What is wrong with these HP5+ negatives in Microphen?

spl · Aug 27, 2021

The negatives attached have some problems. They are HP5+ exposed at 400, processed in Microphen.

Development: Second film from stock solution (so +10% time) Patterson tank, one film, 7 minutes, the tank was turned at the start and gently turned every 1 to 1.5 minutes. Was the agitation not sufficient? The developer solution also developed another film just fine an hour before.

Stop: Kodak stop bath 1 - 2 minutes

Fix: Ilford rapid fixer, about film number 6 on the litre fixer bottle mixed at 1+4 as recommended. 5 minutes.

Wash: Soft tap water 5 rinses and finished in Compard WAC Wetting Agent in clean soft tap water

Dry: Rubber Patterson squeegee and hang to dry.

All chemicals were mixed in the last couple weeks and well in date, developer was mixed that day.

Because I was reusing stock developer (As opposed to one-shot) I may have filled the patterson tank rather high thinking it was irrelevant.

I don't have much experience developing but didn't have these problems with Rodinal one-shot 1+50, 300 ml for one film.

Problems:
Streaks may be aligned with sprocket holes 4-1 4-2

When held with light side-on the cellophane appears to have nasty streaks 4-3

My moon got smeared, a long black streak comes from the side of it, more pronounced than I can photograph 4-4

Andrew O'Neill · Aug 27, 2021

What the heck is going on with neg 4-4?? Those almost look like static marks. Also, though it's not responsible for the problems here, I'd do away with the squeegee. They can scratch up your negatives.

Andrew O'Neill · Aug 27, 2021

4-3 almost looks like a fixing issue...

MattKing · Aug 27, 2021

What do you mean by "the tank was turned at the start and gently turned every 1 to 1.5 minutes"?
Normal agitation requires inversion and is fairly energetic.

mrosenlof · Aug 28, 2021

I tend to develop hp5, actually most films, with about 5 tank inversions every 30 seconds. I'm not sure exactly what you're doing every 1 to 1.5 minutes, but it sounds like a low level of agitation for a 7 minute dev time. I invert 5 times and then tap the tank on the sink bottom once or twice, and maybe give it a little spin as I set it down.

Andrew O'Neill · Aug 28, 2021

mrosenlof said:
I tend to develop hp5, actually most films, with about 5 tank inversions every 30 seconds. I'm not sure exactly what you're doing every 1 to 1.5 minutes, but it sounds like a low level of agitation for a 7 minute dev time. I invert 5 times and then tap the tank on the sink bottom once or twice, and maybe give it a little spin as I set it down.

Ilford recommends 10 sec agitation every minute. Personally, I do 5 sec every minute and have done so with this film (as well as all other Ilford films that I have used) for many years. With Microphen, I preferred it at 1+1, with its longer development time, though. 7 minutes is a bit short for my liking.

gone · Aug 28, 2021

That looks familiar. I'll bet the op has one of those tanks w/ the twirly stick. If so, don't use it! This is what you get when you do. I threw mine as far as I could (the stick, not the tank) after seeing similar negs, and from then on it's been inversions and never any surge issues.

Craig75 · Aug 28, 2021

Under agitation leading to bromide drag down negative would be my uneducated feelings on the matter.

spl · Aug 28, 2021

Neg 4-4 doesn't have static, it's zoomed in to see the tiny moon that got smeared, those are trees, it's actually a pretty good shot! I should have said that

I turned the tank upside down (Inversion) a few times for each agitation, the inversion was not 180 degrees. I'm starting to get three points from the responses:

- The dev time was short, so maybe agitation was more important, and I was too gentle. I maybe needed to invert 180 and back to the point of hearing sloshing.

- Because I changed from Rodinal one-shot to Microphen stock I may have overfilled the tank, meaning the film didn't get drained and refreshed with solution on inversion combined with insufficient agitation frequency and vigour.

- I don't like the squeegee, I shouldn't have bought it. It does scratch the film, kindof pointless.

Yes there is a twirly stick I didn't use it for this development though, and I'll never use it again.

I'll shoot another HP5 soon and see if some changes to agitation and fluid level helps. (I still don't get why my moon got smeared though.)

Arvee · Aug 28, 2021

Craig75 said:
Under agitation leading to bromide drag down negative would be my uneducated feelings on the matter.

+1. Under agitation leading to bromide drag leading to under development in line with sprocket holes.

spl · Aug 28, 2021

On the subject of the "Twirly stick" with the otherwise excellent patterson tank, I've seen pictures of these tanks placed on machines that hold them horizontally and rotate them automatically, some homemade imitations and some professional. Given that the tanks are perfectly cylindrical below the flange the engineer in me says that's probably a designed use case.

I suspect the twirly stick is intended to be used with the tank rotated to 90 degrees or as close as possible without spilling the solution. This makes sense because then the film is being dunked into and out of the solution repeatedly, just as with a rotating machine. Removal of the film above the level of the developer followed by reimmersion seems like a pretty effective technique. Rotation of the stick with the tank horizontal will not replenish the developer trapped within the spiral I suspect.

In retrospect I also developed with only one spool in the tank, I wonder did I leave it suspended above the solution level for some of the development time?

grain elevator · Aug 28, 2021

Looks underfixed to me, but maybe something else is also going on. Hoe did you agitate during the fixer step? As gently as developing?

MattKing · Aug 28, 2021

spl said:
I suspect the twirly stick is intended to be used with the tank rotated to 90 degrees or as close as possible without spilling the solution. This makes sense because then the film is being dunked into and out of the solution repeatedly, just as with a rotating machine. Removal of the film above the level of the developer followed by reimmersion seems like a pretty effective technique. Rotation of the stick with the tank horizontal will not replenish the developer trapped within the spiral I suspect.

Of course, you could always break down and check the instructions for the Paterson tanks .
They tell you to use the twist agitator for just the first 30 seconds, and to use other, more randomized and complete forms of agitation during the rest of the process.
The twist agitator is a good instrument for quickly getting the fresh developer evenly to all parts of the emulsion side of the film.

NB23 · Aug 28, 2021

“Gentle inversions”
Stand development
Twirling stick

These all lead to very poor development.

On top of it, looks like you underfixed, too.

Nicholas Lindan · Aug 28, 2021

I'd vote for under-fixing in combination with under-agitation in the developer and fix. If part of the problem is indeed underfixing then it is easy to verify and correct. Put a strip of negatives in the fix, a tray will do, and fix for a further 5 minutes, with agitation, and see if some of the sprocket hole related problems go away.

Follow the developer and tank instructions on agitation and there shouldn't be any problems. Deviating from the manufacturer's instructions is rarely* a good idea.

* One of the rare exceptions is exposing B&W film at 1/2 - 2/3 of box speed and reducing development time by 10 - 15%. About which exception controversy rages. YMMV.

pentaxuser · Aug 28, 2021

Just out of curiosity,spl, where did the 1 -1.5 turns per minute come from? As others have said, whatever the source of this information is, it is way short of what Ilford recommends

pentaxuser

spl · Aug 28, 2021

pentaxuser said:
Where did 1 -1.5 turns per minute come from?

The following agitation is recommended for spiral tank processing with ILFORD chemicals. Invert the tank four times during the first 10 seconds. Repeat these four inversions during the first 10 seconds of each subsequent minute of development. At the end of each agitation sequence tap the tank firmly on the work bench to dislodge any air bubbles which may be trapped in the processing spiral. This method of agitation should also be used with the fixer.

- TECHNICAL INFORMATION PERCEPTOL, ID-11 AND MICROPHEN FILM DEVELOPERS / Ilford Harman Technologies (Powder film developers technical data sheet.pdf)

I did follow this procedure pretty well, and probably every minute in retrospect. I missed the subtlety that it was a shorter development time, and I was too gentle for Microphen because I feared creating a grainy result. (This may have been wrong.)

I am going to re-fix the negatives tomorrow either in fresh fixer, or the same stuff if it clears a snip of film quickly enough. The 1+4 rapid fixer had done about 5 films before that time, but I gave it a good 5 minutes, it should last much longer than that? Maybe it was gentle agitation during fixing?

pentaxuser · Aug 28, 2021

OK so when you gently turned it at 1-1.5 minutes this was not one turn? It's just that the phrase "gently turned it" seemed to suggest that it was one turn only. In your first post you didn't mention that it was gently turning for 10 secs as in the Ilford instructions

pentaxuser

MattKing · Aug 28, 2021

I usually tell people that when they agitate they should be able to feel and hear the developer tumbling through the film and reel.

pentaxuser · Aug 28, 2021

It seem to me that while spl hasn't confirmed it yet, it looks very likely that he did use Ilford's agitation so it would appear that we can turn our attention to other issues. It has nothing to do with Stand development or the twizzle stick neither of which did he use.

As Matt has said it is important that he hears the developer tumbling through the reel but short of a kind of slow motion which would have to be deliberate to achieve,even gentle inversion tumbles the developer through the reel

pentaxuser

spl · Aug 28, 2021

So, I watched this video a few weeks ago. I did the agitation like in the Ilford video:

Time index 4:20

However I fully admit that I turned the tank too much around its axis and gently instead of inverting it in a sloshy arc with some g-force as in the video. It's a subtle difference but I suspect it was a contributing factor.

Based on the discussion and re-referencing the Ilford docs and video I think these few mistakes conspired to cause the bromide drag:
- Turning the tank somewhat like the video but without the arc that would make it slosh
- Having the tank over-full such that the solution wasn't sloshing through the reals but just lolling around in the tank, not refreshing between the film layers
- Not having the empty reel in the tank to ensure the loaded reel was forced under the surface during the sitting time
- Some problem with fixing probably from agitation technique
- All exacerbated by short development time and overconfidence resulting from success with Rodinal and longer development times

MattKing · Aug 28, 2021

Looks like you have learned some useful things from the entire process - forum posts and video review included.
So this may in the long run end up being the most successful film experience to date for you .
I hope it all leads to lots more satisfaction, and even more fun in the future.

spl · Aug 30, 2021

Okay, final result! I tested the fixer with a snip of a leader and it cleared the negative within 90 seconds, so I re-fixed the negatives in the same fixer giving them better agitation and a 15 minute immersion. Now, I suspect there are some artifacts left over from development, likely due to agitation being too gentle, but it is abundantly clear that the negatives were not properly fixed, and this seems to have been 70% of the problem with them.

I originally fixed for 6 minutes, so I can only imagine it wasn't agitated sufficiently.

There never was any lightning artifacts, they are trees zoomed in. The problem was that the moon smeared into a horizontal line, I am guessing that was the squeegee. In future I will shake the negatives after the final rinse in wetting agent. I may get a chamois, I don't see the squeegee ever working, It seems to scratch every roll, even though it features in the Ilford videos.

Here are some negatives to compare to the ones in the original post 6-1, 6-2. 6-1 is the worst shot on the roll the remaining shots are now salvageable in post processing. There may still be some bromide drag, but it is not as evident now, or the problem may have been entirely fixing related.

Also I took the original leader which still had frame 0 attached unexposed, and I soaked half the frame in fixer for about 5 minutes. You can see that there was a big fixing problem with that part of the film. 6-3

Thanks to all for your help with this project. I have learned a lot!

pentaxuser · Aug 30, 2021

If 15 mins did the job then it may not matter as far as you are concerned but frankly the 6 mins you used for fixer originally should have been enough using Ilford agitation, even if it was composed of very gentle inversions. If it genuinely took 15 mins then the fixer would seem to be way beyond its useful life
If the fixer had only been used for the number of films recommended by Ilford and if it was film number 6 then this is still within the range of films that Ilford Rapid Fixer can handle so I am still puzzled

Anyway I'd do this for the future. 1. Just dump, the fixer that took 15 mins on a "just in case "basis

2.Then with fresh fixer check the time it takes to clear a leader, write it down and keep the note in the darkroom where you can see it . Multiply that time by 2 and use as the maximum fixing time. So for 90 secs clearing time used 3 mins fixing time. Test clearing time on each occasion and once it exceeds double the original time discard the fixer and make up fresh. So when the clearing time exceeds 2x 90 secs or 3 mins, dump the fixer. At that stage your fixing time has reached 6 mins ( twice the clearing time which has then reached 3 mins)

Am I as meticulous as this, you may ask. The answer is No but to date I have not had the problem you seem to have had. Until you can be sure you have cured the problem of fixer which you feel lies at the bottom of your negatives then a "better safe than sorry" approach may be sensible

pentaxuser

spl · Aug 30, 2021

I honestly think the fixer was good! And I didn't say it took 15 minutes, just that I gave it 15 minutes (I re-loaded them into the spiral tank so I just over-estimated), it may have been clear in 5, like the leader that I tested.

What is wrong with these HP5+ negatives in Microphen?

spl

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