T-Max 100 development problem

[Andy Durazo]

I run a photo lab for a local college and we have been having trouble of late with T-Max 100 film. We run it and it comes up blank. No edge numbers no images. The leader is developed but thin. We are using Arista liquid film developer diluted one to one. All the other films are coming up just fine but not the T-Max 100. Anybody have a similar situation? Any ideas?

My thinking so far:
Can't be devo as other films are coming out fine.
It's not contamination as other films are fine and I made sure the students washed everything before they started.
Fixer maybe as I have them fix 10 minutes to get rid of the magenta cast in T-Max 100 but, I've over fixed before.

I'm lost!

Any help is deeply appreciated.

Andy

 

[Bill Burk]

How long do you develop and what temperature? The Freestyle site gives time for the Liquid developer only for stock, not 1:1. You certainly could call them with questions.

To give you a point of comparison, I recently developed 4x5 TMAX 100 in D-76 1:1 in tray for 11 min 15 sec which gave me CI 0.63 and EI between 64 and 80.

You may have simply underdeveloped it.

As for the magenta, when I develop TMY-2, some magenta comes out in the developer and fix, but mostly it comes out in the wash water. In about 20 minutes it's mostly clear.

Bill

p.s. I work for Kodak but not in film... The opinions and positions I take are my own and not necessarily those of EKC.

 

[mopar_guy]

Before you blame the film, try a different developer. I find T-Max films to be very simple (almost idiot proof) to process.

 

[markd]

I used to rock TMAX 100 with D76 1:1 for 10ish minutes (not sure on the time. I used whatever the massive dev chart says to use) and they came out fantastic. I never fix more than 6 minutes, though. I have quite a few purplelish negatives (mostly Tri X) and they print well enough.


What I mean to say is that the film isn't a challenge to develop. Maybe it doesn't like that developer's chemistry. I wouldn't think that overfixing would blotto it like that but then again I haven't been doing this for that long.
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[Andy Durazo]

To try to answer all the remarks so far.

Freestyle said that the devo was their liquid version of D-76 and we have used it like D-76 for the last year without issue.

If it was the devo the other films should have also had issues but didn't.

The films that turned out good:
Arista Premium 100
Arista Premium 400
Ilford Delta 100
Legacy Pro 100
T-Max 400

The only film that didn't turn out was T-Max 100.

I even ran a Kodak B&W control strip and it turned out good.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Contact Kodak immediately on their 800 hot line and explain this problem to them. It is not impossible that a batch of bad film got out there.

At the same time, run some film through either another developer such as "real" D76 using the recommended time, or run some of the film through your regular developer at twice the time. See what happens.

My bet is bad film based on your information.

PE

 

[Andy Durazo]

Contact Kodak immediately on their 800 hot line and explain this problem to them. It is not impossible that a batch of bad film got out there.

At the same time, run some film through either another developer such as "real" D76 using the recommended time, or run some of the film through your regular developer at twice the time. See what happens.

My bet is bad film based on your information.

PE

With Kodak's quality control it's unlikely but worth a shot. I'll call Monday. Over the weekend I'll shoot and process in real D-76 as I have some in stock already. This couldn't hurt.

 

[Andy Durazo]

How long do you develop and what temperature? The Freestyle site gives time for the Liquid developer only for stock, not 1:1. You certainly could call them with questions.

To give you a point of comparison, I recently developed 4x5 TMAX 100 in D-76 1:1 in tray for 11 min 15 sec which gave me CI 0.63 and EI between 64 and 80.

You may have simply underdeveloped it.

As for the magenta, when I develop TMY-2, some magenta comes out in the developer and fix, but mostly it comes out in the wash water. In about 20 minutes it's mostly clear.

Bill

p.s. I work for Kodak but not in film... The opinions and positions I take are my own and not necessarily those of EKC.

Over the weekend I'll shoot some test rolls and try the T-Max devo and maybe some real D-76. I do have both of those devos in stock and I think I have a couple of rolls of Tmx in my fridge.

 

[TareqPhoto]

I missed or lost 2 or 3 rolls of TMY-2 souped in D-76, i had 2 conclusions, those films aren't exposed, or the developer exhausted, but i go with former as i can see the edge numbers/marks and one of the rolls even it is blank has a light leak[i think] wavy lines