Spots!!!!!!!!!

[miss_emma_jade]

I bought this box of film on ebay.

LOL yes we heard it before. its an unopened box of 50 ilford fp4. it wasn't expensive.

i slit the tapes this morning and loaded some. carted the 5x4 round all day on foot.and come home and run them through the unicolor, and i have little holes in the emulsion on all 4 shots i took. here is a scan, wonder if anyone has a clue what this might be? anyone seen it happen before????

HALP someone?http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrptiwKd9o1qbesaco1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1316430467&Signature=eXy9PQ2SXLKxlazbY6F%2F3xgeuHQ%3D

[S. Preston Jones]

Looks at first blush to be pinholes. These could come from your shortstop being too strong (too acid). Others will chime in.

[miss_emma_jade]

I developed it in xtol (brand new and fresh.) 8 mins, as per the massive developing chart, stopped in ilfostop ( well used ) and fixed in rapid fixer. (3 mins)

i develop a lot of fp4 35mm the same way, (three rolls a week maybe) and never seen this.

[johnielvis]

unbelievable---that looks EXACTLY what I got when I did fp4---slight outdated...like 6 months, but REVERSAL---the black spots you get in the print, I got them in reversal--they were actualy BLACK.

I got these in the dark days before I started pre-soaking the film---if you are using roller tubes, then the best method depends on the type of tubes--usually best to use a large amount of water (compared to the other chemistry) and roll it for a total of like 10 minutes----say 7' first soak...dump it out--tons of purple stuff will come out WITH what looks like little black "spots"...then in with more water for a 1' rinse...then out..then again...till the stufff comes out clear and free of foam/smell....once the dye crap is out of there the problem should vanish---this is a problem particularly if you are using very small amounts of chemicals---the is a TON of dye and coating crap on this stuff that comes off--when you do the pre-soak, you will be SHOCKED...

for 8x10 tubes (4-up 4x5's) I use 6 oz chemistry to develop and 12 oz for the pre-soak volume--usually for big sheets I'll totally fill the drum up when it's standing on end and let the water soak in BUT when you have lots of small sheets, then youstand the chance othe sheets coming off and floating around---also--although more water is preferred, when rolling with large amounts of water, the small sheets tend to want to come off of the tube too--that's why no more than 12 oz for the 8x10 sized tube.

[Hans Berkhout]

try any or all the following:

no acid stop bath, use plain water instead.
check concentration of rapid fix; no mistake there?
shorter time in rapid fix.

good luck.

[gevalia]

Take a few sheets out of the box and inspect them. I had the same problem a few years ago with a box of FP4+. Ilford was more than happy to swap my box for a new one. My personal impression was that they just would not stand for anyone getting poor quality film and that made me a lifetime user.

[Frank Petronio]

I think Ilford's quality control sucks and it made me a non-lifetime user! I once bought 6 boxes and they were packed with the inner box going out (you could see both box edges out of a triple box).

Fingerprints, holes, mis-cut, you name it, Ilford does it and wow, they give you a new box of film if you complain!

Spend a little more and use Kodak. Anyone can make a mistake but Kodak does it far less often than our pals in the UK.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Been using Ilford films for 20 years and never a problem. Lucky, perhaps?

[Gem Singer]

Doesn't look like defective film to me. I, too, am a loyal Ilford user. Never had that problem.

The black spots (emulsion lift ?) appear to be round and random like gas bubbles from effervescence caused by an acid-base reaction.

Run the film through a Unicolor?? What does that mean?

[tautatis]

It looks to me to be a holder problem. Check to see if your holders are clean.

Tautatis,

[miss_emma_jade]

interesting replys guys. i guess i should pull one out of the box, have a look at it and develop it tonight. then maybe ill try another holder and develop another one.

there are spots in the holders. not sure there gonna come off though

[Cor]

chime in here on Ilford, used the stuff for a long time, mainly 120, 4*5 and 8*10..never ran in film related problems..only operator errors..

Best,

Cor

[nolindan]

Ilford had problems with emulsion pinholes in 120 FP-4 in the 90's. I haven't heard of any recent problems.