What is going on here?

Thanasis · Aug 14, 2007

Last night, I tried developing three rolls of Ilford Delta 100 35mm in a Paterson Multi-Reel Tank loaded with the three rolls of film all spooled up onto Paterson Auto-load reels.

The rolls of film at the bottom AND the top of the "stack" seemed to develop and fix looking ok overall apart from the usual novice problems such as one or two scratches and a few minor darker streaks on the last few inches of film which refused to take up on the Auto-load reel and consequently, adhered to the side of the tank and did not develop properly.

The roll of film that was sitting in the middle of the "stack" came out with a blackish cast extending over the whole roll, noticeably more pronounced towards one edge of the film and onto the sprocket holes but extending far enough upwards to affect the whole image frame.

While loading the second roll of film (the one in the middle of the stack) I noticed the dim phosphorescent glow from the dial on my wristwatch and I immediately removed my watch and put it into my pocket before I loaded the third roll into the tank. I was later speculating that perhaps this film had maybe somehow come into close proximity with my watch and this light could have fogged the film. All rolls were shot with the same camera so I'm pretty certain it is not a light-leak problem on the camera.

Has something like this ever happened to anyone? Can any one suggest any other causes for this film's blackish cast?

BWGirl · Aug 14, 2007

Is there any way you could scan a section of the film & include it in this thread? That might give some of the film 'gurus' here a wee bit of evidence to go on!
It can be frustrating when something like this happens. Hope someone can give you some ideas.

bdial · Aug 14, 2007

What you are describing does sound like fogging, and no, it's never happened to anyone here
At least not in the last 1/2 second or so.

It's possible that your watch caused it, though it doesn't seem the most likely cause in that it affected the whole roll, and not the first roll too.

As Jeanette says, if you can post a scan of the roll, that would help.

DaveOttawa · Aug 14, 2007

From your descripton sounds like that roll was fogged by light from one edge of the reel, exceedingly unlikely to be the watch, it needs a surprsing amount of light from the edge to significantly fog ISO100 film at least if the film is in the tank (e.g. if you switch the light on without replacing the lid, ask me how I know...) and anyway it didn't affect the first roll, would help hugely if you could scan a piece of the fogged roll as suggested.

Jon Shiu · Aug 14, 2007

Hi, when I first tried that type of tank I left spindle out, which will cause a light leak.

Jon

Thanasis · Aug 14, 2007

Thanks for the help. The offending film is still drying. I'll cut it down to strips tonight and bring one in to work tomorrow for scanning and posting here.

The spindle was definitely in place when I poured the developer in.

I do remember that the film was pretty tightly wound and was wresting near my wrist when I started to load it onto the reel. I have no idea if it was on or near my watch. It was, er, pitch dark at the time.

Thanasis · Aug 15, 2007

I don't have a scanner at home so I brought the slides in to work and scanned them there. The results were poor. I tried scanning them in different ways but they all came out too dark. The attachment below is about the best representation that I have but I was looking at them under a loupe last night and I found regularly spaced sprocket hole shadows or fogging across the darker area of the negs. Any ideas on what the cause of this could be? Incorrectly spooled film on the reels? I'm a bit lost on this one...

DaveOttawa · Aug 15, 2007

It's a puzzle! Yes, the film is fogged, i.e. seen non-image forming light. It wasn't enough to completely fog since the frames are still visible - although they don't seem to have any image detail. I would guess it was during processing somewhere rather than in camera since it has the uniform variation in density across the roll. Camera light leaks tend to be more uneven in my experience. Sprocket hole shadows again indicates fogging after removal from the camera (or before but not in camera).
The only light source you mention is the watch, maybe try putting a short length of film in contact with watch face then procesing to see if it can fog? I would expect it NOT too but at least you'd have eliminated the possibility.
I am certainly puzzled, the only thing in my experience (which includes teaching beginner darkroom) that would look like this is if the reel had been exposed to light in the tank, i.e. the film saw light from one edge but uniformly over the whole length of the roll.

Thanasis said:
I don't have a scanner at home so I brought the slides in to work and scanned them there. The results were poor. I tried scanning them in different ways but they all came out too dark. The attachment below is about the best representation that I have but I was looking at them under a loupe last night and I found regularly spaced sprocket hole shadows or fogging across the darker area of the negs. Any ideas on what the cause of this could be? Incorrectly spooled film on the reels? I'm a bit lost on this one...

Thanasis · Aug 15, 2007

DaveOttawa said:
It's a puzzle! Yes, the film is fogged, i.e. seen non-image forming light. It wasn't enough to completely fog since the frames are still visible - although they don't seem to have any image detail. I would guess it was during processing somewhere rather than in camera since it has the uniform variation in density across the roll. Camera light leaks tend to be more uneven in my experience. Sprocket hole shadows again indicates fogging after removal from the camera (or before but not in camera).
The only light source you mention is the watch, maybe try putting a short length of film in contact with watch face then procesing to see if it can fog? I would expect it NOT too but at least you'd have eliminated the possibility.
I am certainly puzzled, the only thing in my experience (which includes teaching beginner darkroom) that would look like this is if the reel had been exposed to light in the tank, i.e. the film saw light from one edge but uniformly over the whole length of the roll.

Thanks for the suggestions, Dave. There is definitely image detail (careful, painstakingly exposed image detail at that ) on the negs, you just can't see it on the poor scan. I will try your suggestion on testing my watch dial the next time I process film . I know it sounds implausible but its the only light I can think of which could have fallen on one edge of the film and not affected the other 2 films in the tank.

smieglitz · Aug 15, 2007

It appears that one edge is fogged more than the opposite edge, but is one end of the film fogged more than the other? With these reels and the lack of the proper-sized center tube, the film nearest the center and towards the top gets more light fog than towards the outer spirals at the bottom. Is it possible that you loaded two reels and then just put the flexible lid piece on without the funnel top then either turned a light on or opened the door and took a break? The tanks are only lightproof with the funnel lid and tube in place, and I've seen many a roll fogged in our community darkroom if this is not so.

Another thing to look for is the pattern of the sprocket holes appearing anywhere across the film area. If there is a pattern adjacent to and in-line with the actual holes, it means the film was fogged when it was tightly wound in the camera or just out of the cartridge in the darkroom. OTOH, if the image of the perforations can be seen going diagonally across the frames, the film was unwound and partially covering itself when it was fogged and this only happens when the film is being loaded onto the reels.

Are you sure al three are Delta and not perhaps SFX or HIE? These latter infrared sensitive films can be fogged in some newer cameras because they have an infrared-emitting sensor in the film chamber. Your roll resembles that to me more than the typical fog seen as a result of something going wrong during development or loading the reels.
Joe

Thanasis · Aug 16, 2007

smieglitz said:
It appears that one edge is fogged more than the opposite edge, but is one end of the film fogged more than the other? With these reels and the lack of the proper-sized center tube, the film nearest the center and towards the top gets more light fog than towards the outer spirals at the bottom. Is it possible that you loaded two reels and then just put the flexible lid piece on without the funnel top then either turned a light on or opened the door and took a break? The tanks are only lightproof with the funnel lid and tube in place, and I've seen many a roll fogged in our community darkroom if this is not so.

Another thing to look for is the pattern of the sprocket holes appearing anywhere across the film area. If there is a pattern adjacent to and in-line with the actual holes, it means the film was fogged when it was tightly wound in the camera or just out of the cartridge in the darkroom. OTOH, if the image of the perforations can be seen going diagonally across the frames, the film was unwound and partially covering itself when it was fogged and this only happens when the film is being loaded onto the reels.

Are you sure al three are Delta and not perhaps SFX or HIE? These latter infrared sensitive films can be fogged in some newer cameras because they have an infrared-emitting sensor in the film chamber. Your roll resembles that to me more than the typical fog seen as a result of something going wrong during development or loading the reels.
Joe

Thanks for the reply and thoughtful analysis. This is turning into a crime scene investigation.

I'm definitely positive that all three rolls were Delta100 (never used or owned the SFX or HIE). It is a bad scan but looking at the negs here in front of me, I can see that there is sprocket hole fogging pattern "adjacent to and in-line with the actual holes" like you say and the fogging is across the whole length of the film (ie exposure 1 through 36). My camera has never fogged film before and hasn't since (as the other roll in the tank which was shot after the bad roll will attest). It may well have happened in the tank. I can't seem to recall the order of steps I took after spooling the film onto the reel. I'm going to check that tank next week when I get back to the darkroom. But if it didn't happen in the tank, and it didn't happen in the camera then it could only have fogged on its way from the camera to the reel tank.

Thanasis · Aug 28, 2007

Confirmed!

It WAS my watch. Last night I developed some film that i had put in close proximity with my watch in the same tank with a roll of film that I spooled with my wrist watch in my pocket. Guess which one came out fogged?

Yup, the one that had been in contact with my watches glowing dial. Live and learn.

Regards,
Thanasis.

DWThomas · Aug 28, 2007

It WAS my watch.

Decades ago, as a high school student, I attended a lecture at Princeton University. It was a whole spiel on nuclear physics aimed at high schoolers. At some point, the zany professor was waving a geiger counter around and asked if someone would loan him a luminous watch. A kid in the audience volunteered his. As the probe neared the watch, the count (including audio "pops") skyrocketed dramatically. The guy turned a really fierce look on the kid and said "Do you actually wear this watch?" He then explained that there were luminous watches that he believed could be dangerous if they were worn with the face toward the wrist.

Thanks for triggering those ancient neurons into alignment!

DaveT

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