Unusual image deterioration on my freshly-developed Acros 120

[Trask]

I shot off a roll of Acros 120 in my Fujica GW670III, and developed it this evening in Obsidian Aqua -- not my first time using OA, but my first time using OA with Acros.

To my surprise and mystification, the negatives came out with strange longitudinal squiggles and some sort of weird round thing in the image -- see the two attached.

In the horizontal image, there's what looks like oil in the road, but it's actually the strange deterioration in the emulsion, and clearly you can see that round whatever it is. In the vertical image there are squiggles in the sky in the upper left. Note these are not linear, not scratches, vary in width.

Development regime was a longer version of Regular Rod's: initial pre-soak in water for three minutes with some agitation -- it poured out bright blue -- then OA with initial one minute of agitation then gentle agitation every two minutes thereafter. RR develops to 12 minutes, but I let the film stand in the developer from the agitation on minute 11 out to 15 min 30 seconds. Water bath stop, with the film sitting in that water for maybe 12 minutes as I went to eat a quick lunch, then fix for 8 minutes with intermittent agitation. Several lengthy water rinses, hypo clear, a few short rinses, into Photo-Flo and hang to dry. Yes, I then wiped the film with a Pec-Pad soaked in the Photo-Flo, as I done many times before without any alteration to the film.

I've developed a lot of film in the past 40+ years but I've never seen anything like this. That round thing reminds me of a bubble, but I was agitating the film every two minutes so it's not as if a bubble could sit on the film for a long time.

Has anyone seen something like this before, or have any thoughts as to what happened here? Note I bought this film from a seller -- could this be related to prior storage in some respect?

 

[gone]

It looks almost like the marks I was getting with Ultrafine film, which I stopped using after that experience. But since you developed and shot Acros, I am in the dark as well. Hopefully someone here can give you a lead. I never did find out what was going on w/ the Ultrafine (and I got the film numbers on it as well).

 

[Jim Noel]

The vertical "streaks" sure look like emulsion has shrunk too rapidly and pulled apart which can happen when moved from developer to acid too quickly. Did you agitate in the water stop, or just let it sit while you ate lunch? If there was no agitation there is a possibility,however remote, that those small portions had no dilution of the developer at that stage and were essentially moved directly from developer to fixer. My belief is that thin emulsion films like Acros are more likely to display this phenomenon, but I have no proof of that, and have never experienced it with Acros.
The circle in the street is the real puzzler to me.

 

[summicron1]

never heard of obsidian aqua, had to google and i see its a concoction of someone on photo.net. Nothing wrong with that if yu want to go to the trouble and so on, and like the results.

As to these negs --one wonders, you don't mention temperatures. The damage almost looks like the emulsion was floated off.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

I've had damage like this from handling film with contaminated fingers. In my case, I had a pinhole in one finger of my nitrile glove, which allowed fixer to be carried over to the next batch of film. I got round marks and lots of streaks that look exactly like what you have. I was handling 4x5 sheet film, however, not 120.

Could you somehow have got "fixer fingers" on your film?

Best,

Doremus

 

[Rick A]

Since I'm not familiar with the chems used to mix OA, I will ask if possibly they weren't dissolved completely? Maybe some other contaminate in the water stop attaching to the film emulsion? Not knowing type of reel used, kink marks and finger print from loading struggles?

 

[Regular Rod]

Whatever it is, it's a pity because both those photographs look like they would have been splendid images. The tones in the first one look particularly good...

It looks like some kind of contamination. Have you used the same batch of OA before? What were the results like? I'm uneasy about your stop bath regime. I never leave the film in the water like that as the developer will still be active, although with greatly reduced vigour. Instead I agitate and pour out within 10 seconds and if I think the colour of the discharge is still a bit too tinged I repeat the rinse with fresh water at the same 20 deg. C. Then I fix and wash using the ILFORD recommendations.

It's unimaginable that either film or developer is to blame here. It must be contamination that has somehow sneaked in there.
:confused:
RR

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

It's always best to develop another roll and see if it's not a one-time thing. I'd do it again without the long water stop bath.

 

[Trask]

Thank you, everyone. I can rule out having "fixer fingers," and certainly I didn't touch the film surface where that round thing shows up. I don't think it's the fact that I had a long "water stop," and while I don't usually have such a long time in water at that step, I do think that any remaining Obsidian Aqua in the tank would have been so very diluted by that stop bath water than any development that continued would be almost nil -- and certainly not localized.

RR: OA is mixed one-shot from a concentrate (1 ml to 500ml H20) with carbonate bath (5ml to 500ml H20) -- so exhaustion unlikely. Luckily all these images were made in my neighborhood area so not difficult to repeat.

Having thought of all you said, I think that the primary culprit must be the overall time in liquid, perhaps leading to softening of the emulsion, exacerbated by too wide a spectrum of temperatures of the various liquids, and possibly the wiping of the film.

I was just going through some old negative scans and came across the attached from 5+ years ago, which I'd entirely forgetten (see attached image). This is Adox 100, shot in 35mm in a Konica IIIa camera, and developed in a metol/HQ developer. Note what looks like peeling emulsion at the bottom -- very similar to the photos I attached in my original post. So: different developer, different film manufacturer, different camera, possibly similar temperature swings. Per your advice, I'll shoot another roll of Acros 120 in the same camera to see if using a different developer in a more tightly controlled process yields different results.

A final thought: as much as I enjoy messing about with different films in different developers (as I have for years), the pleasure of so doing is starting to fade when weighed against knowing that I'm never quite sure what the images will look like because there are too many variables. Time to cool it with the testing and such, and try to narrow my tools to increase predictability.

 

[Jim Noel]

"Having thought of all you said, I think that the primary culprit must be the overall time in liquid, perhaps leading to softening of the emulsion, exacerbated by too wide a spectrum of temperatures of the various liquids, and possibly the wiping of the film."

I think you have answered your own question with this statement. Any one of these actions could cause one or more of the problems, and it they all took place, I'm surprosed you didn't have more damage. In other words,"Operator Error".

 

[MartinP]

Is there actual emulsion missing from the film? It appears that the image is in place 'under' the damage. A picture of the negative would be helpful instead of a scan. If that is correct and there are no massive holes then I'd suggest that this looks like pressure damage to the film roll. Was it accidentally crushed in a pocket or transport package of some sort? Indications to support that might include that the frames affected are towards the end of the roll, and hence near the 'outside' of the finished roll.

Edit: For pressure damage after shooting then it may be seen on the last couple of frames, as described above, but for damage before shooting then it may be more likely seen at the beginning of the roll. Also, the added picture with the ferris-wheel doesn't have quite the same damage as seen in your first post (and of course it is a different roll, I realise that).

 

[Rick A]

View attachment 98218

On close inspection of this image, it appears the emulsion is torn and displaced slightly below and beside where it belongs.

 

[Rick A]

Thank you, everyone.


Having thought of all you said, I think that the primary culprit must be the overall time in liquid, perhaps leading to softening of the emulsion, exacerbated by too wide a spectrum of temperatures of the various liquids, and possibly the wiping of the film.





View attachment 98218

After rereading your post, I realized the problem. You have left the film in liquid for far too much time, then you WIPED it. There's the rub (pun intended) never ever, I repeat NEVER EVER wipe the danged film. Not with anything, not even your fingers, even if you dip them in photo-flo(or similar). Final rinse in rinse aid mixed with distilled water, or even plain distilled water, then shake off the excess liquid before unrolling to hang.