Y marks on my negatives! Why?

MartinP · Oct 2, 2014

And this was two different emulsions - unlikely to be matching manufacturing problems.

It hints towards something common in the processing or handling or storage ?

Photo Engineer · Oct 2, 2014

I wish I knew what it was. It is probably not crystals, reticulation is unlikely, and I have discarded several other theories.

I have a hard time putting a scale to this effect without having the edge markings. Is it possible to rescan including sprocket holes and edge markings? This would give me some sort of scale.

Thanks.

PE

MattKing · Oct 2, 2014

If you enlarge the image, the Y marks start to look more like they might be part of an overall pattern - sort of like the lines on a soccer ball.

I am going to throw out a guess that you have a patterned light source where the films are loaded into the reels.

argentum_et_lux · Oct 2, 2014

Is this only happening with the Arista rolls? If this is the Foma manufactured Arista (not the kodak based premium) I have had a couple of rolls show similar marks. Mine almost look like birds until I blow the scan up and I can see a similar tri shaped pattern. I started being more gentle loading the film in the rolls and have not seen them since. I dont know if that was the issue but might have been. I did notice the Arista(Foma) is very easily kinked if you are not very gentle loading it and if it gets stuck or tough to push on the roll to open the spool and start over.

mrs.martin · Oct 2, 2014

I am so glad I found this forum and appreciate all the responses.
I will post the negative tomorrow.
This is not a scan.
i do not filter the D76 but will def try that! I wonder if my water is hot enough when mixing the powder form. New water heater and it only goes to 125* I will filter!
perhaps it's the arista! I try to keep the outrageous costs down with this film and it has worked well for the most part except now they have discontinued their DX coding which is really upsetting when dealing with beginning photographers. Most students have very basic manual camera but it gets tough with some of the auto cameras. Some of the lower Nikon models do not allow you to control ISO which has been tricky. I've started cutting out old codes and taping them on!
stop bath is around 70-75 degrees.

Truzi · Oct 2, 2014

I was going to suggest that, since they are students and presumably inexperienced, they may have hit the film against something when loading.
However, the photo looks different now that I'm home than when I viewed it earlier today at work.

Eric Rose · Oct 2, 2014

looks like static to me

Newt_on_Swings · Oct 3, 2014

Eric Rose said:
looks like static to me

I would hedge my bets on this as well.

Chris Livsey · Oct 3, 2014

I have never seen static marks that are like that, these are typical:

http://carestream.pl/store-hadle-process-em-film.html
https://www.metabunk.org/data/MetaMirrorCache/4a7bad84422877d13823c5846746e2f2.png
The latter from Apollo 17 mapping camera: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/solved-alien-with-shadow-on-the-moon-debris-in-camera.4163/
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3784455&size=lg

The "crows feet" effect here is not found in any of these examples. The chance of so many random students producing the effect so frequently is vanishingly small.

Xmas · Oct 3, 2014

mrs.martin said:
I am so glad I found this forum and appreciate all the responses.
I will post the negative tomorrow.
This is not a scan.
i do not filter the D76 but will def try that! I wonder if my water is hot enough when mixing the powder form. New water heater and it only goes to 125* I will filter!
perhaps it's the arista! I try to keep the outrageous costs down with this film and it has worked well for the most part except now they have discontinued their DX coding which is really upsetting when dealing with beginning photographers. Most students have very basic manual camera but it gets tough with some of the auto cameras. Some of the lower Nikon models do not allow you to control ISO which has been tricky. I've started cutting out old codes and taping them on!
stop bath is around 70-75 degrees.

You need to filter stock bottles regular even if you don't have pollen most film especially cine has lots of film debris from cutting, loading, camera, tank etc.

It gets on subsequent films so the culprit may be ok.

I use 2 or 3 litres of hypo, clear and microphen stock and need to filter or have crud on negs. I don't vacuum clean a lot but have a micro filter fitted to stop pollen to avoid needing antihistamine treatment.

Rodinal 1+100 one shoot gets some of it off and down drain.

Use a jewelers loope on negatives if there is a lump it is pollen not a biology major to be able to identify...

MartinP · Oct 3, 2014

What the OP mentions regarding mixing and usage problems may have something to do with this. Why not try following the manufacturers instructions? Also, originally the suggestion was that this effect is seen in both TriX and Arista, in a post above only the Arista is mentioned - just to confirm, was the problem on both film-types ?

ChuckP · Oct 3, 2014

Have you looked at a roll of unused film to see if any marks exist? Or just developed and fixed an unexposed roll to see what it looks like.

mrs.martin · Oct 3, 2014

The effects are so random that it's difficult to do a test.

Photo Engineer · Oct 3, 2014

Ok, here is my first guess.

I have seen something like that with film that is dried too fast at too high of a temperature. The emulsion and support contract at different speeds and rupture the emulsion in a weird pattern like this. That is my first guess.

What were the drying conditions and were they in a hurry?

PE

mrs.martin · Oct 3, 2014

We hang them in a print dryer with a low output fan. The film takes about 45 minutes to completely dry. If this doesn't sound right, I'll be sure to shut off the fan!
I wonder if we have chemicals in our water. I do not filter the water - but again...it doesn't affect every student. So frustrating.

mrs.martin · Oct 3, 2014

How important is STOP BATH vs. using just plain water?

Chris Livsey · Oct 3, 2014

mrs.martin said:
We hang them in a print dryer with a low output fan.

So are all that batch drying affected or only some?

mrs.martin said:
How important is STOP BATH vs. using just plain water?

That depends who you ask

Personally i don't use a stop bath but use water, at the same temperature. It becomes more important with more active developers using shorter times where, obviously, overshoot of the time will affect the result. I don't see how a stop bath would give this effect especially, and this is critical, as not all students using the same film (have we established batch number to match effect?) same developer same fixer same dryer etc et are not seeing the effect.

Xmas · Oct 3, 2014

mrs.martin said:
We hang them in a print dryer with a low output fan. The film takes about 45 minutes to completely dry. If this doesn't sound right, I'll be sure to shut off the fan!
I wonder if we have chemicals in our water. I do not filter the water - but again...it doesn't affect every student. So frustrating.

If you need 45 minutes then you need to adopt the press style drying techniques otherwise 45 is risky as Ron (PE) suggests.

Have you used a jewelers loope on the negatives?

Do you need 45 minutes?

Photo Engineer · Oct 3, 2014

Sometimes, mine dry for 12 - 24 hours at RT (20C). Excess heat is what I was worried about. Stop Bath will have little or no effect on this type of defect AFAIK.

I have to move on and think of something else then.

PE

AgX · Oct 3, 2014

I do not share PE's idea of heat damage, due to the inhomogeneous pattern.

To me they look like spot-like nuclei from which tear and reticulation originate.

The reticulation only taking place around these spots resulting each in three variously-angled tears.

But I never came across such spot-reticulation nor know of reports of such.

We definitely need macro/micro reflection-photographs from those areas.

Photo Engineer · Oct 3, 2014

All of the defects like this that I know about leave small blemishes in the emulsion that can be seen with a loupe or with incident light.

It would help to see these photos replicated but with a sprocket hole or edge marking in view to help scale the marks.

PE

Chris Livsey · Oct 3, 2014

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

This thread has some good images of reticulation, and discussion. What I can't understand is why in this case the effect is so restricted in spread, and across films to same degree (needs confirmation from the OP). The reticulation, classically as in the examples linked, is all or nothing. Of course it would be possible to "freeze' the effect as it emerged but to do that repetitively and consistently is a stretch.
In the thread quoted wash water temperature variation is a issue, again the OP needs to confirm the washing technique and stability of that temperature.

Photo Engineer · Oct 3, 2014

Chris;

Thanks. Typical reticulation is a series of worm like trails on the film or lumpy dots as seen in your reference. They often render the film hazy as well. That is why I say this is not reticulation.

If you hold something hot under paper, you see it break into a "y" shaped tear (or otherwise) before it begins to burn. I have seen this in wet film that is too hot and that is the reason for my first guess.

I'm still working on it.

PE

Xmas · Oct 3, 2014

Foma film is not prehardened like Kodak drying it in 45mins is risky independent of the y effects.

erikg · Oct 3, 2014

I'm responding primarily so I can follow along and hopefully see an outcome. I thought I have seen every possible defect a student can do to film, and teachers too, but I haven't seen this before. I do wonder about the heat in drying and the soft emulsion of Foma films. That might be a good lead.

Y marks on my negatives! Why?

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