Stress Marks

[madNbad]

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Recently, I developed a roll of TMax 100 and found some odd looking marks at the end of the roll. At first, I thought it was a light leak through the lid of the developing tank. The camera, an M4, had been serviced in the last few years and the marks didn't appear until almost the end of the roll. I swapped out the lid on the developing tank, processed another roll and the problem did not appear. When I posted the question on another site, I received a variety of answers, most were as confused as I was. A few days after posting a member responded with an image that looked exactly like the marks on my negative. The member pointed out these were stress marks from the film being too tightly wound in the cassette. When I was loading the reel, the last part of the film was difficult to pull out of the cassette and felt like it was bound to the spool. I hadn't experienced this before but it something I will be more careful with wen rewinding.

 

 

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[250swb]

1 hour ago, madNbad said:

Recently, I developed a roll of TMax 100 and found some odd looking marks at the end of the roll. At first, I thought it was a light leak through the lid of the developing tank. The camera, an M4, had been serviced in the last few years and the marks didn't appear until almost the end of the roll. I swapped out the lid on the developing tank, processed another roll and the problem did not appear. When I posted the question on another site, I received a variety of answers, most were as confused as I was. A few days after posting a member responded with an image that looked exactly like the marks on my negative. The member pointed out these were stress marks from the film being too tightly wound in the cassette. When I was loading the reel, the last part of the film was difficult to pull out of the cassette and felt like it was bound to the spool. I hadn't experienced this before but it something I will be more careful with wen rewinding.

 

 

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If the film is being wound so tightly to do that stress damage the photographer has the sensitivity of a gorilla on heat, or the camera is very damaged. I say it a processing problem, hopefully for yourself and the camera.

It's probably surge with over enthusiastic agitation

Edited June 26, 2022 by 250swb

[Tom R]

5 hours ago, 250swb said:

If the film is being wound so tightly to do that stress damage the photographer has the sensitivity of a gorilla on heat, or the camera is very damaged. I say it a processing problem, hopefully for yourself and the camera.

It's probably surge with over enthusiastic agitation

At first glance, I thought these to be surge marks too .... a result of over-agitation.  But from my brief experiences often surging impacts more than a few frames, and isn't so regular? I don't suppose that these frames hadn't been completely wound unto the spool, which might account for what we're seeing here?

More investigation is required?

[madNbad]

The marks started around frame 33 and went to the end of the roll. I had back surgery late last year and haven’t been developing as much, so out of practice. This particular roll had been in a Retina IIa for some time but never used except for the first few frames for loading. I recently acquired a new lens for my M4 and wanted to try it out but also wanted to use up this roll of TMX. Between rewinding it out of the Retina and snugging up the rewind on the M4 to insure the film was advancing, it was putting more stress on the tail of the film than expected. In addition, in the nearly a year the film sat in the little Kodak, part of it became bound to the spool in the cassette. When I was exposing the film, the last few frames were difficult to advance, even being cautious and when loading the developing reel, the end of the film was difficult to pull from the cassette onto the reel. I first I thought it was a light leak through the plastic lid of the developing tank but the marks were too regular for that. If the light leak had been in the camera body, it would have not only extended the length of this roll but every other roll used in that body. No other films showed these marks and it was baffling. Surge marks would have also affected more areas of the film and would have been less consistent. Finally, a poster from Ireland identified the problem. Film that has been wound too tightly or wound in the wrong direction. The marks only appearing on the last few frames indicated it was stress on the film itself and not a developing issue. The roll of TMX was the last of the factory rolls and I’ve switched over to a bulk loader which I’m sure will bring its own set of problems.

[250swb]

5 hours ago, Tom R said:

At first glance, I thought these to be surge marks too .... a result of over-agitation.  But from my brief experiences often surging impacts more than a few frames, and isn't so regular? I don't suppose that these frames hadn't been completely wound unto the spool, which might account for what we're seeing here?

More investigation is required?

My thinking was the marks are at the end of the film, so the last bit wound onto the spiral for processing. There is a gap between the wall of the tank and the film and because there is nothing to slow the developer down in and around that gap as the tank is inverted this is why surge is showing up only at the end of the roll. The film wound further into the spiral is baffled by the reel plus the closer spacing which slows the developer down, so surge does not show up. 

The alternative would be the OP's M4 is faulty and the clutch in the takeup spool mechanism needs servicing if film starts to get harder to wind on at the end of the roll. 

Edited June 27, 2022 by 250swb

[Tom R]

9 hours ago, 250swb said:

My thinking was the marks are at the end of the film, so the last bit wound onto the spiral for processing. There is a gap between the wall of the tank and the film and because there is nothing to slow the developer down in and around that gap as the tank is inverted this is why surge is showing up only at the end of the roll. The film wound further into the spiral is baffled by the reel plus the closer spacing which slows the developer down, so surge does not show up. 

The alternative would be the OP's M4 is faulty and the clutch in the takeup spool mechanism needs servicing if film starts to get harder to wind on at the end of the roll. 

Nice bit of deduction here. Let's hope it's the case ... otherwise, it might be CLA/repair time.

[madNbad]

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Here are a few facts:

The camera was serviced by Don Goldberg in 2019. No problems with the clutch or rewind, no issue with the advance. In fact, other than a M2 DAG serviced, it's one of the smoothest operating cameras I've ever owned.

There have been no other problems with any rolls of film other than this one. Factory loaded or bulk loaded, no problems with advancing or rewinding. Nothing sticking in the cassette.

This was simply a one off of a problem I hadn't encountered before. After examining all of the seemingly logical paths and comming up short,  someone had an answer to an obscure problem which I thought it may be of interest to the forum.

[250swb]

3 hours ago, madNbad said:

Here are a few facts:

The camera was serviced by Don Goldberg in 2019. No problems with the clutch or rewind, no issue with the advance. In fact, other than a M2 DAG serviced, it's one of the smoothest operating cameras I've ever owned.

There have been no other problems with any rolls of film other than this one. Factory loaded or bulk loaded, no problems with advancing or rewinding. Nothing sticking in the cassette.

This was simply a one off of a problem I hadn't encountered before. After examining all of the seemingly logical paths and comming up short,  someone had an answer to an obscure problem which I thought it may be of interest to the forum.

But the stress marks are emanating from the sprocket holes, how can stress be applied to the sprocket holes when rewinding the film? The film is completely passive with no tension in the rewind process other than a gentle pull and the film relaxes into the cassette after it is rewound. Cameras can use a motor to rewind film extremely fast and with far more torque and you won't get the effect you are complaining about. For a 'problem' that hasn't existed before you discovered it it may be premature for you to say there is something people should worry about given the millions of films that have successfully been rewound from M cameras over the years.

[madNbad]

Rewinding isn't causing the stress but the rewind knob is the culprit. The lines on the negative stretch across the film, with the sprocket holes being the most visible. All of the lines are consistent and start around frame 33. The stress comes from the end of the film being wound too tightly to the spool and actually are closer to bunch marks than stress marks. More like collapsing the bellows on a view camera. The cassette was rewound to remove it from the Retina where it had sat for months, which may have had the rewind knob turned occasionally to check if there was film in the camera.  When it came out of the Kodak, it was a short leader and I needed to pull some more film out to load the M4. I noticed there was some resistance when pulling the film from the cassette but didn't give it much thought. After loading the M4, I used the rewind crank to tighten up the film to ensure it was advancing. This exacerbated the existing problem of the film being already tightly bound to the spool. When exposing the roll, as I mentioned, there was some resistance when advancing the film in the camera and when drawing the film out of the cassette to load the developing reel. As I mentioned, this is something I haven't encountered before, or see it as something to worry about doing again. Apparently, it has happened to others as noted in this link:

 

https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/what-happened-to-this-film.191147/

[250swb]

But that Photo.net link comes down on the side of the film being rewound the in wrong direction counter clockwise? I wouldn't disagree with the idea at all.

Edited June 28, 2022 by 250swb

[madNbad]

Here is the thread from Photrio:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/light-streaks-at-end-of-the-roll.192692/

[250swb]

22 hours ago, madNbad said:

The cassette was rewound to remove it from the Retina where it had sat for months, which may have had the rewind knob turned occasionally to check if there was film in the camera.  

But the film will still unwind itself and relax, the rewind knob on any camera isn't engaged to anything like a gear or ratchet, it is free to revolve clockwise or anticlockwise, if you check there is film in the camera ten times a day you aren't tightening it an increasing amount each time.

Edited June 28, 2022 by 250swb

[madNbad]

The tail of the film was adhered to the spool and wasn’t free to unwind. The possibilities range from over tightening when it was first loaded to the theory that occasionally enough moisture can migrate into the cassette of refrigerated film causing the tape to bind to the last loop around the spool then harden when it dries. I really don’t know how it happened but now I know how to recognize it and avoid it in the future. It’s often the most difficult problem that lead to better knowledge.