Bromide drag?

[Neil Miller]

Thanks to those of you that suggested I used constant agitation when using the S toekler formula to develop my B&W sheet and rollfilm - this certainly got rid of the "streamers" nr the edges of the film.

However, one thing remains as a constant - banding in large areas of even densit y like skies. Not every sheet is affected, not even every frame in a strip of r oll film is affected, but I cant stop this phenomenon from happening.

When it occurs (and it occurs with annoying regularity) it looks like banding af fecting skies BUT it seems to stop a little way into the "busier" areas of the f ilm. Most of the negs that are affected also show some tonal bleed into the fil m rebate adjacent to the banded areas. In fact, on roll film the sky part of th e neg looks like it has an echo/outline, as if there has been a double exposure (but I know that there hasn't).

I've tried different film/dev combos (eg Agfapan 100, Delta 100, ID11 at 1+1 and 1+3) but still the banding appears. I've tried agitating drums by hand: 10secs at the head of each minute, 5 secs every 30 secs, and also a unicolor drum on a reversing base, to no avail.

Any ideas?

[Chad Jarvis]

Are you sure it's not a fixing problem?

[Neil Miller]

Hi Chad - I'm pretty sure it isn't a fixer problem. After dumping the dev I use a weak acid stop bath followed by fresh fix (Ilford Hypam) for at least the time stated on the packaging. I then fill the drum/tank with water, dump it, fill it and follow Kodaks archival sequence for washing.

As variations to the above I have used plain water stop and have also used a running water wash. I never had this problem where I used to live, its only appeared during the past year!

Neil.

[John Hicks]

One way to find out; after the stop bath remove the film from the drum, fix and HCA it in a tray.

[Per Volquartz]

If it has only appeared during the last year - and not the place you used to live...???

Maybe the water is different...use destilled water for developer, stop and and fix...

Maybe???

[clay harmon]

I've had problems with this in the jobo print drums I use to process 7x17 negatives with Pyrocat HD. Try tilting the drum back and forth about every 2 minutes in a direction perpendicular to the drum rotation direction for about 10-15 seconds during development. This solved the problem for me. Check out www.unblinkingeye.com on the Pyrocat-HD page. I wrote a little addition to the article about this specific problem, which may help.

Clay