Developing fault, has somebody seen?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : B&W Photo - Film & Processing : One Thread

Hi; one of my pupils developed (with an instructor) a roll of Agfapan 100 using Rodinal as usual. The result was something I haven't seen before during my 30 something years of film developing. it looks out like there was some foam in the tank, or the emulsion is defected or something.... I scanned a pair of negs, the pictures are at site

http://nikkemedia.fi/ivailu/process.htm

Has somebody seen a fault like this? Any ideas what it could be? You know, the instructor is very experienced; all silly mistakes can be done by whoever, but not any beginners mistakes....

Sakari

-- Sakari Mäkelä (sakari.makela@vantaa.fi), March 13, 2002

Answers

My guess is it looks like reticulation. Usually, this is caused by a drastic change in temperature somewhere during the processing cycle. If you don't think that occurred, then I wonder if the film wasn't exposed to some harsh treatment before processing--extreme heat, perhaps. The only other thing I can think of is chemical contamination of the processing tank or the container that the Rodinal concentrate was mixed in.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), March 13, 2002.

WOW:

That looks really wierd. In over 30 yrs, I have not seen anyhting like that either. It seems to be on the solid tones and does not seem to be covering the cat, as well as I can see from the scan.

I would call up AGFA, either the local rep in Helsinki or the head office and sent it to them. I would also try another roll from the same batch if you have some and try it in the same developer.

Maybe the student is not being 100% honest about the history of the roll, or did it come from the school? Was the student supervised when the image was shot?

Like I said- weird. I have never seen reticulation like that- and I know what it is. I did it last night with the bloody hot water that comes out of the tap here in Singapore-28 Deg.c

Good Luck

Is it the whole roll or just a part?

-- RICHARD ILOMAKI (richardjx@hotmail.com), March 13, 2002.


Hi Sakari. The pictures are really very funny, I wish I could recreate the same effect every time I wanted to...

Have you checked the surface of the emulsion ? Is it rough ? If the problem is created by emulsion swelling it is most probable you shall be able to feel that on the the emulsion. Look at the film emulsion by letting the light reflect on it. You should be able to see some kind of texture, different than the one on a normal emulsion. If there is no trace of all that, start asking yourself whether your student has not set up a nice (and clever) prank for his professors, by double exposing his negatives (one normal exposure of a subject and one of the bubbles in his bathtub)...

-- George Papantoniou (papanton@hol.gr), March 13, 2002.


I would think reticulation would look more like cracks from the fast temperature change. This looks like dried bubbles. Re-fix, wash like crazy, and photoflow using distilled water.

-- Dave Mueller (dmueller@bellatlantic.net), March 13, 2002.

It appears to be reticulation to me, too. There is nothing you can do about it. The gelatin layer is already physically damaged.

AGFA's APX films are very susceptible to this damage if it is exposed to high temperature during any stage of wet processing, including washing and drying. A sharp fluctuation of temperature is also a danger. Pay attention so that the washing temperature never exceeds 27C or so. I recommend that APX films as well as Kodak's PX and TX be processed at regular 20C and pay extra attention if the processing temp has to go higher or drying cabinet uses temperature higher than room temperature.

Ilford films and T-MAX series are much more robust against this kind of damage, at least when I tested them last time.

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), March 13, 2002.



Well, I now think it's more strange than reticulation after having a sip of coffee...

The images have sign of streaking from 35mm film perforation and so I feel that the processing wasn't perfect. I would expose a couple more rolls (or expose one roll and cut them into a few strips for testing) of APX 100 and see if the same phenomenon appears again in careful processing using the same chemical... if it does, I would try repeating with absolutely fresh chemical to see if it appears again...

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), March 13, 2002.


This is, without a doubt, a severe case of reticulation. Whether it was caused by drastic changes in temperature or pH cannot be determined, but this is exactly what very severe reticulation looks like. The film could have been washed in straight hot water or, possibly, the stop bath solution was straight, undiluted acetic acid.

-- Ken Burns (kenburns@twave.net), March 13, 2002.

I lean toward reticulation too, although I've never seen it in film only in color prints. But it should be easy to tell-look at the film under magnification, and I would guess that damage of the emulsion by reticulation would be easy to see.

-- Wayne (wsteffen@skypoint.com), March 14, 2002.

Thank you all - I now believe it is reticulation. I examined the emulsion surface using a microscope and reflected light. The surface damages can be seen easily. I've seen reticulation in my time, but usually it was like huge grain or thin network lines - not something big like this. It is very easy to believe, that hot tap water was used, although they didn't tell...

-- Sakari Makela (sakari.makela@vantaa.fi), March 14, 2002.

It's developer foaming. I've seen it before from a Jobo tank. It's certainly NOT reticulation.
Using a pre-soak, more developer solution, and less vigorous agitation should cure the problem.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), March 19, 2002.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ