Blue streaks C-41

Hi Everyone!

I started to process color negs at home and right away encountered this problem with blue streaks.

They are visible after scanning (I've checked if it's not the scanner's fault). They appear only in just a few frames (others are perfect). I developed two films separately and the same problem appears in both of them.

I have JOBO CPE2, Fuji Hunt X-Press chemistry, and shoot on 120 Fuji Pro 400H. One negative was pre-soaked in 38temp water following the Fuji Hunt instructions (5min), another film was not pre-soaked, just warmed up dry in the tank on JOBO.

What do you think that might be?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Insufficient Blixing would be my first guess.

You also get similar marks if the film isn't fully dried before trying to print it, but I suspect that's not the case here.

An easy test is to re-blix, + re-wash and dry, the most affected negative(s) and see if the patches disappear.

Thank you!

I did re-blixing and re-fixing again on one of the negs. It changed nothing. Marks remained the same, in the same spots.

I must admit that originally I had a problem with each negs while blixing. The first time the lid of the tank popped out and some blix spilled out (I refilled immediately). The second time I mistook timing and poured out the blix too early (I realized right away, refilled, and continued blixing until reaching the right timing).

But if that is the cause of the marks, wouldn't re-blixing correct it? There was no problem during re-blixing, all went smoothly.

Also, the rest of the process and each time was correct, with no mistakes. They were hanging overnight, so there was also sufficient drying.

Hmmm.

I boosted the contrast on the posted images to get a better look at the blue patches, and quite frankly, they've got me stumped.

They neither look like lens flare nor chemical patches from processing faults.

Some out-of-camera fogging maybe?

Film-to-film contact in the developing spiral?

I would expect fogging to be more widespread and grey-looking, rather than blue.

And film contact during processing usually results in far more severe patchiness.

Some of the patches have quite sharply defined edges, which tends to rule out incompletely mixed developer or an agitation issue.

The pre-soak should also have eliminated filling and foaming marks while the tank was being filled. Are you sure both lots of film were affected?

So I really don't know. I thought I'd seen almost every processing or camera fault going - but obviously not!

Maybe bad storage of the film?

Any chance the film got damp or overly hot before use or in the camera?

Thank you for looking so closely at my pics!

The films surely didn't get damp. It's from a new package, stored on the shelf far from direct sunlight, so I doubt it got overly hot. Unless something went wrong during shipping or storage in the store.

I'm sure both lots of film got affected.

Camera fogging? So far the camera worked fine and would it be blue?

Film-to-film contact in the developing spiral could happen, though it felt fine to me.

I will do one more test film carefully taking all the steps and if it is still there, I'll develop an exposed film I have in the fridge from a different package and times.

I will let you know the results.

I had another thought about this.

There are some chemicals, mainly acids and chorine derivatives, that can selectively bleach the dyes used in colour film.

Any chance that the film came into contact with, say, some domestic bleach or detergent after processing? Or maybe an over-strong dilution of wetting agent?

Contaminated chemical storage bottles? Chemicals used to clean the spiral or tank?

Thank you for your help! Sorry for the late reply!

I do not use anything but water to clean the equipment. Just rinse it thoroughly with running water. I bought a second-hand JOBO machine together with some bottles and, indeed, I used two of the old bottles to store the chemicals. They looked clean though (and I rinsed them well).

Anyway, now I mixed a new batch of chemicals, poured them into brand new bottles, and went through all developing steps carefully with no mistakes. (not that I'm aware of any)

The result is this:

I boosted the contrast on the images to better see the streaks.

As you can see, they are much less but still visible. Plus now, there are also some leaks in the corners of the last three pictures.

Also, the two last frames are totally damaged in a different way:

When I opened the tank and took out the reel, the last piece of neg was touching the negative inside, a little bit. But only the very last two frames are affected (not the other part of the negative that was in touch), and it looks more like a light leak. (In the last picture behind the chick is a blue sheet, it's not a blue streak).

I load the exposed negative on the reel using a film changing darkroom bag, in daylight (not darkroom). It is not precisely in the sun, inside a room, but maybe some light leaked inside the bag?

Next step, I will develop an older roll of exposed neg, that I store in the fridge. Different package, different times of exposing the film. Also, I will load it on the reel at night, using the bag but in darkness.

Let's see the results.

Dare I suggest; you don't get any of these issues when using a digital camera!

And shooting RAW allows you to capture highlight and deep shadow detail without overexposing part of the image.