Weird Artifacts on Acros II 120 Developed in Rodinal 1+50

retina_restoration said:

Acros II is manufactured at Mobberly by Harman/Ilford.

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Only partially.
It is a joint venture, in which both companies are involved in the production process (told to me by an absolutely reliable source in the industry who has connections to Fujifilm and Harman).

DREW WILEY said:

Was there ever anything other than a first round of Acros II ?

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Yes.
Acros II is produced on a regular basis.

250swb said:

spots are caused by the backing paper
it is now hopefully solved

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It's as solved as it's going to be, probably. While it may be an interaction between the backing paper and the emulsion, there is no reason to think that wasn't made worse by the post-exposure storage in the fridge (as described: loosely wound). It's fine to say backing paper "caused" it but the fact remains no one knows how backing paper causes it.

So, it may be the cause, but it's not a solution. The suggestions to make sure the film is room temperature before opening, keep it tightly wound after exposure, and keep it at room temperature then develop as soon as possible are to try to avoid the backing paper causing the problem. Furthermore, they're just good practise, anyway.

DREW WILEY said:

I seriously doubt it has anything to do with the film itself being a tiny bit past date. In fact, Acros II has been around only briefly. I've shot original Acros 20 years past date, not even frozen beforehand, with complete success - (not that I recommend doing that). And I've processed older120 roll Acros thawed out after a number of years with zero issues. Perhaps there was some crud clinging to the walls of the processing drum, which broke free during processing and contaminated things. Clean your drum and reel well, try another developer, and see what happens. And use the lowest RPM your processor will allow. Does the developer get frothy, the way you do it?

The other possibility is that, being finished by Harman now, rather than Fuji, some of their own defective backing paper was involved. You'd have to inquire about that.

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To help you clean your tank, I suggest two tools, self made.

First, get a NEW LARGE Mars white rubber eraser and split it lengthwise into two pieces, then cut a strong and sound 30⁰ angle into the end of one of the two, but avoid a thin edge at the end, a mm should be both thick and thin enough for cleaning use.

The second tool is to simply to cut the head of an old tooth brush, and shape the headless stem into an angle that can also reach down into the tank and scrap out any harden debris, chemical or otherwise, without excessive force.

On that note, I'll offer a third option and add that a new or used toothbrush can also be used to clean up reels and tank threads, so consider doing this on occasion.

Cheers

If it's backing paper mottling, I recall that there were some issues with Acros II and Ilford's own films a couple years ago. A search around here lends to some threads.

An anecdotal observation is that it looks similar to what I had from a Roll of Delta 100 exp 2020 that I shot 2023. Also processed promptly and not being refrigerated post exposure not really in extreme humid conditions. It was always kept at room temperature and was the last off a brick that I shot over the years, interestingly the previous roll shot late 2021 had no issues.
Would say that as long as this happens outside of the expiration date, there is a reasonable limited liability. After that I have just been refrigerating my 120 B&W film prior to exposure. Given that chemical reactions slow down with lower temperature, it might also help.

Also interesting and related is imprinting, where the backing paper ink numbering does react with the negative. That is more extreme and the few instances of Ilford film I saw reported online were due to bad storage/humidity/age.

Don_ih said:

It's as solved as it's going to be, probably. While it may be an interaction between the backing paper and the emulsion, there is no reason to think that wasn't made worse by the post-exposure storage in the fridge (as described: loosely wound). It's fine to say backing paper "caused" it but the fact remains no one knows how backing paper causes it.

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It was interesting discussions around here from the time (2017-2020). Kodak ultimately changed the backing paper which now comes as plasticized. My Kodak C41 120 exp from 2020-22 does in some instances exhibit a very light mottling but no imprinting. It was not limited to Color as there were very notable issues with Tmax 400.