Scratched film - camera or development?

[Huss]

Just got my colour neg film back from the lab. They develop and give it to me uncut. I cut it and scan it. Normally no issues. But... this roll is different. From frame 17 through 37 there is a horrendous, deep scratch that goes across all the images. On frame 17 it started in the top 1/4, by the end of the roll it was in the middle.
At a couple of places the scratch stopped, then restarted with a big gouge that when you look at the film looks like a hole, on the scan it is black (as nothing but light comes through). On the last frame it does not make it all the way across but tails off into a little less deep rise.
I am meticulous about keeping my cameras clean, and the film was loaded indoors. So did this happen 'in camera' or 'in lab' perhaps with a dirty squeegee? (I'm not sure if they even use those).

Below is an example of it, with a close up showing the scratch stop and start again. But on most of the frames there is no break.
Thanks for any (useful) observations!





First time I've had issues with this lab (if it was their fault) so no complaints about them, usually.
This was on a test roll of Kodak ProImage - I had never used this stock before and ordered it from Thailand.

 

[railwayman3]

I'd suggest a lab fault, particularly as you say that you are meticulous with your camera cleanliness. A piece of grit or dirt in a camera would tend to produce a straight scratch as the film wound through, whereas a dirty squeegee or a film dropped or rubbed on a dirty surface could produce damage or marks in any direction.

 

[Ces1um]

+1 Railwayman3 I think has it right.

 

[jeffreyg]

Huss,
Were you holding the camera vertical or horizontal for those frames? If vertical, I would suspect the scratches would show up in the other direction. So if some of the frames between #17 and #37 have scratches in different directions and because there are gaps in the scratches my guess is the lab produced the scratches with a squeegee pressed with intermittent pressure.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

 

[Huss]

Thanks for the replies.
Here is the last frame, wth close up. As you can see it tails off in an upwards sweep. I'm thinking it would never do that if it happened in camera.

 

[Huss]

Huss,
Were you holding the camera vertical or horizontal for those frames? If vertical, I would suspect the scratches would show up in the other direction. So if some of the frames between #17 and #37 have scratches in different directions and because there are gaps in the scratches my guess is the lab produced the scratches with a squeegee pressed with intermittent pressure.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

The scratch is one long continuous one with a few breaks in it . Camera was held horizontally (normal orientation)

 

[Mr Bill]

Yes, as others have suggested, one thing that you can be pretty certain about is that this did not happen in your camera.

The sort of gouging into the emulsion you see pretty much only happens when the film is wet, so somewhere in the processing machine. But something else to point out - this is not typical of a machine scratch; they would also tend to be pretty straight, although not quite as much as a camera scratch would be. My best guess would be that something went wrong in the machine, and that the operator had opened it up and manually pulled your film out.

I'd personally go back to the lab, if it's local, to find out for sure what happened. Not that you can do anything about it, but sort of to decide if they'll every be doing any more of your processing. What you really want to hear is an apology, along with an explanation of what happened on that day, and more apologies as to why they didn't notify you when you got the film. If the machine had an unpredictable mechanical failure, which can happen, but only rarely, this is an acceptable situation for me. But I'd ask how often they get such failures; if this is a weekly occurrence, or something like that, it probably means either very poor maintenance or unqualified operators, so I'd probably quit using them. (There may be a specific operator there who you WOULD trust, etc., it just depends).

 

[Sirius Glass]

Take the film back and complain. There is no reason for the lab not maintaining their equipment.

 

[Huss]

Ok, thank you for the consensus! I will talk to them on Saturday.

 

[MattKing]

Ok, thank you for the consensus! I will talk to them on Saturday.

When you do, gauge carefully their response.
Every lab has something go wrong from time to time, even the best ones. The relative frequency may be minuscule, but it is never zero. Particularly labs that develop for the public, because the damage your film incurred may very well be the indirect result of something another customer did to damage their film.
If the lab acknowledges that the damage appears to be a problem with handling during processing and apologizes and does something appropriate like refunding your processing cost, than they probably are worth continuing to do business with.

 

[John Salim]

If the lab uses a rack and tank ( dip & dunk ) machine, I'd suggest the film's been dragged back down the previous tank during transfer - particularly where the damage is on half a roll or one side of a loop ( 35mm film is looped in half when clipped to a hanger ).

Sometimes this can happen ( .... quite rare though ) especially if the cycle transport is interrupted during a transfer ( films can start to swing ).

John S

 

[Huss]

Ok, so spoke to the shop today..
3 different people, including the manager, apologized to me profusely. Quote from the manager "refund the development and give him a roll of the good stuff!". The film I used was Kodak ProImage100, which is not available in the US, and for all I know it may just be Gold 100 re-labelled.
But I wanted to try it. Anyway, I got a roll of Portra 160 in exchange.
They said they will check the machine, as it comes out dry. So no squeegees involved. They asked what day I had it developed so they could follow up if anyone else had complaints that day.
Stuff happens, I think they took care of this well and I will be back. Hopefully this doesn't happen again!

 

[Mr Bill]

Cool. I personally would have liked to hear an explanation of what happened though, as machines virtually never do this sort of thing. (I still think that an operator most likely had to open the machine and pull your film out.) Because of this, I'd be leery of giving them any really important film. Or if you do, wait until there is a specific tech that you trust, and specifically ask if there have been any machine issues earlier in the day. Best of luck.

Ps, fyi roller-transport machines (which I presume this is) don't generally have independent squeegees. Rather they get a similar effect by squeezing the film between rollers.