Suspicious light leaks with an unknown cause

[JordanF]

Hi all,

Have been shooting for a while now and just as everything was going well on my large format journey I have had all 4 frames from a recent outing come back with varying degrees of light leaks

The images were shot from two holders I have used a few times before without issue on my Chamonix 45N-2 with a 150mm Fujinon lens. The sun was quite bright that day though the images of the statue were shot in shade.

I have previously suspected not pulling the darkslide smoothly to be the cause of a leak so I try to be pretty careful.

All the images were shot on FP4. I have been storing the film in the fridge and I did note that when loading the holders the film was sticking together a little bit - maybe I didn't let it acclimatise to room temperature enough before loading. Could this sticking together a little damage the emulsion enough to cause something like this?

I have been processing my film in a Stearman SP-445 which holds 4 negatives at a time. All 4 images were processed at once (as I am yet to learn about custom dev times for highlights etc). To anybody that uses this system, could the leaks be caused by a light leak in the tank?

I find the leak in the final shot of the building pretty interesting. It's almost like its in a perfect rectangle shape leaving two strips up the side of the frame....


Any ideas would be greatly appreciated