B&W Film Defects.

G

Guest

Guest
Am I the only one who keeps getting defects on Black And White film. I have had it with FP4 and now TMax400. So far never an issue with Acros but with the others it’s like a tiny amount of emulsion is missing or an area of distorted emulsion. Only had one issue with a colour film in fourth years of shooting.
 
Kodak and Ilford almost never have defects in manufacturing. Same with Fuji. You see stuff like that with low-tech low-cost films like Foma (though they've gotten much better than they used to be), but never from Kodak, Ilford or Fuji.

What you're seeing sounds like a processing issue. All of your chemicals must be the same temperature. If they're not, you can see wrinkling of the emulsion (this is called reticulation) and in the worst cases, actual lifting off of spots of the emulsion. Modern films by Kodak and Ilford have hardened emulsions that are pretty resistant to reticulation, so it takes a BIG temperature variation between chemicals to induce it.
 
I have been processing my own stuff for years, I AM METICULOUS. I even have a Thermoworks $100 temperature reader and a $110 Thermoworke IR gun that I use in combination with each other.
These missing tiny amounts of emulsion are at microscope inspection totally missing from the backing. The distortion areas look like squeezed up paint inside a drying up can of paint.
I know it would be the obvious thing to look at myself, I have but these errors are in the middle of the film. And my cameras are Hasselblads, Rolleiflexes and a folding Zeiss Super Ikonta 513/2. My Father taught me to process. I even use distilled water every time. Now I am not saying this is on every film, no about once in fifty would be a ratio.
 
Maybe scraping opf the emulsion by particles on rollers, dirt, or some other item? Possibly in camera, possibly in processing?

Any wiping or touching of the emulsion at any step in your development?

Another possibility could be some contaminant in the chemicals or on equipment.

Photos would be helpful.
 
jmpgino said:
I have been processing my own stuff for years, I AM METICULOUS. I even have a Thermoworks $100 temperature reader and a $110 Thermoworke IR gun that I use in combination with each other.
These missing tiny amounts of emulsion are at microscope inspection totally missing from the backing. The distortion areas look like squeezed up paint inside a drying up can of paint.
I know it would be the obvious thing to look at myself, I have but these errors are in the middle of the film. And my cameras are Hasselblads, Rolleiflexes and a folding Zeiss Super Ikonta 513/2. My Father taught me to process. I even use distilled water every time. Now I am not saying this is on every film, no about once in fifty would be a ratio.
Click to expand...
What you're describing is reticulation. If your temperature readings are accurate, then it could be a film defect. Another possibility is the film has been exposed to heat during storage or shipping. If its only happening on one in 50 films, it'll be hard to pin down a cause.
 
I don't know chris. I've had some pinholes before on HP5 and FP4 in bulk.

It's very uncommon but maybe a little more common than almost never ;)
 
All film can have manufacturer defects, just a matter of percentage that's all.

The eastern European and Chinese brands were and are more prone to this than the well known primo American and western European and Japanese brands, with their better coating machines and tighter production QC.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
What you're describing is reticulation. If your temperature readings are accurate, then it could be a film defect. Another possibility is the film has been exposed to heat during storage or shipping. If its only happening on one in 50 films, it'll be hard to pin down a cause.
Click to expand...

And the OP says that it happens only on some areas of the roll.

Reticulation is usually an overall effect. Hard to imagine spot reticulation occurring without, say, spraying small drops of hot water on the film.

Images of marks, please?
 
jmpgino said:
I have been processing my own stuff for years, I AM METICULOUS. I even have a Thermoworks $100 temperature reader and a $110 Thermoworke IR gun that I use in combination with each other.
These missing tiny amounts of emulsion are at microscope inspection totally missing from the backing. The distortion areas look like squeezed up paint inside a drying up can of paint.
I know it would be the obvious thing to look at myself, I have but these errors are in the middle of the film. And my cameras are Hasselblads, Rolleiflexes and a folding Zeiss Super Ikonta 513/2. My Father taught me to process. I even use distilled water every time. Now I am not saying this is on every film, no about once in fifty would be a ratio.
Click to expand...

Photos of what you are observing would be useful. How large are they? If you are looking at them under a microscope, can you show us photos taken at that magnification?

Why are you measuring temperature with an IR gun? That is not a good way to measure the temperature of liquids.

Marty
 
Erik van Straten said:
I once had a Tmax 400 film with the emulsion layer on the wrong side, believe it or not.


Erik.
Click to expand...
What did it look like? I have some 2210 16mm Surveillance film I want to use in Minolta 16 cameras but the first strip has awful reticulation I cannot explain. Never had it before and nothing has changed. It's a T-grain 400 if that makes any difference.
 
Tmax400

Tmax400

I had the 120 format Tmax400 issue a couple of years ago where the frame numbers appeared on the negatives. They replaced the damaged rolls (of course they couldn't go back and re-shoot the photos for me). Before that and since that time, I have never had a problem in 30 years - only Ilford and Kodak products.
 
My limited experience with pro lab developed 120 C41 is that they can make a nice clean print. When I scanned same frame with Epson, I got a million small defects from film I cleaned first.

On to monochrome. It all shows a boatload of small defects . When I print the negative, they do not show. I spend hours retouching because I do not know which will show. Konica Minolta 5400 version 1 .

I think there used to be programs that did the retouch because commercial labs can not do all the work .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom