Strange pink spots/blotches on C41 LF photos

[Daniel Huiting]

I'm been having some pink blotches on my c41 film (and now recently a white-ish blotch on a black and white 8x10 photo, HP5+ in XTOL 1:1 for 11 mins) for my 8x10 negatives using the expert 3005 jobo drum and Jobo CPA-2. And now recently some of my 4x5 negatives it has happened, using a 3010 drum. It has even happened with black and white lately, so something is super wrong!

Here's what I'm doing for the c41 8x10 film in the 3005 Expert drums (the most recent batch used two films):

Load the film in darkness, with the emulsion side facing inward so the chemicals will hit it. I haven't really payed attention to how the film sits in the tubes of the 3005 drum with respect to the two little ridges inside, whether the film starts at the ridges or spans them. It doesn't look like it should matter based on the design. Obviously I put the long edge of the film down the tube and the short edge is what curls around the inside of the tube.

**My Jobo only runs one direction now for some reason, so all processes are just going in one direction, but I've read online that that's fine***

Here is my process:

1 min Presoak 400ml of distilled water at 104f , in Jobo running on P setting (per arista c41 kit instructions. The 3005 says 330ml of chemistry and I only have two 8x10 films in, so that is enough developer per the Arista instrucions)
3.5 min developer using 400ml of developer at 104f (on P setting)
6.5 min blix using 400ml of developer at 104f (on P setting)
7 30-second rinses using 400ml of distilled water heated to 104f (in Jobo, with speed set to P)
1 min stabilizer in Jobo 400ml on the slowest speed setting at 104f (so as to not create too many bubbles I use the slow speed setting. I know it says room temp for the stabilizer, but in order to only use 400ml of stabilizer and have it hit all of the surface area of the film, I just do it in the drum, otherwise it wastes tons of stabilizer to have to fill up the whole drum and agitate by hand. But I have tried that as well. I just filled up the drum with stabilzer out of the jobo and slowly turned it by hand as well, and still had the pink spots, so I'm not sure that the stabilizer is what's causing it.)

** One thing to note, when I took the 8x10's out of the Jobo drum this last time, One of them had navy blue liquid still dripping off of it. I don't know what that is, but that is basically the same color of the spots on the negative that turn into pink spots when scanned. I wonder if I'm not washing well enough, or if I need to wash with more than just 400ml of water?

I'm doing the same process with 4x5 and getting the same problem. And now I even did a black and white batch of 2 8x10 photos in the jobo, (HP5+ in 400ml of XTOL 1:1 for 11 mins, 1 min stop bath, 5 mins fix, and 7-8 30 sec washes of distilled water, then rinse in LFN all of this at 20 deg C) and 1 of the two photos had a white blotch similar to the ones on the color. (The other photo in this batch turned out fine)

See attached photos. Just want to see if you know anyone else who has had this problem?


I have a shoot coming up next week and I'm terrified if this happens again I'll be screwed!
(In the meantime, if you can recommend anyone you trust implicitly to process c41 8x10 negatives, I would appreciate the recommendation!)

Thanks!

 

[Neal]

Dear Daniel,

It looks to me as though the problem might be a light leak or some odd reflection inside the camera. I use this fellow for all my color work but I've never shot 8x10.

Good luck,

Neal Wydra

 

[Ronald Moravec]

Use water & stop bath after developer & before fix.

Use a bit of vinegar for a trial. I believe it is a contamination issue.

 

[Daniel Huiting]

Use water & stop bath after developer & before fix.

Use a bit of vinegar for a trial. I believe it is a contamination issue.

Interesting! I've never heard of a stop bath between the developer and blix for c41, since the instructions don't mention anything like that, but I guess I'm willing to try anything at this point!

 

[Photo Engineer]

It could be uneven pouring of the developer itself.

I forgot... The C41 development time is 3'15"

PE

 

[Daniel Huiting]

Maybe I try a longer Dev time at lower temp per the instructions? (They give a few options for dev temos, I just picked the highest and fastest.)

And for uneven pouring of the developer, that sounds possible. I've since done more tests and the marks I'm getting seem consistent with something liquid causing the issue.

How would I resolve this, since you pour the developer into the Jobo only one way? Pour faster, or slower? Double the amount of developer so there's less chance of places not being reached on the film surface right away?

 

[Photo Engineer]

You might try more developer volume, and using the stop after the developer. That often fixes this type of problem.

PE

 

[Daniel Huiting]

You might try more developer volume, and using the stop after the developer. That often fixes this type of problem.

PE

OK thanks! What kind of stop? I've never heard of using stop for c41 so I don't know what kind to get, and it doesn't mention anything in the instructions about stop, it says just go from Developer to Blix. Can I just use distilled water?

Also, what is your feeling on pre-washing? Some say 2 30-second pre washes, some say don't at all.The instructions say 1 60-second pre wash. Thoughts on that?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Your prewet is fine. For a stop use 1 - 2% acetic acid. You can use white vinegar or distilled vinegar from the grocery store if you dilute it properly.

PE

 

[Daniel Huiting]

Your prewet is fine. For a stop use 1 - 2% acetic acid. You can use white vinegar or distilled vinegar from the grocery store if you dilute it properly.

PE

Thanks! What would be a recommended dilution of the white vinegar?

 

[Photo Engineer]

IDK. Various brands come in different concentrations. If it is 5%, diluting 1:1 with water would make 2.5% Acetic Acid.

DO NOT USE BROWN VINEGAR OR CITRIC ACID!!

PE

 

[Ronald Moravec]

You need to keep the speed up, then slow down to print speed after 15 sec.

 

[Daniel Huiting]

You need to keep the speed up, then slow down to print speed after 15 sec.

You mean speed up when adding developer and then turn the knob on the Jobo back to "P" for the rest of the cycle?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, I use higher speed than recommended. It seems that Jobo changed their recommendations to up the speed for prints and films. This was published in their rotary processing journal somewhere, but the exact info is long lost.

However, running in one direction might also be at the root of your problem.


PE

 

[Daniel Huiting]

I solved it!

I thought it was a "C41-only" problem, but when the problem happened on a black and white negative recently, and I saw the purple spots in the middle with the drips running through (just like the c41 negatives on this thread with the navy blue splotches that look pink when scanned) I thought: Wait a minute. An unexposed negative is purple. I have purple spots. Fixer clears purple. WHAT IF THE FIXER DIDN"T CLEAR THAT SPOT?!! Sure enough I put the neg in back in some fixer and it disappeared in seconds. Imagine my elation. So I mixed up some blix and put an old c41 neg that had the mysterious spots in it, and BAM! The splotches went away.

So what's happening is there are parts of the negative that are not being reached by the blix for c41, or by the fixer for Black and White. Either because I'm not fixing long enough, or not using enough chemistry (although I'm using the recommended chemistry, and fixing/blixing for the recommended amount of time) or because of the orientation of the neg in the drum and certain spots pressing against the drum wall and not getting any fixer/blix. (I spent big money on the 3010 and 3005 expert drums from Catlabs because they weren't supposed to have problems like this...)

So rather than having to re fix/re blix each time depending on which negs come out with spots (because in a given batch, half the negs will be fine and half will have spots), I'm wondering if i can change my process slightly to make sure the fixer/blix reaches all part of the neg equally. Maybe I stop the process at the end of the fixing cycling, and turn the neg in the drums a little bit, and then fix for another minute?

Or just do what I did in my re-fix/re-blix experiments just now, and that was do do it in a tray, so I know for sure it is making contact.

Thoughts on this?

Also, if i decided to fix or blix for longer than the recommended time, are there any dangers of fixing too long? Or blixing too long? (The latter is what I'm worried about because it contains bleach and isn't a single chemical like fixer is to black and white.)

 

[Photo Engineer]

Sounds like the blix is not sufficient. IDK for sure, but a bleach, wash and fix is better.

PE

 

[Daniel Huiting]

The blix works fine when it touches all of the film, as shown by when I put it in a tray where I know it's touching all of the negative, those spots on an old neg go away almost immediately. So somehow it's not reaching parts of the neg. Anyway, at least I know if this happens again I can just re-fix or re-blix the neg and fix the problem. This is such a relief. There are so many shots that i thought were PERMANENTLY ruined! Now I'm just re-blixing and re-fixing them all and they are good as new!