Wavy line on delta 3200

mrtoml · Sep 22, 2008

Has anyone seen anything like this? I just developed 2 rolls of 120 delta 3200 in the same tank taken on the same day with the same camera. One of the rolls has this dark wavy line about 1cm wide line running intermittently along the whole length of the roll from one end to the other in an irregular sinusoidal pattern. Is this a film defect or has something else happened. I have never seen anything like this before.

I have attached a scan of one end of the roll and a few other frames. You can see where the line starts. It runs right to the other end through all the images ruining the entire roll.

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tjaded · Sep 22, 2008

X-Ray. Your film was exposed to x-rays at some point. Did you travel or buy your film via mail order?

Ian Grant · Sep 22, 2008

tjaded said:
X-Ray. Your film was exposed to x-rays at some point. Did you travel or buy your film via mail order?

There's one flaw to that theory, this is the negative so the fogging would be the reverse - evenly fogged overall and then a light wavey line where something shielded the film from the X-rays.

It may be caused by an led or something similar in the darkroom, or it might be a fault.

Ian

mrtoml · Sep 22, 2008

FWIW both rolls came from the same batch of film and both have indeed been through XRay machines in the same bag (via carry-on baggage a couple of times). This is the first film from that batch that has shown this issue. The others have all been fine though I haven't developed every roll yet. Both were put on the reels in the same changing bag at the same time. The camera was a Mamiya 7ii.

Ian Grant · Sep 22, 2008

I have to admit I'm wrong. Go see this link, it is X-ray damage. It's very unlikely to have happened at a UK Airport because all the BAA Airports upgraded early this years and the carry-on baggage scanners are totally safe, and have been for a few years now.

Some airports aren't as safe for high speed films 100 ISO upwards, and countries like the US use slightly different machines to the UK which they don't claim are safe.

Ian

mrtoml · Sep 23, 2008

Thanks Ian. Looks like it was the CAT type X-Ray machine. They obviously zoomed in on this roll which is why the others appear to be unaffected. The airport was Malta by the way.

Cheers
Mark

ooze · Sep 23, 2008

I had exactly the same pattern on two rolls of 120 FP4+ a few years ago. The film was bought in the UK, exposed in Turkey and developed back in the UK. All other exposed film was fine. I've always thought it must have been X-ray but was never sure...now I know better.

So, these guys can "zoom" in on any part of the screen, i.e. raise power levels selectively???

From now on I shall explicitly state that the bag contains film.

Cheers,
omar

mrtoml · Sep 23, 2008

ooze said:
So, these guys can "zoom" in on any part of the screen, i.e. raise power levels selectively???

From now on I shall explicitly state that the bag contains film.

Yes. Apparently with some types of Xray machine they scan the whole bag with a low dose of XRay and then if they see anything that needs a closer look they can zoom in on it and increase the radiation levels. This is what causes the wavy lines. It's described in the link Ian posted.

I didn't know about this and will be much more careful in future. The idea that Xray machines are all now safe with respect to film is not true.

Ian Grant · Sep 23, 2008

You've been very unlucky Mark, I had some my films scanned at least 8 times three weeks ago with no problems at all. They'd already been scanned at Manchester Airport. The Italian made scanners on the Cruise ship had a very clear Manufacturers labels stating "Film safe".

Ian

mrtoml · Sep 23, 2008

I agree that I have been unlucky. This is the first time I have ever encountered a problem. My big problem now is what to do with the other rolls that went through the machine, but have not been used. I guess I will just have to chuck them. I also still have a large batch of exposed film that went through so some of these may also be affected, but hopefully they will be mostly OK.

Oh well...

Ian Grant · Sep 23, 2008

It'll cost you little to process the rest of the films, but it's not worth risking the unexposed films for anything serious. If they are slower speed they ahve far greater chance of being OK.

Ian

mrtoml · Sep 24, 2008

I developed another 10 rolls from this batch today and not one of them has the X-ray damage. So I guess the selective zooming was very focussed. Still have 11 more rolls to go though.

eng1er · Sep 24, 2008

With 120, since there's no metal, I just stuff it in my pockets and go through the metal detector. That way, no x-ray exposure and I don't have to explain what it is and why it can't go through x-ray to some McDonalds reject who works for TSA. Of course anything more than 6-10 rolls (depending on how many pockets I have) and that gets a little tricky.

mrtoml · Sep 24, 2008

Well I think I would have had a problem as I had about 50 rolls of 120 and 20 35mm Maybe I should get a large hat.

Wavy line on delta 3200

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