Spots in negative, I can't find the cause.

[Scott J.]

There are actually two topics in this thread. One is about stains, the other is about chemistry. They are not connected in any way. The spots around the edge have nothing to do with chemistry.

The spots at the bottom right in Kino's post (#7) -- which he labels as "film touching something" -- are likely related to chemistry. They're consistent with a common development error whereby the film emulsion comes into contact with another surface during development. This film-to-surface contact prevents the various developing solutions from penetrating into the emulsion. The reason the spots are dark is attributable to the fact that the fixer can't transport silver halide out of the emulsion, so the film appears opaque in those areas. A common source of this problem is incorrect loading of roll film onto a spiral reel, wherein a short length of the film jumps the spiral track and comes into contact with film on the next inner or outer track. I'll note that Ars Imago goes to some pains to caution users about the need for proper alignment of the spiral reel, film leader, film guides, etc. when loading the Lab-Box, so the manufacturer is at least aware that incorrect spooling of film onto the spiral reel is a potential weak point. Again, clever design, but lots of things can go wrong.

 

[runswithsizzers]

I used Ilfosol, professionally, for many years at 1+14 and was always happy and more importantly, my customers were happy.

I don't have any test results between 1+9 and 1+14. I know Ilford mention a small trade off in quality, but I haven't see it with my own eyes. To me, they just looked the same.

My reason for using 1+14 at 20C was not economy but the longer developing times. Personally, I prefer times longer than 5 minutes,

Sorry, I can't offer a better scientific answer.

Have a scroll through the images in this link and you will see what people do with Ilfosol 3.
Hope it helps.

https://filmdev.org/developer/show/1043

Here are two of my own:

https://filmdev.org/recipe/show/11966

https://filmdev.org/recipe/show/10277

Thanks for sharing those links to your work. The photos look great!

I do see having extended processing times at 1+14 as a significant advantage. Normally, I prefer to develop at 20*C/68*F but the ambient temp in my basement is 24*C right now, and my tap water is coming out at about the same. Sure, I could use ice to cool everything down to 20*C, but it is much easier for me to process at 24*C. At 1+9 and 20*C Ilford recommends Fuji Acros be processed for 5:00 minutes, so at 24*C the time would be too short. But at 1+14 and 24*C Acros gets a comfortable 6:00.

 

[Rumbo181]

OP,

Just to clarify: Areas outside the image are do not get exposed unless there is a light leak somewhere in the process. The fact that your film rebate is obviously exposed points to a light leak.

The other artifacts that Kino pointed out are issues as well.

Doremus

Of course!

I appreciate Kino's answer, not only he paid attention to mi question but also did the right analysis.

If any light reaches negative, being spurious or intended, it's going to be developed and there will be a spot or an image.

But my question is about the other way round. Would it be possible that chemistry made this spots -I mean the ones of problem 1? Most of you think no way, and surely it's almost certain that you are right, however I keep some doubts.

Any way, it seems that this a question that happens from time to time.

I found this thread in this forum about this very topic

Light leak or processing error?

Hello all. Recently had a few rolls (HP5+, TriX, and Double X) that are all exhibiting the same issues. Only towards the last 10 frames of the roll. Dark patches on the negatives. Lighter areas along the middle of the frame. Not sure if this is a camera light leak, a Paterson Tank light leak...

www.photrio.com

There, they suggest a way of testing for light leakage in camera. I think that this is sensible and it's a good idea to carry out the experiment.

And once I get my test rolls, develop them in a canonical way: same temperatura for presoaking and developing and standard agitation with inversions in a Paterson tank, and see the result.

 

[Rumbo181]

There are actually two topics in this thread. One is about stains, the other is about chemistry. They are not connected in any way. The spots around the edge have nothing to do with chemistry.

Absolutely!

And even the chemistry has two lines.

1) Infosol 3:
Maybe you can't distinguish between an Ilford film developed at 1+9 from one developed at 1+14 unless you compare them side by side.

Foc mentioned:
"I don't have any test results between 1+9 and 1+14. I know Ilford mention a small trade off in quality, but I haven't see it with my own eyes. To me, they just looked the same.

My reason for using 1+14 at 20C was not economy but the longer developing times. Personally, I prefer times longer than 5 minutes"
This is my opinion too. The problem that I had at the beginning or my experience with Lab-box was not related with dilution, but with developing times. So I changed to 1+14 as Foc said. Another improvement was using a long presoaking. The reason why is that you can think in emulsion like a sponge, it needs certain time to get completely fill of water in order to allow an even development in short time, five minutes is a safe time. Somebody in the lab pass me the trick of adding drops of Photoflow, I thought it was sensible as it reduces superficial tension and would tend to fill "the sponge" quicker. Of course, Photoflow is not absolutely necessary in this stage. So long with Ilford film; I don't know T-Max, maybe is another beast. I hear that T-Max and Delta crystals are not the same. In my case, at the moment, no complains with Ilfosol 3. Maybe a source of problems I have is that I didn't check that presoaking and developing temperature were the same.



2) Mechanical process.
My benchmark is development I carried out in shared lab. There I used D-76, Paterson tank and inversions as Ilford recommended. I'm happy with the results.

When I started development at home, I use at the beginning Lab-box and later an old tank. Both of them doesn't allow canonical agitation, because can't be inverted. You agitate both of them turning the reel with a crank.

So I have a doubt about the agitation being properly made.

I know that Lab-box is very controversial. In my opinion is quite easy to use, and delivers results; for a person with little experience is really convenient. However, I don't know if it is the tool to use in the long run, I suppose that it depends very much on the user.

Conclusion:

Expose a roll in the way of the test for light leaking I found in the old post, and develop it in a canonical way -equalizing temperatures, Paterson, inversion, etc.-, If I find spots, there are light leakage and I have a lot of work resealing my cameras, If there is none, I would have improved my developing process and probably found the cure. Let's see...

 

[Randy Stewart]

I'm not going to offer any specific corrections to the posted negatives, mainly because that initial strip was so poorly scanned that all the images were too blurry to evaluation by me. There seemed to be a consistent, granular pattern uniformly over all the negatives, but I put that to some artifact of the scan process. An outside alternative would be reticulation, but your temps indicate that is unlikely. So, the reason for this post is to recommend that you further dilute your developer to the extent that you are using normal development times greater than 6 minutes. You must have impeccable technique to evenly develop any film in less than 5 minutes, as uneven development will be a constant problem. It's not rocket science. If your development times are 3 - 5 minutes now, Double the dilution (or more) and run a test of strips at various longer times to find a new time. Look for 7 - 9 minutes minimum. Drop the pre-soak; you won't get any benefit from it. Processing 35mm film in the LabBox, try to use constant agitation for a while. Imago modified the 35mm reel at the last minute before distribution to add agitation tabs to stir the developer. This indicates to me that they were having problems re uneven development using the old reel, which was just the 120 reel set up to collapse down to 35mm film width. If you use a full LB, you should be able to do intermittent agitation. Use distilled water in the final Photoflo rinse before drying, to water off anything in the tap water wash. Bromide drag: At your development times stated in the post, you are not in the developer long enough to produce any bromide drag effects.

 

[KitosLAB]

The spots at the bottom right in Kino's post (#7) -- which he labels as "film touching something" -- are likely related to chemistry. They're consistent with a common development error whereby the film emulsion comes into contact with another surface during development. This film-to-surface contact prevents the various developing solutions from penetrating into the emulsion. The reason the spots are dark is attributable to the fact that the fixer can't transport silver halide out of the emulsion, so the film appears opaque in those areas. A common source of this problem is incorrect loading of roll film onto a spiral reel, wherein a short length of the film jumps the spiral track and comes into contact with film on the next inner or outer track. I'll note that Ars Imago goes to some pains to caution users about the need for proper alignment of the spiral reel, film leader, film guides, etc. when loading the Lab-Box, so the manufacturer is at least aware that incorrect spooling of film onto the spiral reel is a potential weak point. Again, clever design, but lots of things can go wrong.

I'm starting to understand. I constantly develop film under extreme conditions. The solution temperature can be +14 in winter and +24 in summer. Different developers and 40 years expired fixer. But the edges of the film are always clean. I use a Soviet single-coil developing tank, double-coiled ones were produced in the USSR but were considered a little very inconvenient due to the fact that the film sometimes started to get stuck in the middle and when charging there were a lot of hand touches