Is this a light leak?

[birkmose]

Hi,

I just recently started tipping my toes in largeformat photography again and have been getting some decent exposures. But today something strange happened!

Took this photograph today:

155715

Is this a light leak, a defective negative or something else? I haven't used this holder for a while - and made an exposure with the other side of the holder which came out just fine.
It also looks strange with the bleed of the light on top of the frame (near the trees in the background which have a lot of light falling on them).

It was procesed on a beseler rotary base with two other negatives (three in total), in 300ml of hc110 at 1+119 dilution. The two other negatives came out fine.
I've never experienced a light leak before - so just wondering if this is how it looks= Just looks strange as it sort of doesnt come entirely from the edge (it looks like it is coming "out" of the water) :)

The negative was fomapan 100, and was exposed for 5:30min, at f/22

[Jim Jones]

It does appear to be a light leak, not a processing problem. The stray light seems to be coming from near the rear of the camera as it spreads under the film holder's retainer. It is more likely a camera, not film holder, problem. If the camera has a reversible back, the back may not have been perfectly seated.

[birkmose]

Interesting - its an old old linhof technica (III?) - but I haven't seen this before. Then again i've never made such long exposures before as well with this camera. But I can try to take two exposures next time I go with this long exposure - one with covering the back with dark cloth and one without - should clear up the confusion. There was some sunray coming over my right shoulder (as you can see is the cause on the light on the trees in the background - that could have entered the back.

I took this exposure about 20 min later - same holder (other side)

155717

Exposure was around 2min 40 sec - no signs of leaks, loss of contrast, etc.

[Jac@stafford.net]

I'm with Jim Jones on this one, largely because the back was rotated to be vertical which introduces the new factor.

[Maris Rusis]

The risk of light leaks in portrait orientation is reduced if the camera back is upside down. The film holder is inserted from the bottom and the darkslide slot faces the ground not the bright sky. I used this system when exposing old Efke IR820 (EI = 0.07 !) for sunny day exposures of 16 seconds at f16. Some exposure failures...yes, light leaks...no.

[Doremus Scudder]

Your light leak is probably caused by your inadvertently pulling the spring back away from the camera when pulling or re-inserting the darkslide. Learn to pinch the back to the camera body between thumb and forefinger of one hand while pulling and inserting the darkslide to prevent this. This is a classic mistake and we've all made it.

Best,

Doremus

[birkmose]

Thanks guys for the feedbacl!

The linhof have these little "locks" that slide into the holder on both sides - I think it must have escaped me to engage them from this shot!