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C-41 Processing - Fat Roll, Light Leak, Bad Development?


cyrsm05

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Hi Everyone,

 

Been quite sometime since I've been here. Long time Leica m6ttl shooter and BW processing here. I've been processing my own colored films for about 6 months now and enjoying it much!

 

I have a link to photo examples in my Dropbox because they are too large on here and I didn't have time to compress .tiff files. I'm not sure if it's from a camera light leak  :( , a fat roll (or broken take-up spool)  :huh: , or bad development  :wacko:.  I prefer this to be a user-error rather than my camera.  

 

LINK (it''s dropbox but I shorten the url):

https://goo.gl/FK9N0i

 

The four photos of the arm and plant shadow are sequential (frames 11-14) and you can see how the light is not consistent in each which makes me think it is not a light leak.  The next two photos (of a boy and rooster on the side of a building) are from a different roll and only showed up at the END of the roll...the rest of the frames were just fine.  These two rolls were not developed at the same time. Funny thing is, the roll which has the arm and shadow of a plant on the table, had another roll developed with it had light the same but of different character and placement (sorry I didnt include photos).  But it did have those flow marks from the spools which makes me consider it's bad development due to too little agitation.

 

Finally, me being ADHD, I sometimes flick the rewind tab on the camera and I recall doing this recently. This may have loosen up the take-up spool and exposed some light onto neighboring frames. I don't know??

 

In any case, would anyone care to speak their thoughts?  

 

Hopefully these photos are sufficient examples. And yes, I know they have lints or marks  :)

 

*film used: Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400 but I'm more of a 200 and who pushes a lot

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Cyrus

 

thiseyec.com

Edited by cyrsm05
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Not the answer (yet), but I need more info. How were the images scanned and post-processed? The images are cropped square, whereas the negs would be 3:2 format.

 

My thoughts so far:

  • Bad development would affect the whole roll, or perhaps one edge of a roll if, for example, there's no agitation.
  • Light leaks are don't discriminate between highlight and shadow. The affected photos in your sequence show distorted shadow density and colour.
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Don't spend ages getting all Columbo about it. Put another roll of film in the camera, and 'expose' it by shining a bright light or using a flash, at different parts of the camera, the viewfinder, the rangefinder windows, the lens mount/throat, the rear door etc. 

 

Process the film and see if there is any obvious light leak. 

 

If it's still inconclusive have another roll processed elsewhere, to eliminate any issue with your processing. 

 

It does look rather like the film has been exposed to a light leak, at some point in the chain. 

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Not the answer (yet), but I need more info. How were the images scanned and post-processed? The images are cropped square, whereas the negs would be 3:2 format.

 

My thoughts so far:

  • Bad development would affect the whole roll, or perhaps one edge of a roll if, for example, there's no agitation.
  • Light leaks are don't discriminate between highlight and shadow. The affected photos in your sequence show distorted shadow density and colour.

 

 

Images are scanned with a mini-lab scanner 300 dpi. No post-processing done. Images were not cropped but possibly frame shift due to cheap scanner (not the best in the market but it does what I need it to do).

Edited by cyrsm05
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Don't spend ages getting all Columbo about it. Put another roll of film in the camera, and 'expose' it by shining a bright light or using a flash, at different parts of the camera, the viewfinder, the rangefinder windows, the lens mount/throat, the rear door etc. 

 

Process the film and see if there is any obvious light leak. 

 

If it's still inconclusive have another roll processed elsewhere, to eliminate any issue with your processing. 

 

It does look rather like the film has been exposed to a light leak, at some point in the chain. 

 

Definitely have this on my list but would like to know ASAP for 1) peace of mind and 2) not use a roll for QA but that's just me being stingy  :p

 

If the light leak is from the camera, wouldn't the leak all look alike in all the frames?  I have many frames that are perfectly fine without any errors from the same rolls.

 

I've never experience fat roll before so I threw that out there to see if anyone can see a pattern. Sometimes the pattern will answer what point in the chain the light leak has happened. Thanks for your honest answer.

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Light leaks often affect only certain frames depending on the source of the leak, the light sources, the time the frame is in the position of the leak, etc. My M4 (or M6 - I don't recall) developed a leak at the closing curtain due to the brake adjustment, that would only affect frames left unwound for a longer time in bright light conditions. 

Leaks can come over the top or bottom of a curtain, through the viewfinder, through the eyepiece, and other places you wouldn't expect. 

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Light leaks often affect only certain frames depending on the source of the leak, the light sources, the time the frame is in the position of the leak, etc. My M4 (or M6 - I don't recall) developed a leak at the closing curtain due to the brake adjustment, that would only affect frames left unwound for a longer time in bright light conditions. 

Leaks can come over the top or bottom of a curtain, through the viewfinder, through the eyepiece, and other places you wouldn't expect. 

 

I found a hole under the advance lever which should have some kind of rubber plug right?  I just realized that it is missing, would this be a possible culprit?

 

I'll be trying out earley's suggestion tonight.

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It really doesn't help supplying cropped pictures for people to look at because it doesn't show the orientation of the camera and hence doesn't show where the leak is coming from.

 

But let's assume for the building it was held horizontal. Normalising the picture on 'Auto' in Photoshop makes it clear the leak affects the left side in particular, so the negative is upside down and back to front which says the leak is coming in from the right hand side of the camera. The table shot when also processed in 'Auto' mode shows far more clearly the leak is coming from the top of the picture, so was this in portrait orientation, and if so was it advance lever up, or advance lever down?

 

FWIW the pictures in your DropBox folder are tiny, I don't know why you couldn't post them here.

 

 

Steve

Edited by 250swb
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These look like leaks to me.  Small leaks can be inconsistent depending how long the frame sits where the leak occurs or whether your hand covers the leak or the orientation toward the bright light.

 

I have found leaks by going into a dark place and shining a small light outside in with bottom off and door removed.  Go across top deck too.   Open shutter on B and shine around closed back door.  While at it,  look through open back with and w/o shutter cocked.

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It really doesn't help supplying cropped pictures for people to look at because it doesn't show the orientation of the camera and hence doesn't show where the leak is coming from.

 

But let's assume for the building it was held horizontal. Normalising the picture on 'Auto' in Photoshop makes it clear the leak affects the left side in particular, so the negative is upside down and back to front which says the leak is coming in from the right hand side of the camera. The table shot when also processed in 'Auto' mode shows far more clearly the leak is coming from the top of the picture, so was this in portrait orientation, and if so was it advance lever up, or advance lever down?

 

FWIW the pictures in your DropBox folder are tiny, I don't know why you couldn't post them here.

 

 

Steve

 

 

I completely agree Steve, it's my cheap ol' scanner that automatically crops my frame...very very minimal but obviously everyone can tell the difference. 

 

To answer your question, the table shot was taken landscape. It definitely is coming from the top...I saw the rubber gone on the hole below the advance lever but I doubt that is the source.

 

Also, I do not have PS only Lightroom.  I didnt realize that I exported my photos as .tiff and not jpeg so the file size were huge and surpasses the forums attachment limit.  Apologies....it seems to work and creates a separate window lightbox when I click on it from Dropbox.

 

Thank you for your advice though, much appreciated.

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These look like leaks to me.  Small leaks can be inconsistent depending how long the frame sits where the leak occurs or whether your hand covers the leak or the orientation toward the bright light.

 

I have found leaks by going into a dark place and shining a small light outside in with bottom off and door removed.  Go across top deck too.   Open shutter on B and shine around closed back door.  While at it,  look through open back with and w/o shutter cocked.

 

Very good point about frames sitting out for a while. Sometimes I forget my camera in my camera (usually in the glove compartment tho ... and locked  :) ). But it can be sitting under the sun... perhaps that is a possibility.  On the other hand, the photos with the boy and rooster were shot right after another within 3-5 seconds.

 

I actually tried @earleygallery's advice last night, processed, and scanned. No light leaks??!!

 

With that said, I was more careful in processing the film. I did try various kinds of ways to cause a light leak by shooting in different angles, flashing the exterior of the camera with a strong light, etc. and nothing.... :huh:

 

I will give your advice a try...thank you.

Edited by cyrsm05
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