Fogged edge on 665 P/N film, dark slide problem?

[Sandy Sorlien]

I'm getting one fogged edge along the negative short side, consistently on all 1 0 sheets in some packs of 665 film. This has happened with 2 packs, but not with 3 others. It is a very thin fog line but I do print to the edge so it ruins the negative. Has anyone seen this? I wonder if it has to do with my dark slide. This is a new Arca-Swiss Polaroid back and the dark slide (with bright blue end ) has never gone all the way in. I mean, it appears to be completely covering t he film opening, but the blue edge does not go all the way against the side of t he back the way most dark slides do. Is that how it's supposed to be? Thanks.

[pat krentz]

I the slide does not go all the way in, it is defective and you should get whoever you bought it from to replace it, or take the film out and just run the slice in/out so you can see what it is doing, maybe the edge of the slide is to sharp and just needs to be rounded a little. Pat

[pat krentz]

If the slide does not go all the way in, it is defective and you should get whoever you bought it from to replace it, or take the film out and just run the slice in/out so you can see what it is doing, maybe the edge of the slide is to sharp and just needs to be rounded a little. Pat

[Christopher Campbell]

I also have a new Arca-Swiss Polaroid back that I use on an F-Metric 6x9 camera. So far I have only used my back for proofing with Polaroid print film, but I have never had any problem with fogged prints. As for the dark slide design, I'll admit that I too was initially slightly surprised by its "generous" dimensions, but I don't think there's anything defective about your particular example. With the dark slide inserted all the way into the holder, I just measured the extent of the black plastic between the holder body and the blue plastic handle strip, and find that it is precisely 1 cm wide (3/8"). I don't have an explanation for the fogged film, but can suggest that I have always found Polaroid's technical assistance to be exemplary, so perhaps you should give them a call at 800/225-1618?

[Sandy Sorlien]

This is Sandy again; I think I figured this out finally. After talking to Polaroid and to one of you kind souls, I tried a variety of tests - - pulling film in the dark, exposed, unexposed, shining a flashlight around the back, processing in open shade, deep shade, in darkroom, etc. I am almost certain the fogging happens between the time the film is pulled from the back and when it goes into the Sodium Sulfite, and probably during the few seconds when it is first developing. I have read that we should do this in the shade, but it seems it has to be very deep shade or light does get in around one or two edges. This fogging will not show on the positive, because the positive does not cover as much image area as the negative. (The Polaroid tech helper, who was very patient with me, said it did, but it doesn't.) This fogging is a very thin band and only shows in the border and edge of the neg which falls outside the frame of the positive. Only full frame printers like me would care, I suppose.

My packs which didn't have this fogging were processed on a covered porch in deep shade, I now realize when I look back at them. The others were in open shade. None were in actual sunlight, I'm not that stupid. But for the purposes of today's test, I did pull one while the back was on the camera in the sun, and that one had the worst fog.

This film is such a pain, I take it as a personal challenge to conquer it!

Cheers, Sandy

[Sandy Sorlien]

Hi, it's Sandy again with a fog update. Last weekend I visited another photographer who uses the 665 P/N all the time and showed him my negatives. He said, "I never get that fog, you must have bad film." However, when we looked carefully at his negs, he DID have a thin fog line on most of them at one end. So, I think what we have here is a film whose packaging does not do a good job of blocking light leaks during development, but most people don't notice because the edges can be so funky-looking on this film in general, or do notice but don't care because they don't print full frame.

I will just develop it in very deep shade or under a dark cloth and Bob's your uncle, as one of my daffy friends likes to say.