Botched negs, what did I do wrong?

[dealy663]

Hello Everybody!

<p>

I'm sorta new to developing but have processed about 10 rolls of 120

and 35mm B/W film myself in the past few months. The roll I just

developed last night turned out to have some major problems, based on

the look, my guess is light contamination. On this roll of 120 it

looks like about 6 of the exposures suffer from this problem.

According to my log all of the problem exposures were shot with the

same lens. But some of the frames shot with this lens don't appear to

exhibit the problem.

<p>

<a href="http://www.grandprixsw.com/photogra...0105/index.html

">Here is a link</a> to a page showing two of the frames that I've

scanned. I made no attempt at nailing the white and black points of

this scan so ignore how flat the image is.

<p>

These were shot on my old Koni Omega Rapid 200. The last time I used

this camera with this lens everything seemed to be ok.

<p>

So my question is: Does this look like a camera problem, or more like

I somehow let some light in while loading the film into the magazine?

<p>

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

<p><p>

Derek

[jim_k.]

the link is busticated

[frank.schifano]

Your link is broken. I was able to find the examples you mentioned here: http://www2.grandprixsw.com:8000/photography/pub/August%202005/080105/index.html

 

At first I though it might be flare, but there are no strong light sources in the frame to account for it. This doesn't look like the pattern of fogging one would expect to see if there was some light leakage around the edges of the film if the takeup spool didn't wind up tightly enough either. The pattern doesn't look right for that either. My guess is that your darkroom isn't really that dark and the film got a little light struck in the loading process.

 

Check your darkroom for light leaks. Small ones aren't apparent until you've spent a few minutes in there for your eyes to become dark adapted. Do you have anything in the room that emits light? A radio with a lighted dial or display? A small led somewhere? I have a set of old computer speakers with a small green pilot light on one unit. I taped it over after it caused a problem for me.

[dealy663]

Sorry about the link, I spazzed when I copied it from somewhere else, doh!

 

 

No there are no light leaks in my film loading area. This is my wife's closet, and I only do it at night when its dark. I've loaded all of my film in this same place and none have exhibited any marks like this. Dropped off a roll of Provia 100F shot in the same camera on the same day, so when I get it back on wednesday I'll have a better idea if there is a light leak in the magazine.

 

Derek

[dealy663]

Well I'm a little closer to figuring out what is going wrong. I just went back and reviewed one of my rolls from May and sure enough the same sort of light leak occurs on 3 of the frames. At the time I just discounted the problem because I was hand holding a filter in front of the lens and just assumed I didn't have things lined up.

 

Well after checking my log I see that I used the same lens on the roll in May as I used on this roll I shot last saturday. On the May roll the other frames look fine, and they were shot with my 58mm and 90mm lenses. The problem frames were shot with my 135mm lens.

 

On the roll that I shot last saturday all but one frame were shot with the 135mm lens. However there is one frame on that roll that was shot with the 135mm that is just fine (the first frame on the roll).

 

I'm quite perplexed about why this particular lens could becausing such a problem. I just put the lens on the camera and removed the film back looking for some sort of light leak but don't see anything.

 

Any ideas?

 

Derek

[ronald_moravec1]

Took me an hour to figure out what the problem is. If this is a leaf shutter camera, there is one leaf in the shutter that is hanging open. It may not be happening every time, but it is happening.

[dealy663]

Yes these lenses use leaf shutters. I've not noticed anything strange when viewing the shutter operation though. I'll look more closely tonite.

 

Derek

[silent1]

The hang Ron is talking about could be on the order of 1/10 second delay in that leaf closing, which would be fairly hard to see by eye. That can't happen if the leaf and actuating ring are correctly engaged and the leaf isn't damaged, so it probably indicates your 135 mm lens needs repair; if you're lucky, it's just a disengaged pin on the leaf and a simple CLA will fix it up.