A Spark?

[clcolucci58]

Developed a roll of Ilford FP4 in 120 format earlier this evening and as I finished winding the film on the stainless steel reel I start tearing the film from the paper backing and quick flash like a spark happens very small at that. I process the film in Rodinal at 1:50 68 degrees, and the film looks great with the exception of a black streak on the film edge from frames 9-15 but no damage to the images in the frames. Any thought on this and has anyone seen this before? Was a weird thing but yet cool As always thanks for the feedback.

Regards,
CLC

 

[NY_Dan]

That's Kirlian photography, what you captured on film was your aura!

 

[Phil_F_NM]

Static electricity.
Wear a grounding strap or touch some grounded metal right before winding your reel.

Phil Forrest

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Couple of days ago on Russian speaking RFF they have extreme example of this kind of discharge. Picture is right at the top.
http://rangefinder.ru/club/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15640&p=343431#p343431

 

[MartinP]

Strangely, this is not static electricity - as may be sometimes seen when winding or handling film in dry/cold conditions. Instead, the effect is a sort of triboluminescence, caused when soft bonds are broken between materials, and the phenomenon is usually completely overwhelmed by ambient light levels. It is also an illustration of how sensitive our eyes can become when fully dark-adapted.

 

[George Bonanno]

I process a lot of 120 and that is normal. However I suggest you remove the film from the backing paper before loading the reel.

Kirlian photography... what a hoot !

 

[nikon_sam]

I've seen this when loading film in a dark room (can't see it when using a changing bag).
I've only seen it with Kodak film, never seen it with Fuji...I just pull slowly and it's not that bad...

 

[sevo]

Fun, well-known and generally harmless (I've only seen fogging at and immediately around the adhesive tape area on ultra-fast film, most notably T-Max 3200).

A amazing, odd fact is that the light visible there seems to be secondary to high energy radiation caused by the charge separation when the adhesive bond is torn - some guys have actually built experimental X-Ray sources from a roll of Scotch tape unwound at high speed inside a vacuum cylinder.