny sample, my search (I have a paid subscription) produced a multi-page result.

 

[john_s]

Thank you for pointing out that Kodak are still doing R&D. I stand corrected. The ups and downs, mostly downs, of the last couple of years led me to think that they had lost the plot. And maybe some new products?

 

[MattKing]

It may very well be correct that, relatively speaking, very little of the R&D money at Eastman Kodak is going to B&W still film. Colour and motion picture film (which includes black and white) probably gets more.
And of course, Eastman Kodak's main business isn't its photographic business, so its R&D dollars are spent on non-photographic things too!

 

[burchyk]

@logan2z have you figured this out? I'm having an issue that manifests identically to what you were having here.

I'm using Ilfotec HC (HC-110) dilution H, HP5+ in 35mm, inversion agitation in a Patterson 2-reel tank.

 

[logan2z]

@logan2z have you figured this out? I'm having an issue that manifests identically to what you were having here.

I'm using Ilfotec HC (HC-110) dilution H, HP5+ in 35mm, inversion agitation in a Patterson 2-reel tank.

I narrowed the problem down to my use of Photoflo during the final rinse. I stopped using Photoflo and switched to LFN instead. I also introduced a 5 minute soak in distilled water before the final rinse (as recommended in an old thread by @Doremus Scudder) and then started using Kimwipes to gently wipe both sides of the film after hanging to dry. After these modifications to my workflow, the problem never recurred.

 

[burchyk]

I narrowed the problem down to my use of Photoflo during the final rinse. I stopped using Photoflo and switched to LFN instead. I also introduced a 5 minute soak in distilled water before the final rinse (as recommended in an old thread by @Doremus Scudder) and then started using Kimwipes to gently wipe both sides of the film after hanging to dry. After these modifications to my workflow, the problem never recurred.

Thanks! I'm using Adox Adoflo II at the moment, will give this a try

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

@logan2z have you figured this out? I'm having an issue that manifests identically to what you were having here.

I'm using Ilfotec HC (HC-110) dilution H, HP5+ in 35mm, inversion agitation in a Patterson 2-reel tank.

You could always try a more gentler way of agitating. I've always found inversion to be too aggressive with 35mm. I've been using the figure 8 method since I started teaching high school level photography. In fact, I insist that all my students do it this way. We also use HP5, and skip a pre-wash step (Ilford recommends against it, but I do it for my personal work, depending on the developer, like FX-55 for example... ) and we only ever use a surfactant like Photo-flo after the final wash (which has nothing to do with the issue of bromide drag/streaks btw).