Topic: Film Developing halloween nightmare! - Follow UP

[Nigel]

Firstly I'd like to say thanks to everyone for their help yesterday. The very best thing about this forum is the way members are happy to share their time and experience - thank you very much. Particular thanks to Leon for your very generous offer to develop film for me!

Following up on your suggestions I found I had a roll of XP2 taken with the Yashica Mat that hadn't been scanned, a couple below, no black lines! So it sounds like it's not the camera - which is good news because I love that camera.

I filled a tank with the reel etc. in, as Francois suggested, with 500ml of water and yes it covered the reel by about 5mm. Now this is where we get to the slightly embarrassing part. My approx. 25 year old System 4 tank has 'a bit of a leak' which I'd never thought of more than an inconvenience. Which got me thinking. I did a whole development times worth of agitation and poured the water back in the measuring cylinder an my 'bit of a leak' had lost me about 20ml of my pseudo developer! Yes I know - no need to say anything.

I put a roll of my Tri-X in my Isola II went out and shot it in the pouring rain. Developed the film with 600ml in there and the lid gaffer taped on. The film isn't dry enough to scan but as far as I can see there are no light lines on the negative!!

It looks like we've cracked it - and if we should meet up the first round is definitely on me.

Nigel

(I think I'm going to buy a nice new tank) 







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[LT]

glad you could get it sorted ... but I'm still a bit concerned about the in-camera problem ... a definite line like that is VERY unlikely to be because of diminishing developer levels.  I would expect that to be a much less defined uneveness. and I definitely would not exect the line to be on only one line of the neg with an unaffected area after it like on the ones you showed us.

was the xp2 here shot before or after the tri-x that had the line on?

It could have been a problem already on the film though, and nothing to do with your equipment at all.

hopefully it is all sorted and you can put it all behind you.

Leon

[Nigel]

Hi Leon, yes that correctly exposed line on the right side of the dark line was my only nagging doubt.

The XP2 is the last film I've used in that camera, which is the puzzling bit. I guess the only way to tell for sure is get a new tank, put some more Tri-X in the Yashica and see what happens.

I'll report back on that one.

Nigel

[Francois]

It actually could be a light leak on the tank... though I would expect to see some Sabattier effect on the film...

[moominsean]

could have just been that particular roll. it did look like something expired or ill-treated film would do.