Specks on Efke IR820 film

I have been experimenting with Efke IR820. So far I have only exposed one roll of Aura and one roll of non-Aura, both 35mm. The Aura was great, but the non-Aura had hundreds of very tiny black specks on the negatives (tiny white spots on the print).

I treated both identically. Exposed the same and developed the same (Xtol 1:1 for 14 min.) No presoak for either one. Water rinse after developer (no acid stop) and fixed in Ilford Hypam.

I have done a web search on this topic, but never came across a definitive explanation, although a number of people have apparently experienced these specks.

I was just wondering if anyone is familiar with this problem and knows whether it's ever been determined what the cause is. My suspicion is that, since the antihalation layer is the only difference between the two films, the problem has to relate to that. That makes me think that my not doing a presoak may be the root cause. I don't have another roll of the non-Aura film to try, otherwise I would just try it and see. Is it possible that the antihalation layer is getting embedded in the emulsion?

Another thing I noticed was that the non-Aura film seems to be significantly slower than the the Aura, presumably also due to the antihaltion layer. Somewhere I read (maybe in the data sheet) that the presoak enhances the film speed, but the data sheet doesn't differentiate between the two films when it discusses exposure.

Dave;

It is difficult to diagnose such a problem without detailed examination and analysis. If they were processed together, and one was bad and the other good, I would suspect 'pepper grain', a problem found in some emulsions due to an error in manufacturing. But, I cannot gve you any definite conclusions.

If they were processed separately, then I would first suspect the process.

PE

I recently sent back two boxes of 4x5 IR820 because it was fogged around the edges. I definitely wouldn't rule out Efke's quality control when it comes to this film.

Photo Engineer said:

If they were processed separately, then I would first suspect the process.

PE

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They were processed separately, about a week apart. The process would be very close to the same for both since all the chemicals were the same (or from the same stock) and the temperatures and agitation practices were also the same. Nonetheless, the process might be great for one and not the other, so I suspect I'm doing something wrong for the non-Aura film.

BetterSense said:

I recently sent back two boxes of 4x5 IR820 because it was fogged around the edges. I definitely wouldn't rule out Efke's quality control when it comes to this film.

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I'm not ruling that out, but I think we would be seeing more posts about this problem if it were a factory quality issue.

I'm kind of hoping someone will post who has had this problem and then changed their process in a way that corrected the problem.

Speckles on or in the film usually come from a contaminant in the water or chemicals. If it is not in both then the wash water on one day may have contained small particles of solids. Iron is a usual contaminant in some water systems. I have seen such problems come and go. I now use filtered water and distilled water depending on use.

PE

Those specks...

I took an advanced B&W photo class at a local college last Spring. So while I am a student, not primarily a film shooter, and do not have extensive IR experience I have shot my final portfolio using Efke (non Aura) IR820 and went through 6 rolls of the stuff over about 8 weeks.

The black specks were on every single roll I shot. They were on the ones I developed at home with tap water (which never created any issues with any other film I processed there). They were on the ones I developed at home with filtered water. They were on the ones I pre-soaked to get rid of the anti-halation layer. They were on the ones I didn't pre-soak. They were on the ones developed with PMK. They were on the ones developed with Lauder D76.

Furthermore.

They were on every single roll for every single student who shot that film in my class, whether they developed at home or at school. And that included 35mm shooters and MF (120) shooters. The only person who didn't have any issues was the one shooting LF (4x5 sheets), although he had to send a box back because the first few sheets he tried were fogged.

What I am not 100% sure of is whether other students were using Aura or not. The only person I am sure shot Aura had the issue with the dimples from the backplate in her SLR reflecting light and creating a pattern on the image, so she dropped the film. I don't remember her having specks issues on top of that but the pattern was such an issue it might not have come up.

The instructor, who used Efke IR in his personal work, had never seen anything like that. After reading those same sources about iron contamination he had us experiment with filtered/distilled water, to no avail. The final solution was extra instruction in spotting for the few of us who remained with IR throughout the class despite the technical issues .

We all ordered from Freestyle (who had no idea what was going on either) between March and May 2010. I am not 100% sure about my first 3 rolls, but the 3 after that were all expiring 1/2012, with emulsion number 910643.

Then this sounds like "Pepper Grain" which comes from a defect in the manufacturing process. Under certain conditions of time/temp/mixing/gelatin/halides, an emulsion can aggregate into large foggy bits which look like grains of pepper when developed. This can be fixed by a change in the manufacturing process as determined by a skilled photo engineer. But, it can only be done after inspecting the formula and running some experiments.

I have the problem myself, right now, in one of my emulsions and it is probably due to poor mixing. I am still working on this particular emulsion myself. I had the same problem with my original Azo emulsion, and I fixed it, but I still have the samples here somewhere. It looks awful.

You may want to point someone at Freestyle at this post.

Best of luck to you all.

PE

Our instructor did contact Freestyle at the time. They had no idea, and no suggestions

agnescb said:

Our instructor did contact Freestyle at the time. They had no idea, and no suggestions

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I made one that is valid and useful to them. Give it a try now. Use my post. I will even be happy to demonstrate it for them.

PE

Thanks

After sweating blood on that portfolio for 8 weeks I feel burned out on the whole IR thing. Although I do have one roll of Efke left in the fridge, along with two of Rollei...

agnescb said:

They were on the ones I pre-soaked to get rid of the anti-halation layer. They were on the ones I didn't pre-soak. They were on the ones developed with PMK. They were on the ones developed with Lauder D76.

We all ordered from Freestyle (who had no idea what was going on either) between March and May 2010. I am not 100% sure about my first 3 rolls, but the 3 after that were all expiring 1/2012, with emulsion number 910643.

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Thanks for the info, agnescb. That just happens to be the same emulsion number as the film I have, although I got mine from B&H.

I think I'll probably just stick with the Aura since I haven't experienced the problem with that, but I was hoping to find that I simply had a process problem. I really would like to get some of the 4x5 non_Aura since it comes in a 25 sheet. The Aura comes in a 50 sheet box which is a bit harder to justify given the scant amount of IR photography that I do.

Photo Engineer said:

Then this sounds like "Pepper Grain" which comes from a defect in the manufacturing process. Under certain conditions of time/temp/mixing/gelatin/halides, an emulsion can aggregate into large foggy bits which look like grains of pepper when developed.

PE

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After hearing what agnescb had to say, I'm becoming a bit more convinced that you're right about it being a batch issue. I have had so few manufacturing issues with film in my life, that I usually tend to rule that kind of problem out pretty quickly.

Not sure how small pepper grains are, but these specks are really tiny. I would have very difficult time spotting them out on an 8x10 print because they're so small even from a 35 mm negative. Also, they are not all of uniform size.

Anyway, thanks for your help. I always appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Ive had issues with Efke film a lot. I have not shot the IR yet but have some in my freezer. I got so frustrated with Efke that i switched to Adox which is the same emulsion but from a different plant and country. With Efke i found small areas of missing emulsion and the loss of half of my first frame due to improper taping of the film to the backing. Maybe I just have bad luck.

Guys;

Pepper grain is variable in size from about 100 microns up to the size of a tomato seed. Usually, the larger ones are filtered out just before coating or they clog the coating hopper, but with trough coating they do not and so all of the grains might stay. In some cases, the grains can be felt like fine sand or mud at the bottom of an emulsion kettle if one suspects they are present. Large ones can be picked up and rubbed between the fingers. They are almost all fogged just by the way they are made. So, I can demonstrate it easily.

5 grams of AgNO3 in 20 ml of water
6 grams of NaCl in 80 ml of water

Heat NaCl solution to 40C and while stirring pour in the AgNO3 solution slowly (> 1 minute). Add 10 grams of dry gelatin and stir until uniform (well, as uniform as possible). Coat on a sheet of paper in the dark (Amber or Red safelight) and then place a sheet into developer when it dries (about 24 hours drying time). You will get tiny black marks all over the paper. If you look at the beaker, you will find a sand like material in the bottom as kind of a clump. Not good. Easy to demo for anyone. Expose a sheet to a negative and process and you will get a positive image with tiny white spots all over it (or big ones).

An improperly controlled precipitation of the emulsion is generally the fault and believe me, I have gotten my share of these. As the sewage inspector said, "I know my S**T"!

Sorry for all of your problems. Remember that there are many sources to this problem. The above could be gotten by a proper make but with very low stirring. There are many ways to get there!

This is the ultimate in grain clumping and it takes place during making. All other grain clumping is virtually mythical by comparison.

PE