T Max 3200 TMZ development goes wrong each time

After internet search I didn't find the right solution for my problem, namely the stripes on the negative at sprocket distance with T max 3200 @EI1600, plus a purple colored negative overall.
I want to show you a couple of images where the problem is very clearly in attachment.

The problem occurs only on my T Max 3200(TMZ-135) film. Not on TriX,Hp5+ or Tmax 400(TMY2) in 135 or on HP5+ in 120 and TMax400(TMY2) in 120.
I develop HP5+ in DDX 1:4,20°C, all TMax in Tmax Dev 1:4,20°C or 24°C.

My process:

- no pre-soak in water, dry start
- Tmax dev fresh 1:4, 300ml: 60ml dev / 240ml deminiralised H2O in plastik paterson tank bought new last year
- dev times as Massive dev chart/Kodak Tmax datasheet F-32 says: EI1600 small tanks: 8' (20°C)-7'(24°C)
- pour in and then turning the spool with for 2secs with the little central shaft
- close lid and agitate 5-7x first 5secs
- then 5-7agitations every 30secs
- stop bath(acid AMALOCO S10): 10secs with turning reel with central shaft
- rapid fix Iford or AGEFIX AGFA: little to none agitation : 10mins
- 5 x fill up tank wash with 20°C tap water
- final dunk with AGFA SISTAN silver stabiliser / wetting agent
- drying

Weak points:
- I've reused fix sometimes and didn't do strenght testing in front, I know Tgrains take more out of the fixer hence the 10mins instead of 6 mins fixing
- agitation with central shaft in the tank
- to weak agitation or to strong agitation?

Are these stripes bromides stripes? To low fixing strenght? Anything else?
Is it to much/heavy agitation and thus surging through the sprockets or to low agiation(frequence or motion) and bromide striping ?

I will test following:
1. TMZ roll in DDX with 2-3agitations/1min
2. TMZ negs fixing 2nd time in fresh fixer to see

I can put up the negs with the strikes around the sprockets visible on the scanner tonight.

The strange thing is this problem is only visible on my TMZ negs, not on Trix,HP5,TMX in 135 or 120... They all get the same process.

Many thanks for your opinions/solutions/tips,....

Reiner

Before looking into possible issues during development...

Have you shot rolls of TMZ with different cameras? Can you rule some (strange?) light leak in the camera?

have you only shot this one roll, or has this happened with more than one roll of tmz ?
and do these "stripes" show on the whole roll ?

Can you show us scans including the sprocket holes?

It looks like an agitation issue to me, not enough so there is uneven development. Are your agitations once the tank is closed inversions or are you using the 'spinner'?

- Different rolls TMZ so far but in nikon F4S and in Nikon EM, I've been think about light leaks in the EM but it got new seals last year and it shot many rolls HP5 and TriX excellent with no marks on the neg.
- They show on the whole roll. I'll attach another example in the OP from the latest roll.

So I will add following testing:

3. TMZ in other camera which was 100% ok, e.g. i'll take my F601 or F100.
4. New rapid fix Ilford bath

I've had the same problem for several years now on random rolls of Tmax 3200. It doesn't seem to have a cause that can be isolated. Some rolls it does, others not even with identical developing (sometimes two rolls in the same tank). The film was not outdated and I stored it properly..didn't let it get hot and didn't leave it out in bright light. It only happens on the first 10-12 images when it happens. I began seeing this about 4 years ago, had never had it before despite using Tmax 3200 since 1991!

I do the inversions as Kodak describes in the datasheet for Tmax. It's swinging the tank around it's horizontal axle.

With sprockets, for now the best I could with my crappy V200 epson.

maybe you should try a different developing "system" instead of the way you are doing it ...
your central shaft might not be seated and letting light in whenever you rotate it,
or your tank itself is leaking ...

if you can get your hands on another tank ..
pre-wet for 1min + rap tank to get bubbles off the film
invert and slowly rotate the tank at the same time
( the motion is like a sideways figure 8 )
slow but constant for the first minute
then agitate ( figure 8s ) for 10 seconds every minute.
until 2nd or 3 minute rap / slam &C tank to get bubbles off ...

after your developing time is over stop or water bath
then fixer ... and agitate the same way you did for your developer for
whatever the time is you fix.


or ...
the other thing you can do is get a few larger plastic storage container to use as developing /stop / fix tanks fill them with your chemistry.
take a metal coathanger and make a pair of loops on the bottom ... if you have one of those stainless dipsticks they work great.
(make sure the loops aren't longer than the diameter of your tanks).

load your reels in the dark put your hanger in your first tank.
to agitate you raise and lower your hanger slowly not too much, maybe an inch or 2
and agitate for the time you would normally agitate.

then in your stop ( or water )
then in your fix ...

if you get the same marks/ stripes on your film, maybe the film
was damaged somehow, or there is a leak in your camera ?

john

It's hard to tell but looks like the stripes and the sprocket holes are at the same location. What's on the right side of the film? Is that scanning artifact or is entire left half messed up?

Are you sure that the central core for the tank is seated properly, and not damaged? This looks like a light leak to me.

I use 2-bath film-strength Ilford rapid fixer, 5-10 minutes in each bath, and my TMAX comes out perfectly clear with a 15 minute rinse, from 35mm up to 4x5. FWIW.

Very kind of you all to reply.
The sc.nning is bad. It's not the picture i wanted to come out but it gave an look on the edge for now, although full of sc.nning bit en byte crap. this is a H*br*d problem and I will post it there.
Chris Crawfors's possibility of a bad roll looks scarry and pushes me towards ILFORD Delta 3200 where I don't have any problems Re. development in DDX in the same tank.
Other films have been coming out of my Nikon EM without problems so I don't think of a leak.
Also a leak in the tank is doubtfull as other films come out perfect in the same process & tank.
Is TMZ more suspectable to agitation flaws than other films? I'm almost certain.
I will certainly enhance my agitation skills guided by your tips. Especially agitation in stop en fix stages looks like I'm not doing right here.
I was certain that the spinner did it's job as agitating in 8's. Why would it be there for otherwise?

So on to more testing. I want to get this solved as i really LoVe this Kodak film and it's texture and better contrasts than the Delta3200.

If you got more opinions glad to know them. Many thanks.

Just gonna throw this out there... could it be X-ray or some similar exposure like that? The periodic nature of the stripes suggest something like that.

Were the rolls in black or clear(ish) film cannisters? Ever laid out somewhere where they might've received direct sunlight through the felt trap?

The fast nature of the film would make it more susceptible to this kind of contamination.

My 2¢

It could be. Fast film is always more suspectible to any kind of light and/or x-ray...
But I bought the film directly from the importer's shelves in Belgium. It would have gone during shipment USA-Europe then?

I've got another 4 rolls on the shelve @ home. They will be killed by my rays of light first to see what's happening here.
I want this thing cleared. i'm to much in love with high ISO B&W film to let go one of the Two Last ones ...

Looks like some form of bromide drag to me, induced by the strange vertical running stripe of exposure your are getting on the sprocket holes. I don't know why/how you are getting such extreme density down the sprockets, but where it is, you are getting a lot of development and as a result, bromide drag from those points. Which is why you are getting streaks across the width of the film, spaced in between the sprocket holes.

I'm guessing its somewhere in your camera, but maybe not. If this were infrared film, it could be from an infrared frame counter, but it's not. While I have had some surge/bromide drag looking marks on my TMZ over the years, it's never bad and never with the length-wise density stripe you have going on over the sprocket holes. I'd look into figure out what is causing that exposure on the sprockets. Getting rid of that, coupled with refining your processing should make things much better.

Of course, if that stripe is a scanner artifact and isn't on the actual film, ignore what I'm saying.

On a semi-related note - I'd agitate more in the fix. And use inversion for you agitations, not just spinning (I'm unclear on what it is you are actually doing though). Some of your examples in the first post also show a haze on the bottom half of the negative with looks like it comes from not inverting or not having enough chemicals in your tank or something.

Lastly, F-32 is an out of date spec sheet for TMZ. You might want to dig up F-4016.

you could always cut a piece of photo paper and put it into your reel and then into your tank
put the lights / go out into sun ... spin the core ..
the stop+fix it
you would be able to see if it was light leak

have you called / emailed kodak to see what they say ?
it might be worth the email ...

good luck !
john

Go here: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/f4016/f4016.pdf and on page 21 you will find the instructions you need. Kodak does not recommend dilution with this film. I think it is bromide drag due to the dilution effect. The stain is recognized by Kodak and they suggest longer fixing times.

PE

Quick　thoughts
How many reels does your tank hold?
Why NO agitation in the Fixer?
(see top left on pg 24 of PE's pdf)
Please put a clean pix (just part of the film is fine) showing the sprocket holes
I suspect there is insufficient agitation or solution... esp the curly wave above on the 2nd photo....

if that's bromide drag, its the strongest I have ever seen by a mile. I suspect something else is at play and you'll have to remove variables one by one until you find the cause.

Did you have enough dev in the tank? One of the negs looks like it has a tide mark... and if you were low on developer this could give severe surge marks through the sprocket holes as dev slowly trickles down perhaps?

You are all marvelous helping me out here. I'll dig deeper into the F4016.
On the Tmax dev bottle the dilution is 1:4.
You might think Tmax dev is built for TMZ too?

I'm not using 1:7 or 1:9 dilution which is given as alternative.
Otherwise,the no dilution route seems one i can test pretty quick.
Any thoughts on which 1:1 developer to use then for best results?

I also got this on fogging TMZ:

http://www.genmay.com/showthread.php?t=818566

Photo Engineer said:

Kodak does not recommend dilution with this film.

PE

Click to expand...

Where do you read this PE? Can't find this written explicitly in their Datasheet# F-4016. Thanks for your input here, really appreciated!

Is the strip of exposed area running along the actual sprocket holes real? If so, do you know what's causing it? That really shouldn't be there...

Greg Davis said:

The chart on page 21 shows TMAX developer with no dilution. Times are given with dilution only for TMZ rated at 800 and processed at 24°C.

Click to expand...

That has to be a typo. Tmax Developer is NEVER used undiluted, it has such high viscosity that it wouldn't work right. I've always diluted it 1+4 and gotten perfect development as far as the film's contrast and speed is concerned. Using straight developer would overdevelop the hell out of the film!

chriscrawfordphoto said:

That has to be a typo. Tmax Developer is NEVER used undiluted, it has such high viscosity that it wouldn't work right. I've always diluted it 1+4 and gotten perfect development as far as the film's contrast and speed is concerned. Using straight developer would overdevelop the hell out of the film!

Click to expand...

Near the beginning of the document, Kodak defines the standard dilution for T-Max and T-Max developers as 1 part concentrate + 4 parts water. From there on, it only specifies the dilution when it refers to alternate dilution choices.

It is a confusing approach, but they are consistent with it, in this document, and with these developers.

So the references on page 21 and later are to 1 part concentrate + 4 parts water (expressed as 1:4)