Did my lab ruin these negatives?

Agree your film is fogged, uniformly it appears. The sprocket/edge area D-min of standard processing should only increase slightly, as suggested earlier, when pushed or over-processed. You will see marked increase in grain and contrast on prints and scans.

Not sure the lab is to blame as the film could have been fogged before they de-spooled it - but I cast another vote for processing your own bw film. It's easy, controllable, and the results are all you. BW processing is also a very subjective thing, and the best results are often achieved with testing, both of exposure index and processing times. The best labs can only go "by the book". I've been shooting for 40 years and never had a lab process a roll or sheet of bw film. I didn't even realize you could find a lab still doing that. Color processes like C-41 and E-6 have control strips and standards to meet with testing, though few or no such QA standards exist for bw - to many emulsions and developers to even begin standardizing.
 
On further pondering I think I found more reason to believe the lab fogged the film after removing it from the cartridge.

Not wanting to wait to see my first pushed film, I had only shot 32 frames before I wound the film back into its case.

So if my camera had somehow let light in, the last frames should still have come out clear, yet they obviously didn't and have come out as black as the rest of the film (the last strip only appears lighter as my light box only has one light at the top).

The only other possibility is that the film was already fogged when Kodak loaded it, has anyone experienced that?

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I just got back from the lab but the technician had already left.
The manager seemed to think that the darkness was just caused by pushing the film two stops (400 to 1600) and said that if it had been exposed to light on their end it would be completely black.

Can someone please post some photo's of pushed negs so I can show the lab how they should have turned out?


Cheers
 
... they look like any other negatives, or rather you would need a microscope to see the difference

Those have been fogged, the film's edge and frame gaps don't develop no matter how far you push the development, ask the manager again
 
beedubs said:
I just got back from the lab but the technician had already left.
The manager seemed to think that the darkness was just caused by pushing the film two stops (400 to 1600) and said that if it had been exposed to light on their end it would be completely black.

Can someone please post some photo's of pushed negs so I can show the lab how they should have turned out?


Cheers
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That is total Bull**** on the part of the lab ! They should know better. +1 for doing your own. Even the usual newbie mistakes would have not wrecked your film like this. Also why push when you dont need to ? Rangefinders are good for handling at slow speeds, at least one stop slower than an SLR. Good luck.
 
couple of things. the density is odd in the last photo in that the tail end shows less fogging than the start of the roll. also how is the lab processing the film ? roller ? dip and dunk ? regular reels and tank ? trying to figure out the last picture.
 
Sparrow said:
... yes but that would make the negatives lighter not darker
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?

newsgrunt said:
couple of things. the density is odd in the last photo in that the tail end shows less fogging than the start of the roll. also how is the lab processing the film ? roller ? dip and dunk ? regular reels and tank ? trying to figure out the last picture.
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I don't know how they process :/

Also, the negs seem to be of even density in real life, they only appear different in the photo as the light box I have only has a single globe at the top
 
... well, its the other way round, if you take a photo in a dark room, the neg will be clear and the print dark, you are seeing the opposite of that. So what the chap at the lab is suggesting is the wrong way round, your film has had too much light on it across its full width.
 
I'd ask how they process, could help diagnose what went wrong. Btw, how fresh was the film and how was it stored ?

Also guessing this is the first time you've used this lab and are there any other places you can use ?

One possibility could be that the developer was too warm/hot and cooked the film so to speak.
 
newsgrunt said:
I'd ask how they process, could help diagnose what went wrong. Btw, how fresh was the film and how was it stored ?

Also guessing this is the first time you've used this lab and are there any other places you can use ?

One possibility could be that the developer was too warm/hot and cooked the film so to speak.
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Film was fresh, 2016 exp.
The lab is the one I always use, there's only 2 in Perth :[
It was the first time I had pushed film to 1600 though.

Going to start doing B+W at home from now I think.
 
thanks. I would still ask about their process as that can be very important. if they use roller transport, the lid may have been left ajar allowing light to fog your film. I can't stress enough how important this info is.

but yup, processing your own black and white is very simple and good luck, it can be kind of dry (I liken it to watching paint dry) but seeing your negatives come out of the wash will be well worth the effort !
 
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