Oh my... (darker edges related)

[Kozhe]

Hi everybody!

I´m just getting crazy with a weird problem I´m having developing my own films with D76 and Tmax.

I´m getting darker edges next to both perforated edges of the film. It looks like it´s some kind of drying-related problem, since if you look at the film carefully you can see like the water is letting some residue there, like it´s drying worse around the film corners. This is the typical result after scanning, where you can see clearly this ugly effect as a dark stripe on the left side:

I live in Barcelona where we have a terrible water, it´s health safe and clean but you just can´t drink it, it tastes like %&%& and after washing the dishes you can even see some kind of residue on them if you don´t dry them properly.

So, are my films suffering the same problem as my dishes? 🙂 Or this is just a well-known problem someone knows how to get rid of? I´m using water as a stop bath and photoflo after washing. Would I solve this using a chemical stop bath?

Thanks!

 

[kully]

There is a similar problem here in the south-east of England, around London.

I always use a Brita filter for mixing all the chemicals and although washing is done with normal tap water I use filtered water again for the final dunk in wetting solution.

The residue might be caused by leaving the film in the fixer too long / not washing for long enough / not using wetting agent / drying too quickly?

I use a chemical stop-bath too.

Mmm... that darker area along one side... very odd - how are you agitating? If you're turning it upside down then perhaps the dev is not covering the film and the top bit is only getting developed a little by the dev that sticks to it after your upside-down agitation...

 

[Roger Vadim]

Looks more like underdevelopment to me - I had the same problem, but on ONE side of the negative, the one which was on the top in the development tube. I had not enough developer in the tube, and so the edge was underdeveloped. because you shake the thing, some developer reaches the edgee, but its just not enough covered.

if both edges are involved its most likely not enough agitation - the developer doesnt refreshes good enough at the corners, where the reels are. happens with plastic reels...

T-max wants to be shaken vigorously, at least that what Kodak says in their PDF.

so shake it , Baby!

 

[Kozhe]

Thanks for the input guys! 🙂

I think both of you gave me a good hint... Kully, I used to let the fixer (Kodak) for 5 minutes but lately I´m using it for 7-8 minutes, some months ago I didn´t develop for some weeks and forgot how old the fixer was, so I got a new bad habit I guess...

And as Roger says, I used to agitate inverting the tank 4 times every 30 seconds, but now I do more like 6 times every 40-60 seconds...

I´ll start to do a last wash with distilled water too. I´ll check tomorrow if this weird thing disappears!

 

[Seele]

This reminds me of a strange story from way back, before inversion agitation was thought of.

A photographer was selling a nearly-new Leica at a very low price claiming it's faulty, only half the negatives came out. The buyer did not have the heart to tell him what really happened...

You figure out the rest.