TMAX400 120 watermark defect - current status?

[Sal Santamaura]

...is there a contingent here who refuses to believe anything except Kodak's "malicious intent" to abuse and deceive their customers?...

Yes.

...I doubt there's anything I could say that would convince those folks otherwise...

Correct.

You'll feel much better when you give up hope.

 

[removedacct1]

Why? Because any one person's experience is 100% statistically meaningless.

Then I shall happily refrain from adding my experience to this discussion, since my remarks are "meaningless". I no longer care whether or not my personal experience with Kodak is seen as either constructive or in any way informative.

 

[AgX]

I assume no one here does not believe you.

But:
-) Your experience does not exclude that there still is a problem
-) It does not free Kodak from doing a respective statement


Kodak has been the industry standard. And thus high expectancy is directed at them. At the moment they (resp. Alaris) come not even up to basic requirements.
All we know we got via this forum and quotations of mails other fellows received.

 

[BrianShaw]

Then I shall happily refrain from adding my experience to this discussion, since my remarks are "meaningless". I no longer care whether or not my personal experience with Kodak is seen as either constructive or in any way informative.

I stopped a long time ago... and as Sal said it feels better. There are still too many unknowns for anyone other than perhaps Kodak to be certain what the exact causal factor is/was. We seem to have some insights into corrective action but even that knowledge is incomplete.

 

[removed account4]

Or is there a contingent here who refuses to believe anything except Kodak's "malicious intent" to abuse and deceive their customers?

hi paulbarden

i don't think it was malicious intent or that they meant to deceive customers at all
i think they are so huge and rattled from the last 12 years it has taken them
extra time to figure things out and put the fire out. i think that maybe some mom/pop stores
and even BIG stores ( like b/h ) should have kept THEIR eye on the ball and noticed lot/batch numbers
and i think that ek/ka should have been a little more on the offensive on getting the word out about the defective film
but they are new at this ( ka ) and it took them a while to figure things out ..
i think it was an unfortunate situation all the way around.

 

[pentaxuser]

To be fair to Rattymouse, the key phrase in his statement is statistically meaningless. As AgX has said no-one is saying that you are not stating the truth when you say that you have never experienced the problem.

pentaxuser

 

[Bill Burk]

I'm going to do an experiment today. I have a theory based on an earlier test with a piece of the actual affected backing paper. I found the imprint ink is hydrophobic.

Through a line of armchair reasoning I believe a presoak might reduce or eliminate the marks.

I have two rolls of TMAX-400 from an affected batch ready to develop.

I will presoak one reel and then empty the tank, add the second reel to the tank and pour in the developer.

I'm sure my results will be statistically insignificant. But if my presoaked roll shows no marks and the "developer first" roll shows marks, you can bet I will be excited about it.

 

[BrianShaw]

Bill. Your results will be statistically insignificant due to small sample size, but good for you on having the incentive to experiment and demonstrate. Can't wait for a report!

 

[pentaxuser]

A worthwhile experiment, Bill. If it works then others have nothing to lose by trying it. If even, say, 20 people try it and report success then it begins to have meaning. My pessimistic persona thinks that surely Kodak would have tried this amongst other possible solutions once it received reports of the problem but maybe not

pentaxuser

 

[MattKing]

I'm going to do an experiment today. I have a theory based on an earlier test with a piece of the actual affected backing paper. I found the imprint ink is hydrophobic.

Through a line of armchair reasoning I believe a presoak might reduce or eliminate the marks.

I have two rolls of TMAX-400 from an affected batch ready to develop.

I will presoak one reel and then empty the tank, add the second reel to the tank and pour in the developer.

I'm sure my results will be statistically insignificant. But if my presoaked roll shows no marks and the "developer first" roll shows marks, you can bet I will be excited about it.

Bill:
A better experiment would be to cut each of the two rolls in half. Clip the corners of the two pieces from one of the two rolls.
Load half of each roll on to each of two reels.
Presoak and develop one reel, and just develop the other reel, as you originally planned.
That way you deal with the possibility that one of the rolls is affected, while the other isn't.

 

[Bill Burk]

Well the presoaked roll did not show KODAK and the one that went straight to developer did.

I have one more roll to develop... so I could cut that in half and try MattKing's suggestion.

 

[removed account4]

Well the presoaked roll did not show KODAK and the one that went straight to developer did.

I have one more roll to develop... so I could cut that in half and try MattKing's suggestion.

one more reason to presoak...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well the presoaked roll did not show KODAK and the one that went straight to developer did.

I have one more roll to develop... so I could cut that in half and try MattKing's suggestion.

Somehow, someway, let Kodak know!!!!!

PE

 

[MattKing]

Bill:
The reason for my suggestion was to try to deal with the fact that some of the rolls within the problem batches do show the problem, while others do not, and there is no way to tell which is which.
If you cut the roll in half and the presoaked half responds differently than the non-presoaked half, it will be great information.
But if neither half shows the information, it isn't determinative.
FWIW, the only roll I've seen the problem on (and to a very limited extent) received a three minute presoak, because I do that with all my film.

 

[Bill Burk]

While attempting to reel the third roll, I found myself hitting tape first... this roll hasn't been shot yet. It was part of another experiment that didn't pan out.

PE, I'm getting a package together to send to Kodak...

MattKing, I know that some do/some don't... so that's a good idea, but even on my new roll that shows marks, only one frame shows them.

 

[Prest_400]

I Wonder if black/opacified PET would be a suitable as a Backing Paper replacement of some sort, given the issues experienced with paper. Kind of stupid though, as I guess someone tried it or plastic just can't be gotten as opaque to protect the film.

I'm mostly a color shooter and experienced it with Portra. Let it lay around a long time after exposure (out of camera) on my desk (some light but not direct exposure) did it. Refrigerating and waiting a couple months to develop seems fine.
I tend to be slow to shoot a roll and infact one of my MFs has been loaded for a couple months or so, but haven't experienced it with the first frames of a roll.

 

[Roger Cole]

Ya know, after this fiasco, I wouldn't be surprised if Kodak simply stops selling 120 film altogether. It will be hard for them to win back former users after this betrayal.

I could live without Kodak 120 B&W as long as there's an Ilford, and I've moved to Ilford for all B&W sheet film anyway, but it would be unbearable to lose 120 Ektar. Portras too but I could do ok with Pro 400H if I had to but not without Ektar!

 

[Roger Cole]

That is great info about the persoak.

I bought a bunch of film and darkroom supplies immediately after my (thank heaven) divorce in 2015, but then got into other things and didn't use them. I'm still so wrapped up in work and other hobbies I'm not sure I will soon but I'd LIKE to. The film has all been refrigerated since it arrived. I will check my batch numbers.

With one exception I always use a pre-soak as I use a Jobo and that's the Jobo recommendation. The exception is Diafine, which I use for some select subject matter and lighting, and almost always with Tri-X (though the latest version doesn't respond as well as older Tri-X did, but it's still a useful combo.)

Anyone else experimenting with the pre-soak/no pre-soak please keep us posted!

 

[RattyMouse]

Nothing is proven until the same roll is processed two different ways. Until then, we are just speculating that the presoak is the solution.

 

[BrianShaw]

Nothing is proven until the same roll is processed two different ways. Until then, we are just speculating that the presoak is the solution.

From a scientific method perspective you are correct. Sample size needs to be increased too. But give Bill some credit for a credible demonstration that adds some information in a discussion that is chock full of assumptions, assertions, and not much else. I would assume that "Kodak", if they were really interested, would have done the "real experiment" already. Kudos to Bill for actually doing something in an attempt to answer a question on this topic. There are way too many unknowns... still.

 

[RattyMouse]

From a scientific method perspective you are correct. Sample size needs to be increased too. But give Bill some credit for a credible demonstration that adds some information in a discussion that is chock full of assumptions, assertions, and not much else. I would assume that "Kodak", if they were really interested, would have done the "real experiment" already. Kudos to Bill for actually doing something in an attempt to answer a question on this topic. There are way too many unknowns... still.

I do give Bill credit for his effort, but his results so far do not yield any information. Only with a valid control can this test prove that presoaking is a possible solution to this defective film issue. I hope that he can continue his experiment and prove that this way forward works.

I also would have hoped that the brilliant scientists at Kodak would have already thought of this possible solution and tested it out thoroughly. But since Kodak won't communicate with their customers, we are left wondering and holding the bag with this continuing film fiasco.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I do give Bill credit for his effort, but his results so far do not yield any information. Only with a valid control can this test prove that presoaking is a possible solution to this defective film issue. I hope that he can continue his experiment and prove that this way forward works.

I also would have hoped that the brilliant scientists at Kodak would have already thought of this possible solution and tested it out thoroughly. But since Kodak won't communicate with their customers, we are left wondering and holding the bag with this continuing film fiasco.

It is pretty ridiculous and has gone on long enough.

 

[RattyMouse]

It is pretty ridiculous and has gone on long enough.

You are preaching to the choir man!

 

[removed account4]

im really sad no one has offered to give me their bad-film

 

[JWMster]

As a newby nobody new to TMAX 400 in 120 and yes, lovin' it, I am rather dismayed by the story and it's continuing life. Reading the Kodak Alaris story on Emulsive.org gives a rather thin feeling to the company. I know Harman Technology isn't exactly deep on personnel either.... these are all sort of private equity driven restarts in many ways. But it is frustrating to see/hear that Kodak Alaris in particular isn't following Harman's (Ilford's) more open and communicative model, and as much as my narrow testing has been pushing me to use TMAX-400 more and more as a standard film, I'm somewhat now more hesitant. In returning to film and 35mm initially this year, I staked down ILFORD as my standard go-to simply on the basis that it had no other options and would be fully committed, all-in. Yes, I still have two 35mm bulk loads of FP4+ and HP5+ running, and love the stuff. But with shooting 120, I opened the box and TMAX has been surprisingly beautiful. Beautiful enough to make a guy rethink some his pre-planned prejudices. This story.... well... what can I say? Seems to be that it SHOULD be old news, but the fact that it's not has me more puzzled than I want to be. Gimme a simple answer! History or not?