Strange Dark Fluid Streak on Negatives

pwadoc · May 22, 2020

Hi all, I've been using Flexicolor chemistry in a Jobo CPP2 to develop my C41 film for the last year. I generally do 10-20 rolls of mixed 35mm and 120 of varying emulsions. Lately I've been noticing that some of my rolls end up with a strange streak running down the center of most of the roll, and I'm having a really hard time figuring out what's going on. I've tried re-rinsing, re-bleaching and re-fixing some of the affected film with no impact. I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what's going on. I've attached some examples of negatives with the characteristic streaks. The streaks appear purple-ish, fluid mark running down the center of the negative, and show up as a yellow streak on the inverted image.

My process:

I develop at 37.8C, set the Jobo to rotate at "P"

Develop 3:15
Stop and 1 min rinse
6:30 bleach
3 min rinse
6:30 fix
3 min rinse
Final rinse

I've been mixing my developer with tap water recently (I live in Brooklyn) but I've noticed the streaks on rolls that I've developed with chems mixed with distilled water.

koraks · May 22, 2020

How long does it take you to mount the tank after pouring in the developer? That needs to be done quitw quickly. I can imagine surge marks occur if there's too much time between putting in the chemistry and the start of agitation.

Another possible cause is contamination of the developer, but with good cleanliness and one shot use this shouldn't be an issue.

AgX · May 22, 2020

But the effect of a retarded start of development would mean different densities at both side of borderline between bath and air. But here we see instead the borderline itself so to say with identical opposing areas.

koraks · May 22, 2020

AgX said:
But the effect of a retarded start of development would mean different densities at both side of borderline between bath and air.

Which is what we get - check the 5th image, the portrait-orientation negative. Higher density on the left, lower density on the right.

pwadoc · May 22, 2020

koraks said:
How long does it take you to mount the tank after pouring in the developer? That needs to be done quitw quickly. I can imagine surge marks occur if there's too much time between putting in the chemistry and the start of agitation.

Another possible cause is contamination of the developer, but with good cleanliness and one shot use this shouldn't be an issue.

Hrm, yeah that would make sense. I try to get the tank on as fast as possible, but I don't own the lift attachment, so I need to fill the canister, get the top on and get it onto the magnet. I do that as fast as I can, but it does take a few seconds to get it rotating. I wonder if there's a better way to go about it (aside from investing in a lift, which I plan to do when I can afford it).

If the problem is a surge mark caused by the tank sitting upright and stationary in the time between when I fill it and get it capped and an in the bath, I would think that if I filled the canister with the same volume of water as I use developer, the fill line would fall in the middle of one of the reels. I'll give that a try and see what it indicates.

koraks · May 22, 2020

pwadoc said:
Hrm, yeah that would make sense. I try to get the tank on as fast as possible, but I don't own the lift attachment, so I need to fill the canister, get the top on and get it onto the magnet. I do that as fast as I can, but it does take a few seconds to get it rotating

Well, I do it in exactly the same way and never have any problems with it, so I suppose this is not the issue.

However it can't hurt to check if the fluid level turns out to be where this artefact shows up. It seems pretty close to me in any case.

Donald Qualls · May 22, 2020

Just a thought: this might not be processing related. It almost looks like a moving light leak. Are all the affected rolls from the same camera, shot outdoors in bright sun? If so, you may have a light leak at the door hinge, small enough you only see it when the sun shines directly on the hinge.

Edit: Oh, not so much for that last posted image... Carry on...

AgX · May 22, 2020

koraks said:
However it can't hurt to check if the fluid level turns out to be where this artefact shows up. It seems pretty close to me in any case.

That is a good approach to maybe exclude one cause.

pwadoc · May 22, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Just a thought: this might not be processing related. It almost looks like a moving light leak. Are all the affected rolls from the same camera, shot outdoors in bright sun? If so, you may have a light leak at the door hinge, small enough you only see it when the sun shines directly on the hinge.

Edit: Oh, not so much for that last posted image... Carry on...

I did consider a light leak, but it looks to me that the effect extends beyonds the boundaries of the negative, which I think would exclude light leaking from the shutter area. I also believe I've seen this effect with different cameras, though most of the affected frame were taken with my Bessa R3a.

koraks said:
Well, I do it in exactly the same way and never have any problems with it, so I suppose this is not the issue.

However it can't hurt to check if the fluid level turns out to be where this artefact shows up. It seems pretty close to me in any case.

So I just tested it, and it does seem like the fluid ends up halfway up on one of the reels. I'm using 900ml of fluid, which is the indicated amount on the outside of the tanks for Rotation with a 1520(240ml), and 2x 1530(330ml). I'm not tracking which rolls end up where in the tank, so I might have to start doing that. Maybe if I fill the tank on an angle instead of sitting level on a surface it would help?

pwadoc · May 23, 2020

So I've been going through my last six months of photos, and I've found some more examples of these streaks that don't go through the center of the frame, and in fact don't seem to conform to any pattern that I can see. I'm sort at a loss for what can cause something like this.

MattKing · May 23, 2020

Could it be a problem with the final rinse? How are you drying the film?

pwadoc · May 23, 2020

MattKing said:
Could it be a problem with the final rinse? How are you drying the film?

My final rinse is generally at room temperature. I pour about a liter into the canister and let it rotate on the Jobo for a minute. I have experimented with dipping the film in a photo flo solution after rinsing, though I don't do that for every batch. I air dry the film on hangars. I have had the film briefly cling together on occasion, though I very quickly separate it. Could that cause something like this?

MattKing · May 23, 2020

Uneven drying, leaving a final rinse residue, might cause a streaking problem.
I wouldn't suggest a photo-flo dip after final rinse - final rinse includes its own surfactant.
Can you try drying a roll at an angle different from vertical? If you dry the film at 30 degrees from vertical, and you see strange streaks on that film, also 30 degrees from vertical, that would be a clue that there is a problem with the final rinse you are using.

Sirius Glass · May 24, 2020

Do not use PhotoFlo for color slides or negatives. It is for black & white only.

pwadoc · May 26, 2020

MattKing said:
Uneven drying, leaving a final rinse residue, might cause a streaking problem.
I wouldn't suggest a photo-flo dip after final rinse - final rinse includes its own surfactant.
Can you try drying a roll at an angle different from vertical? If you dry the film at 30 degrees from vertical, and you see strange streaks on that film, also 30 degrees from vertical, that would be a clue that there is a problem with the final rinse you are using.

I will give that a try, hopefully it will provide some helpful confirmation either way. I'll also omit photo flo next time around and see what happens. I was noticing some significant drying marks without it in the past, though those would usually go away with a re-soark. Whatever the surfactant is in the final rinse does not seem to be as good as photo flo at avoiding drying marks (in my experience).

AgX · May 27, 2020

Sirius Glass said:
Do not use PhotoFlo for color slides or negatives. It is for black & white only.

How would PhotoFlo affect colour films in a negative way compared to b&w films ?

Its shortcomings are from a time when a dedicated stabilizer was needed for colour films.

(One could debate whether colour films need a higher degree of biocide, but this too would not be related to the artefact we are discussing.)

pwadoc · May 27, 2020

AgX said:
How would PhotoFlo affect colour films in a negative way compared to b&w films ?

Its shortcomings are from a time when a dedicated stabilizer was needed for colour films.

(One could debate whether colour films need a higher degree of biocide, but this too would not be related to the artefact we are discussing.)

Yeah, my impression was that photoflo was generally unnecessary for C41, and should definitely not be used instead of the final rinse, but using in addition to the final rinse is not harmful. I'm at a loss for explaining these weird marks though, so I'm going to try not using photoflo.

One other thing I've realized about these marks: they never appear on 120 negatives. Even ones that I've processed in the same batch as 35mm negatives that suffered the streaks.

MattKing · May 27, 2020

Final rinse is essentially a surfactant - maybe even photo-flo itself - and some additional important extras, some of which are intended to stay on the dried film..
If you just use photo-flo, you don't get the important extras.
If you add photo-flo to the final rinse, you end up diluting the important extras.
If you use photo-flo after final rinse, you end up washing some or all of the important extras off.

Sirius Glass · May 27, 2020

AgX said:
How would PhotoFlo affect colour films in a negative way compared to b&w films ?

Its shortcomings are from a time when a dedicated stabilizer was needed for colour films.

(One could debate whether colour films need a higher degree of biocide, but this too would not be related to the artefact we are discussing.)

According to PE the stabilizing wash has preservatives that the PhotoFlo would remove. Of course it the photograph is worthless why bother?

ChristopherCoy · May 27, 2020

I'm gonna say that isn't developing. That's a paranormal encounter. Sell it to the national inquirer and make a buck.

AgX · May 27, 2020

Again and again I had been urging a "paranormal"-forum to which threads are automatically transferred if an enigma is not solved after 3 pages...

grat · May 28, 2020

Being the opposite of an expert, I browsed the web from a Holiday Inn, and from what I found, stabilizer for C41 used to be formaldehyde + surfactant, but because of some crazy science thing about possible carcinogens, they swapped out the formaldehyde with an anti-fungal/bacterial compound so the gelatin in the negatives is less likely to be eaten by various microbugs. The surfactant is apparently one of the photo-flo compounds.

At least, that's what I read on the internet. So it has to be right, right?

Truzi · May 28, 2020

The late Photo Engineer started a very good thread on the issue of stabilizers. It may prove useful:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/the-definitive-word-i-hope-on-color-stabilzers.89149/

koraks · May 28, 2020

grat said:
At least, that's what I read on the internet. So it has to be right, right?

It's part of the story told in the thread linked to above. Another essential part is that the dyes in current c41 stocks were re-engineered to not be dependent on the protection of formaldehyde to remain stable over the years.
I think there's also some info on surfactants in that thread; I don't remember anything about photoflo being detrimental in any way. Nor could I conceive of a likely mechanism for this.

MattKing · May 28, 2020

koraks said:
I don't remember anything about photoflo being detrimental in any way. Nor could I conceive of a likely mechanism for this.

MattKing said:
Final rinse is essentially a surfactant - maybe even photo-flo itself - and some additional important extras, some of which are intended to stay on the dried film..
If you just use photo-flo, you don't get the important extras.
If you add photo-flo to the final rinse, you end up diluting the important extras.
If you use photo-flo after final rinse, you end up washing some or all of the important extras off.

Sorry for quoting myself.

Strange Dark Fluid Streak on Negatives

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