What went wrong with this film?

I need your help troubleshooting a problem with a roll of film and it’s going to be a doozy because there’s no known-working parts. I’m coming back to film photography after a long absence (we never broke up, we just took a 13 year vacation). So it’s a film I’ve never used before, a camera I’ve never used before, developing in a place I’ve never worked before, and all new chemistry and equipment. Here’s what I can tell you about the process:

1) Film is Ilford FP4+ that expired around the same time as the Y2K Bug. I think it was refrigerated for most of that time.
2) Camera is a new-to-me Mamiya RZ67 kit with 3 lenses and a two backs. This problem occurred with all 3 lenses on this roll but (obviously) only one film back was used. I have shot only 3 other rolls with this camera kit but none of them had homogenous areas where this problem would be visible (all forest scenes) so I don’t know if it afflicted them as well.
3) Developer is XTOL from the 5L dry packets mixed with tap water (city water, slightly hard). Developer was mixed as per directions for temp and volumes. Only slightly weird thing was that there was a tiny bit of very coarse precipitate on the bottom of the mixing vessel. Not fine like powder. Coarse like corn meal. There was probably a dozen grains around 1mm in diameter. These never dissolved even though I waited. Developer was then poured into individual glass bottles. This roll was run about 3 hours after the XTOL was mixed from powder.
4) Film was developed in XTOL 1:1 at 20C for 10 minutes. Inversion was standard (first minute, then 10 seconds each minute).
5) Film was given a 1 minute stop bath in citric acid mixed from powder at 10g per L with tap water.
6) Film was fixed in Photographer’s Formulary TF-5 diluted 1:4 with tap water at 20C for for 4 minutes with standard inversions.
7) Film was washed for 5 minutes in running tap water at 20C.
8) Film was scanned on Epson V850. Contrast was increased in PS with Levels to make the mottling clearer.

Example 1 shows the problem on a building which obviously should not have this texture.


Example 2 shoes a HIGHLY contrast-amplified section of sky that was high white overcast. You can see where typical cloud texture gives way to weird fibrous problem texture.



Can anyone tell me what’s going on here?

that is a very weird first picture -- had to look at it four times before I figured out it wasn't a contact sheet of 35mm film that had gone horribly wrong.

The film is 16 years old and I wonder if it was not stored as well as you say it was. You say refrigerated, not frozen?

Try a fresh roll, use everything else precisely the same, see if that fixes it. If so, toss the old film.

If not, shoot another fresh roll, develop in something more common such as d-76 1:1 and standard kodak fixer. If that fixes it, then the problem is somewhere in your chemistry. I am not a user of any of those, so cannot help you there.

summicron1 said:

that is a very weird first picture -- had to look at it four times before I figured out it wasn't a contact sheet of 35mm film that had gone horribly wrong.

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HAH! No, that's actually a picture of a building. It's Morril Tower on the OSU campus (not my picture):

I'm going way out on a limb, but my guess is the film is the problem. I've had very old (c. 1940's) film that had that mottling, albeit more severely. So my guess is during the last 16 years the film was improperly stored for some amount of time.

On the good side, you could figure out how it happened and sell that stuff as "Artisanal Gelatine Silver Sheets" Looks pretty neat.

summicron1 said:

that is a very weird first picture -- had to look at it four times before I figured out it wasn't a contact sheet of 35mm film that had gone horribly wrong.
...

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Really. At first I thought it was 16mm movie film. LOL.

Nice abstract photo of the building though.

Another vote for bad film. A few years ago I thought I'd use some off-brand 35mm film that I found in my company's dumpster - it expired in 1995. Well, after development it looked a lot like what you have there.

It's interesting to me that the Plus-X that was stored right alongside this FP4+ doesn't seem to have this (though as I said the forest scene makes it much harder to see so it could just be hiding from me).

The shot wasn't intended as an abstract. It's a tiiiiny crop from a shot of the horizon from the top of a parking garage to try to see if the lenses are de-centered from their adventures in shipping. The building is maybe 5mm wide on film.

williaty said:

It's interesting to me that the Plus-X that was stored right alongside this FP4+ doesn't seem to have this

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One of the consequences of long term storage in uncertain conditions is that it causes film to perform inconsistently - one roll will be fine, the next fogged, the third uneven.

One has to remember that one of the wonders of film is that it is made up of emulsions - layers of almost liquid, magical concoctions that capture the light.

AtlantaTerry;1334226 said:

Actually, you do have homogeneous areas. Closely examine the blank areas between the exposed frames. You should have about 1/8" of space. If those areas are not cleanly clear then you have a problem with the 16 year old film.

Go buy some fresh film and see if your problem goes away.

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So yes, obviously I'm going to try a roll of current film.

However, your suggestion about the inter-frame area sent me downstairs to the light box to take a look. On the afflicted roll, I can't see the problem in the inter-frame Fb+F areas so there's no point in checking the other rolls. I can only see it in areas with density. However, looking at it critically on the light box, I noticed 2 things:

1) The problem exist only along one edge of the film, extending 20-25mm in from the edge.

2) The problem appears, when looked at with a broader view than the scanner, for all the world like the shadow of foamy bubbles.


This leads me to wonder if it actually IS foamy bubbles! I use an AP Universal (also sold as Kaiser and now Arista I guess) tank and have done for many hundreds of rolls. In all that time, I have never had a solitary 120 reel shift on the central shaft. However, when I opened the tank this time, the reel had moved up to the top of the central shaft. I assumed I had caused that to happen when I shook it somewhat roughly to get the last of the fixer out of it. If, instead, I somehow did this early in the developing cycle (and that would be weird because I've done hundreds, if not a thousand, of rolls of 120 in this tank back in the dark ages) it might explain the problem. When processing a single 120 reel, you don't fill the tank as full as you would for 2 135 reels. I bet if the reel moved up on the central shaft the top edge of the film would be setting at the foam at the top of the developer rather than fully in the fluid. This would also explain why I only see it in areas with density.

So I think fresh film and maybe playing withe the tank to see how hard it is to shake the reel out of position. Still doesn't explain why this is the first time it's happened to me, but life is full of surprises.

I think it is uneven development in the first example and foam of the developer in the second. I recommend continuous agitation while developing. Times may be adapted (shortened). It is the best way to avoid uneven gray values.

piu58 said:

I think it is uneven development in the first example and foam of the developer in the second. I recommend continuous agitation while developing. Times may be adapted (shortened). It is the best way to avoid uneven gray values.

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In (far distant) past, even with reduced times and increased dilution, I never liked how contrasty continuous agitation made all my negatives.

piu58 said:

I think it is uneven development in the first example and foam of the developer in the second. I recommend continuous agitation while developing. Times may be adapted (shortened). It is the best way to avoid uneven gray values.

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I see only foam in both examples. IMO, continuous agitation is unnecessary and potentially detrimental in this case, as the OP has already found the most probable culprit (shifted spiral). Moreover, Xtol in combination with Ilford/Kentmere films has a potential for heavy foam buildup, and continous agitation will only aggravate this problem.

It seems foam in the developer to me too.

You need to wash the film for a LOT longer than 5 minutes in my experience. 20-30 is what I would recommend. Use a coffee filter in a funnel for filtering all of your chemicals and water (not your wash water obviously).I always use distilled water. That does look like foam to me too.

Myself, I stopped using expired film a long time ago. It's inherently unstable, and sometimes there's a steep drop off in quality at a certain point, not a gradual decline, and you'll never know when or how much the quality is going to go South. Expired film introduces an unnecessary variable, and I hate chasing down problems and wasting time and money. Unless you're just experimenting, expired film is bad value.

I think your agitation scheme sounds about right, just don't agitate too hard. My preference is for two gentle inversions every 30 seconds, but not w/ Rodinal! That developer likes less agitation. Never used XTOL, but the agitation scheme that you mentioned, or mine, is pretty standard for most developers.

I've had this happen a couple of times. Each time it was clear that the stainless steel reel had hung up on the central rod. Each time I had that same foamy looking effect.

Could be foaming, but it looks more like old-film mottling to me, as some others have suggested.
Foaming of the developer could occur from left-over photo-flo or other rinse agent in the reel or tank, or possibly, under filling the tank.

If the equipment is not known to be clean, a good wash and scrubbing with warm water and a soft brush is probably a good idea. Then make sure you use enough developer to completely submerge the reel. If the tank isn't marked, put the reel in and measure how much water covers it and use at least that much when you run the film. Plus, as you've already decided, switch to fresh film, and leave the experimentation with old stuff for another time.

Finally, if you're using film that has been refrigerated or frozen, give it plenty of time to come up to room temperature before unsealing it. I'd suggest no less than a half hour. Pant's pockets work well to accelerate that, if you need to.

print and mount as an artsy photo... it looks wonderful as it is.

How long did the film sit and warm up to room temp before it went into the camera?

It had about 2 hours to go from 38F to 75F.

The mystery is solved with the lacking C-Clips. Replacement parts are on their way to me from Freestyle.