Xp2 super

[redbandit]

when i had some come back from the commercial developer, the negatives were nice and clear. Now after a few years they have the multi coloured dye clouds appearing. Mainly blue. Is this a bad sign

 

[MattKing]

Moved to the B&W: Film sub-forum.
The Ilford Partner forum is for information about product availability and Ilford announcements and the like.

 

[koraks]

Now after a few years they have the multi coloured dye clouds appearing. Mainly blue. Is this a bad sign

Any chance of a photo that illustrates the problem?
Sounds like the negatives weren't properly stabilized and consequently stored under less than optimal conditions.

 

[Ian Grant]

when i had some come back from the commercial developer, the negatives were nice and clear. Now after a few years they have the multi coloured dye clouds appearing. Mainly blue. Is this a bad sign

Sounds like poor processing. It won't be a film issue, I've shot many hundreds of rolls of XP1. XP2, and XP2 Super, but then I always did my own C41 processing.

Are you saying that negatives that they were once excellent now have issues, that would be due to incomplete fixation.

Ian

 

[gone]

It probably was what Ian said, and this kind of thing is why I went to processing my own films. Admittedly, I had never processed any C41 film (still haven't), but traditional B&W films were and are very easy to do w/ a minimum investment in equipment and chemicals. I had to discard many of my color and C41 B&W films from years ago due to this same problem. They had changed to odd colors and were fading away.

 

[MattKing]

It could also be due to very poor storage conditions.

 

[Ian Grant]

It could also be due to very poor storage conditions.

That wouldn't cause a colour effect in the emulsion, poor storage could affect the emulsion but not the colour couplers. It's more likely a poor fixing.

Ian

 

[foc]

It sounds to me that the problem is probably poor processing. It could be poor washing and final rinse. Always hard to guess without seeing the negatives.

 

[koraks]

That wouldn't cause a colour effect in the emulsion, poor storage could affect the emulsion but not the colour couplers. It's more likely a poor fixing.

AFAIK the older technology couplers are susceptible to problems like these unless stabilized properly with formalin. Insufficient fixing would result in the typical tan to yellow staining and bronzing you'd also get in B&W materials. Colorful staining means the couplers themselves are involved.

 

[Ian Grant]

AFAIK the older technology couplers are susceptible to problems like these unless stabilized properly with formalin. Insufficient fixing would result in the typical tan to yellow staining and bronzing you'd also get in B&W materials. Colorful staining means the couplers themselves are involved.

I've never seen an issue with XP1/2 or Super except when someone has over-used their Blix leaving a trace of silver halide in the emulsion. While the C41 process should use a separate Bleach, then Fixer some kits use a combined Blix.

When Ilford sold their own kits for XP1 there was no stabiliser, and no C41 kits use one, but you washed the films after Blix, or Bleach then Fix.. When Kodak and later Fuji introduced washless C41 machine processors they added a stabiliser instead but not Formaldehyde based.

It's worth noting that small labs have been using Jobo processors for at least 20 years, I visited many labs for work. 20 years ago some prosperous minilab offering C41/RA4 would use a Jobo system for E6 and/or B&W reversal. More recently photo shops are using smaller processors, Jobo and similar for C41, ECN, E6.

Ian