Uneven development driving me crazy...

George I think you're right there are still some slight trace of surge, but really nothing compare to before. It's actually hard to see if the problem remains. Maybe I should start shaking my film tank the same may I do my dry matini's...

That dense line - does it cross the frame boundaries?

I'm wondering whether maybe it's a light leak.

I had this problem too

I had the same problem with uneven development along the edges of the film. I finally determined it was most likely due to residual developer acting on the film after emptying the tank followed by an inadequate rinse. The pattern matched what I thought would happen if that were the case. I don't use a stop bath, opting for just a water rinse. I was using just a running water rinse when the problem was occurring but after switching to a fill, agitate, and drain of several cycles followed by a running rinse of a couple of minutes the problem went away. Hope this helps.

Polyglot, not a light leak as the space around frames is clear. Also, it mostly appears in the highlight.
Lamar, you bring an interesting point as I just fill and empty the tank with water now I don't agitate anymore. This is actually a new patern, as I used to agitate. I should have think about it!!! Have to wait 2 weeks to access the darkroom and see if this does something. Do you think this could explain the new artifact in the center of the frame?
Thanks. V.

Have you tried an acid stop bath? It was part of my remedy of uneven development a few years back.

Under ideal conditions you would have three tanks: Developer, stop, and fix. In complete darkness you lower your reels into the developer. Put the lid on. When the dev cycle is over, lights out, move to stop bath. Agitate, lights out, move to fixer. Finish cycle.
This gives you no delay between baths, and no propensity for uneven development as the liquids are poured into the tanks.

When you use water as a stop bath, you have to make sure you don't have residual developer on the film before it goes into the fix. That takes a few water changes.

Just something to ponder and consider.

Good luck!

- Thomas

Yes, you must stop, even if with water. I generally use 3 changes of water, agitating vigorously (4Hz) for about 10 cycles with each change of water. Gets all the developer out from between the film and spiral and takes about a minute, during which any developer left in the emulsion mostly diffuses out.

bvy said:

How could that be? Just curious...

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First off there is no need for it. It can cause the emulsion to swell. Does Kodak say to use distilled water? You are wasting your time. Ansel Adams never wrote anything about it either... at least in his book "the negative".
People with too much time and money think too much.

Vania said:

Maybe I should start shaking my film tank the same may I do my dry matini's...

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Just lift the tank, turn it over and twist 3 times and give a sharp hit when you return it down.

I have developed film tens of thousands of rolls.

5 seconds every 30 seconds. NOT 5 seconds every 25... think about it.

I also do the same lift twist turn 3 inversions in five seconds for the first 30 seconds.

vpwphoto said:

Just lift the tank, turn it over and twist 3 times and give a sharp hit when you return it down.

I have developed film tens of thousands of rolls.

5 seconds every 30 seconds. NOT 5 seconds every 25... think about it.

I also do the same lift twist turn 3 inversions in five seconds for the first 30 seconds.

Click to expand...

on another note, be careful in the choice of music you are listening to when you dump in the developer, bluegrass tends to destroy the emulsion with to much vigorous shaking where as Yanni's music will cause over-development because you fell asleep during the process....it's a fine line ...really....

I really don't know what that center anomaly could come from, I've never had a roll come out like that. See what happens when you do a better wash.

Vania said:

Polyglot, not a light leak as the space around frames is clear. Also, it mostly appears in the highlight.
Lamar, you bring an interesting point as I just fill and empty the tank with water now I don't agitate anymore. This is actually a new patern, as I used to agitate. I should have think about it!!! Have to wait 2 weeks to access the darkroom and see if this does something. Do you think this could explain the new artifact in the center of the frame?
Thanks. V.

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I pulled some 6x6 negs I took recently where I also has this happen, (over development along the reel edges on some images) and measured the density change on the neg compared to the density change from the scan of the neg. Interesting is that the density difference was never more then 0.06 and yes barely noticeable under a 4x anti-stigmatic lupe. The scans show at least 10 times the difference or more in some cases. I will rescan with and without the holder and see if the results are similar.

I noticed something interesting after I purchased an Epson V750 recently. I also purchased a better scanning 120 holder that comes with removable "T" inserts that you place between frames. I noticed that the same density differences appear between frames but do not when the "T" inserts are not used.

I will have to scan with and without the holders to really see if this is something real.

Thanks Chris for the input. In my case the density difference is clearly visible on the negs also, and prints the same way it scans.
Good luck with the epson V750. Definition it good but it's a piece of crap for negative scanning as it produces unavoidable banding on the sides due to the unexposed part of the film around the frames. I wish I knew that before buying it...

I've just got back to work on my developing issues and will post more about it soon.

I have noticed the banding issue and didn't know what is was from. It isn't a big issue for me regarding medium format and for 35mm I have a film scanner. I find the V750 difficult for 35 mm and I wouldn't recommend it either.

I did do some experiments with and without the film holders. I found the density issue, although minimum when using a densitometer, was exaggerated in the scans by the algorithm. Scans without any processing showed density differences similar to the measured density. This was the case with significantly overexposed negatives. So the holders didn't seem to contribute to the problem as it was exactly the same between two different and no holder without any computer processing.

I am interested if the issue your having is more apparent with exhaustion development (i.e. stand development and using weak solutions) compared to using like HC110 dilution B or H.

Hi all,
So I think I should update my progress as things are much better now, at least regarding the original issue.
Other problems remains, but I will come to that at the end.
Here is what I changed that gives me more satisfying results that works for HC-110 dil 1+66 :
1. No pre-soak
2. Only just enough developer to cover the reel(s). In my case it comes down to 400ml per roll of film with HEWES ss reels in ISE ss tanks.
3. As stated earlier I use now a more vigorous and BRISK agitation pattern. I agitate more, but more importantly I apply more force during agitation, rising the tank slightly and lowering it with just enough velocity to force a downward movement of the chemistry and reels. I use the agitation scheme described in the Darkroom Cookbook as well as by Ansel Adams in The Negative : rotating the tank as I invert it. I also add a swirl movement at the end, before taping the tank to remove air bubbles. I started with kodak recommendation (1st 30sec, then 5sec every 30sec) but that gave me too much contrast and would force me to use tri-x 400 at something like 160-200 iso to compensate for the shorter development time. So I switched to Ilford recommendations (1st min, then 10 sec every minutes), and as long as the first minute agitation remains vigorous (1 complete inversion / second) everything looks OK. I can even slow down the subsequent agitations (4-5 / min) to tame the contrast. Unfortunately, and to answer Chris question, I cannot use semi-stand agitation as it brings back uneven development artifacts. More specifically, overdeveloped, pure white surges along the edges of the image (the edges that are in contact with the reel). This artifact is actually always present but with normal development it's negligible.
4. The USE OF AN ACID STOP BATH. This is the only way I could get rid off the overdeveloped steak that would randomly appear in the middle of some frames as you could see in my last exemple.
This is very unfortunate as I use a lot of staining developers (PMK pyro, Prescysol and Prescysol EF). With PMK, the acid stop bath doesn't appear to be much of a problem and actually seems to lower general stain, although I might be losing some highlight details without noticing it. On the other hand, with Prescysol, Peter Hogan do insist not to use an acid stop bath. But no matter how many water bath I use or even if I agitate the water stop bath like a mad man, I will always end up with some sort of streak mostly visible on evenly dense part of the film . Here is an exemple of a clear blue sky (no clouds) shot @ zone VI developed in Prescysol for 8min with standard agitation (as semi-stand gives me uneven development). I raised the contrast to make the artifact more obvious. It is much less than in the previous exemple but still there nonetheless. If anyone has a clue on how I could get rid of this one without using an acid stop bath...
You can also see the white surge I mentioned earlier on the right edge of the frame. No matter what I do, I can't get rid of this one...
Again, thank you all for your help and comments!
Vania

Vania,

You have solved many of your problems, and that is very good to hear! I'm very happy for you.

If I am not mistaken, there was an alkaline stop bath developed, and it might even have been PE that talked about it. Here's a thread for you:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I too have problems when I use just water as a stop bath. And there is one more concern with using water - you have to make sure to wash off all developer before it goes into the fixer, and that can take quite some time. If you are not able to wash it all out, you may run the risk of development artifacts, which could be part of your problem.
You ought to make side by side prints to compare how much you actually lose in terms of print quality by using an acid stop bath, before you look for an alternate solution.

- Thomas