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Ok. Here's a fun one to ponder. The question: what the fudge is happening here? The setup - I used to live in Japan. At that time, Fuji Neopan 400 was between ¥250-300 for a roll of 36 exposures. It was silly cheap. And it was a good film (RIP). I shot a lot of it. At any rate, I was recently doing a bunch of re-scanning of old negatives and to my dismay, I discovered that many of my old Neopan 400 negatives are decaying in a bizarre way - small cracks and marks in the emulsion. None of the other brands of black and white film I shot from that time period show this defect (and I developed everything with the same chem/developer...T-Max). Not all of the Neopan is as bad as this example...some of it is on its way, some of it seems unaffected (so far), but a lot of it is...kinda ruined. So, what the fudge?

Pachinko Guy/Sad Film by Jim Fischer, on Flickr

zoooomed in:
Crop by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
 
Ok. Here's a fun one to ponder. The question: what the fudge is happening here? The setup - I used to live in Japan. At that time, Fuji Neopan 400 was between ¥250-300 for a roll of 36 exposures. It was silly cheap. And it was a good film (RIP). I shot a lot of it. At any rate, I was recently doing a bunch of re-scanning of old negatives and to my dismay, I discovered that many of my old Neopan 400 negatives are decaying in a bizarre way - small cracks and marks in the emulsion. None of the other brands of black and white film I shot from that time period show this defect (and I developed everything with the same chem/developer...T-Max). Not all of the Neopan is as bad as this example...some of it is on its way, some of it seems unaffected (so far), but a lot of it is...kinda ruined. So, what the fudge?

Pachinko Guy/Sad Film by Jim Fischer, on Flickr

zoooomed in:
Crop by Jim Fischer, on Flickr

How do you develope your negatives? It seems that the emulsion layer has cracked. Perhaps the developing procedure was too hot or the film was stored too warm. The effect is called "reticulation". I have this problem sometimes when using Tmax400. I always try to keep the temperature of the different baths exactly at 20 degrees C.
 
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