What happened here? Light areas in print

Thomas Bertilsson said:

Are all color heads set up with diffusion light source? Or are some of them condenser?

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I believe all color dichroic heads are generally diffusion. The results with B&W are a bit different with diffusion or condensing heads which is why I keep my old Durst M-300 condensor around even though I can print 35mm and 126 with my newer dichroic diffuser head.

AFAIK, all color enlargers are diffusion. I happen to hace two 23C's, one is a dichroic set-up. I had three, gave one away a couple of weeks ago.

LIght path inside the enlarger.

I took the light house cover off and lifted up the bellows just above the condenser box. The light path is as follows:

- Bulb is mounted in the back of the light house
- behind the bulb is a mirror that directs the light forward
- in front of the bulb are a series of glass lenses
- moving forward there is a mirror that directs the light downward
- next is the filter stack.
- then at the bottom of the light house there is a frosted square piece of glass
- next comes the top bellows. The ones that can be raised and lowered. There is a scale on the side (1= fully extended bellows, 3 = fully collapsed)
- then comes the first condenser element. Very large glass lens.
- next is the filter box where there is a holder with a large clear filter laying in there.
- next is the bottom condenser element.
- next is bellows that must be adjusted for the negative format in use. (35mm to 4x5)
- negative carrier
- focusing bellows
- lens and lens board
- then the enlarging paper/easel

* seems like a hybrid of diffuser and condenser

If I fully collapse the upper bellows I can see the outer edges get dark on the easel (setting 3). From setting 2 to 1 extending the bellows I can see some change in brightness on the easel but the edges look as bright as the center.

I am going to try to scan the negatives tonight so we can possibly rule out them as the source of the problem.

Thanks for all the help so far.

There's a thread for what looks like the same problem here. (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
I had the same issue a while back when I started developing. You can see my post in the other thread. Basically I narrowed the problem down to residual developer acting on the film during the wash. I don't use stop bath and at the time I was just using a running water wash for two minutes. I switched to a fill, vigorous agitation, and drain of three cycles followed by a two minute wash before fixing. This resolved the issue. You can see the improvement in my gallery at smugmug. The first several pages are the shots after I made the switch in the process. The last few pages have my oldest pictures and show the problem very obviously: http://www.lamarlamb.com/On-Film/Black-White/13120199_4q77v#1263598864_Lr35XG5

Here are the scans of the negatives

Here are the scans of the negatives. They certainly do not look as bad as the prints. I am having a hard time deciding if there is any problem with the negatives. They look like what I shot. I think the light areas are because of the way the light was in the scene. What do you guys think?

Excuse the dust. The dollar signs are because I have a trial copy of Vuescan.

My developing tank is one with plastic reels. It has a shaft that connects to the reel column with a knob on the outside that allow you to rotate the reels inside the tank. There is also a cam on the bottom of the tank that raises and lowers the reels during the rotation. My agitation is 5 one seconds cycles of the knob (back and forth on one cam lobe) every 30 second about a quarter turn in each direction. I do this the whole development time.

It looks to me like the problem is with the agitation. I would try a full turn of the knob for each agitation cycle.

Here is a strip of negatives scanned

Scanned a strip of negatives:

From the scans we can tell that you have much higher density on one sides of the negatives. In the second frame from the right, on the strip you scanned and posted, it is clearly visible.

When you develop film, instead of using the spinner, completely invert the tank instead. If your tank leaks, get another one. The spinner is simply not a good way to agitate. Dev tanks are inexpensive these days, and a good one would allow you to agitate correctly.
You want about two full inversions in that 5s every 30s. As you completely invert the tank, you also rotate the tank around its center core, so that in two inversions, you will also have rotated the tank at least one full 360 degree rotation. (Basically just grab the tank by the top, and rotate it with one hand while you invert the tank).

You may still have a problem with the enlarger. But you simply must address this problem with your agitation, to get evenly developed negatives, before you can tell whether your enlarger is correctly set up or not.

- Thomas

Better Rinse After Developer Needed

I have an Adorama two reel tank which is similar to the Patterson. After I dump the developer I just fill it up with water, cap it, and shake it like there's no tomorrow for about 5 seconds, then dump the water. That will do a pretty good job of diluting the developer and getting it out of the nooks and crannies so it stops acting on the film. I do this twice more but agitate (pick it up and shake it) for about 10 to 15 seconds. I follow this by a two minute running rinse. Then you're ready for fixer. The trick is to get that first rinse water in the tank quick, agitate hard, then dump it quick. The developer distribution in the tank is uneven after you pour it out, more is clinging at the reel edges and if you don't agitate well this will be less diluted and cause the uneven development anywhere it is more concentrated. When I first encountered the problem I changed my developer agitation routine several time during troubleshooting but it had no real effect. After studying the pattern of uneven development more inadequate rinse was the only cause that made sense.

ke6igz said:

Here are the scans of the negatives. They certainly do not look as bad as the prints. I am having a hard time deciding if there is any problem with the negatives. They look like what I shot. I think the light areas are because of the way the light was in the scene. What do you guys think?

Excuse the dust. The dollar signs are because I have a trial copy of Vuescan.

My developing tank is one with plastic reels. It has a shaft that connects to the reel column with a knob on the outside that allow you to rotate the reels inside the tank. There is also a cam on the bottom of the tank that raises and lowers the reels during the rotation. My agitation is 5 one seconds cycles of the knob (back and forth on one cam lobe) every 30 second about a quarter turn in each direction. I do this the whole development time.

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Lamar said:

I have an Adorama two reel tank which is similar to the Patterson. After I dump the developer I just fill it up with water, cap it, and shake it like there's no tomorrow for about 5 seconds, then dump the water. That will do a pretty good job of diluting the developer and getting it out of the nooks and crannies so it stops acting on the film. I do this twice more but agitate (pick it up and shake it) for about 10 to 15 seconds. I follow this by a two minute running rinse. Then you're ready for fixer. The trick is to get that first rinse water in the tank quick, agitate hard, then dump it quick. The developer distribution in the tank is uneven after you pour it out, more is clinging at the reel edges and if you don't agitate well this will be less diluted and cause the uneven development anywhere it is more concentrated. When I first encountered the problem I changed my developer agitation routine several time during troubleshooting but it had no real effect. After studying the pattern of uneven development more inadequate rinse was the only cause that made sense.

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You may be onto a contributing reason, but you will never make me believe it's the entire reason for that much difference between the edge and the rest.
Propose that you develop the film for 10-12 minutes. In the few seconds it takes to pour developer out and get stop bath into the tank, that much uneven development would simply not have enough time to take place.

But I totally agree that the switch from developer to stop bath has to be as quick as possible. No doubt about that.

But I don't use stop bath. I use water to stop the developer action. That's why I think it was such an issue for me and the reason the switch to fill, agitate, drain resolved the issue completely.

Lamar said:

But I don't use stop bath. I use water to stop the developer action. That's why I think it was such an issue for me and the reason the switch to fill, agitate, drain resolved the issue completely.

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I am glad it solved your problem. It may be a contributing reason to the OP's problem. But what I'm saying is that it may not be the whole reason to THEIR problem.

It is obvious that the edges of the film have received more development than the center of the film. To properly stop the developer is obviously super important. But what the OP has posted is the classic symptom of not getting the developer properly re-mixed at each agitation cycle by using the spinner.

Either way, both are definitely possible contributors, and addressing both may be important.

- Thomas

I will try the inversion method of agitation tonight.

The tank I have can be agitated with the spinny rod or inversion. I have a camera with a roll that is a few frames away from being done. I will develop that tonight using the inversion method of agitation. I will post some scans of the negatives as soon as I can.

Thanks for all the help. I am new to this and don't really know what to expect or what good negatives look like. I am still learning and fine tuning my process.

ke6igz said:

The tank I have can be agitated with the spinny rod or inversion. I have a camera with a roll that is a few frames away from being done. I will develop that tonight using the inversion method of agitation. I will post some scans of the negatives as soon as I can.

Thanks for all the help. I am new to this and don't really know what to expect or what good negatives look like. I am still learning and fine tuning my process.

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This is where we all started once. We were all beginners. It takes a while to develop a good solid process that gives you great results every time.

I would love to hear your results.

- Thomas

Roll developed with the inversion method of agitation

Here is a scan of a strip of negatives from the roll I deveoped last night. I noticed that the density of the negatives has increased compared to the spinny rod agitation method. I see this in both the negatives and the exposed portion of the leader.
These look even to me. The focus is a little soft but that is due to a moving cat or me not focusing accurately. Cats are hard to take pictures of because they move so much.

Negs look ok on edges, now print with your setup and see if there is fall off on edgeson print due to enlarger set up.

ke6igz said:

Here is a scan of a strip of negatives from the roll I deveoped last night. I noticed that the density of the negatives has increased compared to the psinny agitation method. I see this in both the negatives and the exposed portion of the leader.
These look even to me. The focus is a little soft but that is due to a moving cat or me not focusing accurately. Cats are hard to take pictures of because they move so much.

Click to expand...

ke6igz said:

Here is a scan of a strip of negatives from the roll I deveoped last night. I noticed that the density of the negatives has increased compared to the spinny rod agitation method. I see this in both the negatives and the exposed portion of the leader.
These look even to me. The focus is a little soft but that is due to a moving cat or me not focusing accurately. Cats are hard to take pictures of because they move so much.

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They look even to me too. The increased density comes from agitating more, which brings more active developer to the film plane (as it should be). To compensate for this, you just develop for less amount of time. Easy peasy.

And, as Bob says, now it's time to examine what happens when you print negs that we know are good.

think about your agitation. Because you were using this 'spinny rod' method... there was ZERO movement of the developer ACROSS (vertically) the film. So the developer was getting agitated very little at the center - and the film had no access to fresh developer. The exhausted stuff was just sitting there dormant...

I used the spinny things ONCE and that was after the initial pour of developer which seemed silly so I put the spinners away. I always invert, seems to work the best. Kodak recommends 5s every 30s while Ilford recommends 10s every 60s, not sure there is much difference between the two from my experience both work well.

Most probably there is a problem with enlarger, which delivers uneven light across the paper area in a form of hot spot.
Try to make a print without a negative in a carrier and you will see how enlarger delivers the light.
I had the same problems with the past both with condenser and diffuser heads.
I don't know your enlarger, but if you use condenser head, you should take care of three things:
1. Use the right condenser (for your enlarging lens
2. Check the position of the lamp
3. Check the position of condenser.

Made a print

Here is a scan of a 8x10 print I made. I also included a scan of the negative. Here are the details:

Negative:
Fuji Neopan 400
Nikon FE
Nikkor 50mm f1.4
Exposure: 1/125 at f4
Developer: Kodak D76 1:1

Print:
Aristra Private Reserve RC VC
Beseler 45 Enlarger
Lens: Minolta Rokkor 50mm f5.6
Light house bellows set to "2" (half way extended)
Condenser bellows set to 35mm
No filters - grade 2
Exposure: 20 seconds at f8
Developer: Clayton P20 1:7

The one with the white border is the print. What do you guys think?

I think you have a cute kitty! And the neg and print look fine.

Congratulations, you solved your problem. Well done!