XP-2 problem

[John Rountree]

I have been shooting Ilford XP-2 for about three years now. The past two times I have taken film in for processing I have had it come back with a green discoloration, the entire length of the film, about 3mm wide. The film has been processed at the best professional lab in town. The green mark cannot be removed with re-fixing. Today I picked up four rolls of XP-2 and two of them had the green discoloration. I am quite puzzled because I bulk load my film, so all four rolls came from the same batch, but only two were damaged. On one roll of film the green was on both edges of the film, but the center was not discolored. Also, looking at the film numbers and negatives, with a loupe, the damaged film did not seem to be fully developed. There appears to be more grain and the edge numbers do not have the density of the undamaged film. Also, the discoloration is only on the image area of the negative. The film around the sprocket holes is completely clear. To complicate things further, the lab I use just changed locations and drained all the old chemicals from their processing machines and replaced them with new chemistry one week ago.
I would really appreciate it if someone can give me an idea as to what is going on. Has anyone else had this problem with XP-2?

 

[Graham Line]

What does the lab say? Sounds like a processing/chemistry issue they could fix easily. Is XP2 the only film type affected?

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Go back to the lab and ask them.

I had a somewhat similar issue a week or two ago, and when I asked I discovered there had been a power outage while my film was in the machine.

 

[John Rountree]

Actually I talked about it at length with the lab, on both occasions. They really don't have an answer, that is why I turned to the forum. What is completely baffling to me is why two of the four rolls were fine, but two were not. Same batch of film, processed in the same chemicals.