Strange blue colour on films.

Tai · Jan 14, 2024

大家好：我在冲洗的一些底片上出现了蓝色的问题，而这些底片本应该是黑色的。有时整卷都这样做，有时只有少数人这样做。这是什么原因造成的？
而且我还想请教一下大家如何避免贴膜出现水渍的问题。在我所在的地区，蒸馏水并不容易获得，而且我们这里的水非常硬。
奇怪的蓝色是否有可能是由于水损坏造成的？
Thank you all.

rcphoto · Jan 14, 2024

Popped this into google translate for everyone.

"Hi everyone: I'm having a problem with blue on some of the negatives I'm developing that should be black. Sometimes the whole volume does this, sometimes only a few do it. What causes this?
And I would also like to ask you how to avoid water stains on the film. Distilled water is not readily available in my area and our water here is very hard.
Is it possible the weird blue color is due to water damage"

Sirius Glass · Jan 14, 2024

The blue color is probably not from the rinse water but is possibly from color crossover from contamination between the chemicals.

Tai · Jan 15, 2024

rcphoto said:
将其放入谷歌翻译中供大家使用。

“大家好：我在冲洗一些本来应该是黑色的底片时遇到蓝色问题。有时整卷都这样，有时只有少数几个这样。是什么原因造成的？
另外我还想请教一下如何避免膜上出现水渍。我所在的地区不容易获得蒸馏水，而且这里的水很硬。
奇怪的蓝色是否有可能是由于水损坏造成的”

Thank you. I'm sorry my English is so bad.

Tai · Jan 15, 2024

Sirius Glass said:
The blue color is probably not from the rinse water but is possibly from color crossover from contamination between the chemicals.

But the strange thing is that only a couple of sheets in this roll of film have this condition, everything else is normal.
And I wash twice after each step.

Tai · Jan 15, 2024

Hi everyone: I'm having a problem with blue on some of the negatives I'm developing that should be black. Sometimes the whole volume does this, sometimes only a few do it. What causes this?
And I would also like to ask you how to avoid water stains on the film. Distilled water is not readily available in my area and our water here is very hard.
Is it possible that the weird blue color is due to water stain?

koraks · Jan 15, 2024

The first example (the negative with the cat) looks like it's severely underdeveloped.

Sirius Glass said:
color crossover from contamination between the chemicals.

Contamination of the developer should always be prevented of course, but it doesn't look like the cause of this problem to me.

@Tai can you please provide details of the developer you're using? Do you make it yourself, and if so, what formula do you use? Or do you purchase it ready for use? Can you also provide details of your film development process? Does the problem only occur with ECN2/Vision3 film, or also with C41 film?

Tai said:
Distilled water is not readily available in my area and our water here is very hard.
Is it possible that the weird blue color is due to water stain?

No, the underdevelopment is not due to the water stains.
The water stains can be prevented as follows:

After processing, hang the film from one end.
Take a piece of very clean paper towel or soft cloth. Fold it a couple of times so it makes a small wad that's easy to handle.
Wipe the water off of the shiny side of the film. Don't wipe more often than needed to take off the droplets of water.
Now let the film dry naturally. There should be no water marks anymore.

Film that already has water marks can be washed in a weak solution of acetic acid (1% will do; it's not critical) and then washed again normally, and treated with a final rinse/stabilizer if desired. Then wiped off as explained above to prevent new water marks from forming.

lamerko · Jan 15, 2024

I notice that there are surge marks (the dark areas around the perforation). This is an indication of an agitation or developer quantity problem. Can you specify how you process the films, with what amount of solution, and if these marks are present in the other negatives that are good?
About hard water - it might affect the pH a bit, but probably not fatal. However, it causes a lot of staining. You can proceed as follows: boil 10 liters of water for 5-6 minutes and store it in a plastic mineral water bottle. Use it in the last wash, if you have photoflo (or its analogue) - put a according to the instructions and soak for two minutes. You can reuse it for about four photo films. After hanging the film to dry, you can go over the back (shiny) side with a microfiber cloth or very soft paper, being careful not to leave any lint. This will also help with the last remnants of remjet.

koraks · Jan 15, 2024

lamerko said:
I notice that there are surge marks (the dark areas around the perforation).

Do you mean this:

If so, that looks like an anomaly in the digital photo of the film strip (i.e. light bleed from the backlight). I'm not convinced they're surge marks at all, especially because along the top edge they appear in an area of the film where there is no density apart from the orange mask, and thus surge marks are unlikely to pop up very clearly. The story is a little different at the bottom of the strip, where the marks seem inverted. But even there, I think we can exclude the possibility of surge marks. Just look at the positive scan of the cat image, which doesn't show any density anomalies along the top edge of the frame, while such anomalies are visible in the photo of the negative.

Compare this (note the supposed surge marks especially above the 3 sprocket holes to the right):

To this (note the absence of any density anomalies along the top edge of the frame, which corresponds to the snippet of the negative above):

Had these been actual anomalies in the film itself, they would have shown up on the scan. See this crude inversion of the negative:

So I think this is something we can pretty safely ignore.

lamerko said:
About hard water - it might affect the pH a bit

No worries, the effect of hard water on the pH of the developing baths is negligible. Even extremely hard water has barely any buffer capacity.

Your suggestion to de-calcify hard water by boiling it is a useful one; I would like to add the further suggestion to filter the boiled water before use. Boiling hard water tends to involve formation of scale that easily finds its way onto the gelatin emulsion, and once it's there, it's virtually impossible to remove. I'm speaking from ample experience!

I also second your advice on dealing with the water spots and remaining traces of remjet.

I remain of the opinion that the primary problem we're looking at here is underdevelopment. Whether this is due to a problem with the chemistry (formula/mixing/ingredient-related) or process control (temperature, time) is yet to be seen.

lamerko · Jan 15, 2024

koraks said:
No worries, the effect of hard water on the pH of the developing baths is negligible. Even extremely hard water has barely any buffer capacity.

In some areas they put calcium hydroxide in the water for disinfection (no kidding). This leads to pH change and really big spots on the films

koraks · Jan 15, 2024

I'm not familiar with calcium hydroxide for disinfection being added to tap water for disinfection - and frankly, I doubt if it's correct, because you'd have to raise the pH to levels where the water won't be safe for human use anymore, either.
It's common to add sodium hypochlorite to drinking water for this purpose. This doesn't contribute to water hardness, but it does indeed disinfect very effectively, and it's also responsible for the typical chlorine smell of tap water in certain (many) regions. In part, this is being superseded or at least augmented now by UV-C disinfection, which evidently leaves no smell or taste. I imagine it may also be cheaper, depending on energy costs. Furthermore, it's quite common that sodium hydroxide is added to tap water as a way to de-harden it. It causes the calcium salts to drop out of solution. It typically happens quite far upstream in the drinking water system, before several further steps of filtration and purification. Maintaining a slightly alkaline pH furthermore has the advantage of reducing corrosion and (more importantly) uptake of copper and lead ions from supply lines into the drinking water. Perhaps the latter is the source of what you mentioned.

Tai · Jan 15, 2024

koraks said:
第一个例子（猫的反面）看起来严重不发达。

当然，应该始终防止开发人员的污染，但在我看来，这并不是造成此问题的原因。

@Tai 您能提供您正在使用的开发者的详细信息吗？你自己做吗？如果是的话，你用什么配方？或者您购买它是现成可用的吗？您能否详细介绍一下您的电影开发过程？该问题仅出现在ECN2/Vision3胶片上，还是也出现在C41胶片上？

不，不发达并不是因为水渍。
防止水渍的方法如下：

处理完毕后，将薄膜从一端悬挂起来。

拿一块非常干净的纸巾或软布。将其折叠几次，这样就形成了易于处理的小团。

擦去薄膜光面的水。擦拭次数不要超过去除水滴所需的次数。

现在让薄膜自然干燥。应该不会再有水痕了。

已经有水痕的胶片可以在弱乙酸溶液中清洗（1% 即可；这并不重要），然后再次正常清洗，如果需要，可以用最后的漂洗/稳定剂进行处理。然后按照上述说明擦掉，以防止形成新的水痕。

谢谢您的帮助！我根据柯达的配方自己混合了这些化学品。唯一的问题是我的无水碳酸钠可能受潮了。此外，开发时间可能会有几秒钟的差异。冲洗时间还剩五秒时，我会倒掉冲洗液，然后倒入醋。这些天我只冲洗远景胶片。

Tai · Jan 15, 2024

lamerko said:
我注意到有浪涌痕迹（穿孔周围的黑暗区域）。这表明存在搅拌或显影剂数量问题。您能否具体说明如何处理胶片、使用多少溶液以及这些标记是否存在于其他好的底片中？
关于硬水——它可能会稍微影响 pH 值，但可能不会致命。然而，它会导致大量染色。您可以按照以下步骤进行：将10升水煮沸5-6分钟，然后将其存放在塑料矿泉水瓶中。如果您有 photoflo（或其类似物），请在最后一次洗涤时使用它 - 按照说明放入并浸泡两分钟。您可以将其重复用于大约四张胶片。将薄膜挂起来晾干后，您可以用超细纤维布或非常柔软的纸擦拭背面（有光泽），小心不要留下任何绒毛。这也将有助于处理 remjet 的最后残余物。

我用500毫升的电解液，一次可清洗两卷的电解槽，一次清洗一卷胶片。第一分钟我继续上下翻转，然后每30秒翻转四次。
Thanks for the help

koraks · Jan 15, 2024

Tai said:
thank you for your help! I mixed the chemicals myself based on Kodak's recipe. The only problem is that my anhydrous sodium carbonate may have become damp. Additionally, development times may vary by a few seconds. When there are five seconds left in the rinse time, I pour out the rinse solution and pour in the vinegar. These days I only develop perspective film.

I'm not too concerned about the sodium carbonate. As long as it's a white powder or granulate, it should be mostly anhydrous or at worst a mix of anhydrous and monohydrate. In either case, it will yield a developer that's fairly close to the pH you'd want it to be, and I don't see it easily causing such dramatic underdevelopment. However, it would be a good idea to purchase some known-good sodium carbonate monohydrate and use that in the appropriate amount in your formula. Alternatively, bake your suspect sodium carbonate for half an hour in an oven at e.g. 150C so that all water evaporates from it. The powder you're left with will be anhydrous sodium carbonate, at least as long as you store it in a hermetically sealed container.

I'm also not concerned about a few seconds of variation in the development time.

All considered, I wonder of there may be a measurement/mixing error occurring somewhere, where you're adding too little of something (carbonate, CD3) or too much of something else (bicarbonate, bromide).

I use 500 ml of electrolyte, which can clean two rolls of electrolytic tanks and one roll of film at a time. I continued flipping up and down for the first minute, then four times every 30 seconds.

What development time and temperature do you use? How do you keep the tank and its contents at the desired temperature during development?

Tai · Jan 15, 2024

koraks said:
您使用什么杀菌时间和温度？在开发过程中如何将水箱及其内容物保持在所需的温度？

在 41.1 摄氏度下显影 3 分钟。我会将显影剂罐放入温控水箱中（使用真空低温烹调机）。奇怪的是，这卷中只有几张照片有这个问题，其他图像似乎都没有问题。

koraks · Jan 15, 2024

Tai said:
Develop for 3 minutes at 41.1°C. I would put the developer tank into a temperature controlled water tank (using a sous vide machine). Oddly, only a few photos in this volume have this problem, and none of the other images seem to have the problem.

OK, that sounds good, although I like to develop ECN2 film a little longer than 3 minutes; typically I develop for 3m45 to 4m00 minutes. This is because ECN2 film is designed to give a low gamma of around 1.5, and this is insufficient in my experience when enlarging the negatives (analog printing). For digital scanning, it won't matter much.

If you some images on the same roll of film are good, but others are weird, the problem is associated with exposure. The additional images you've posted are scans and scans are generally not a reliable way to judge the quality of processed film. A lot of auto-exposure and auto-correction happens on scans, so sometimes, a scan from a poor negative will still look good. If you look at the entire roll of film on a light box, do all negatives look similar in terms of color and density, or are there large variations?

Tai · Jan 15, 2024

The whole roll looks like this. Could you judge the quality of my developing? Will underexposing the film cause this problem? My camera is very old and the light meter is crude and may not work very well.

Tai · Jan 15, 2024

koraks said:
好吧，听起来不错，虽然我喜欢冲洗 ECN2 胶片长于 3 分钟的胶片；通常我的开发时间为 3 分 45 秒到 4 分 00 分钟。这是因为 ECN2 胶片的设计初衷是提供 1.5 左右的低伽玛值，而根据我在放大底片（模拟打印）时的经验，这还不够。对于数字扫描来说，这并不重要。

如果同一卷胶片上的某些图像很好，但其他图像很奇怪，则问题与曝光有关。您发布的附加图像是扫描件，扫描件通常不是判断冲洗胶片质量的可靠方法。扫描时会发生大量自动曝光和自动校正，因此有时，不良负片的扫描看起来仍然不错。如果您在灯箱上查看整卷胶片，所有底片在颜色和密度方面看起来是否相似，或者是否存在很大差异？

koraks · Jan 15, 2024

Tai said:
Could you judge the quality of my developing? Will underexposing the film cause this problem

Development is a little difficult to judge at a distance, but the main problem is quite clear: systematic underexposure.

lamerko · Jan 15, 2024

Tai said:
我用500毫升的电解液，一次可清洗两卷的电解槽，一次清洗一卷胶片。第一分钟我继续上下翻转，然后每30秒翻转四次。
Thanks for the help

Maybe it doesn't matter at all, but my shuffling scheme is a little different. At first I do 15-20 seconds of continuous flipping because a lot of the image is formed in the first minute. Then every 15 seconds I do 5 sec flips (2 to 3). Also, the 3 minute time is given for a controlled full immersion environment where it is not clear exactly how the agitation is. That's why my exposure times are longer - 3:45 - 4:00 min. I've noticed that the slightly longer time has a nice compensating effect, with the highlights not burning out as easily.

PP: there's an interesting difference in the shots - I'm guessing some of them were shot in tungsten light and the other part in daylight?

koraks · Jan 15, 2024

lamerko said:
I'm guessing some of them were shot in tungsten light and the other part in daylight?

That was/is my guess, too.

adamlugi · Feb 3, 2024

In my C41, such a problem appeared when I used moss chemistry in ATL and did not use an acid interrupter. After using it, the problem disappeared.

Strange blue colour on films.

Tai

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