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Thread: development flaws on 8x10 portra

  1. #1

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    development flaws on 8x10 portra

    I photograph landscapes in overcast, flat light, using Portra 160. My exposures are dead on. I keep getting problems with flawed development; this shows as faint brown smears in pale areas (eg. grey skies). My film is in perfect condition. I avoid damp, heat etc and am meticulous. I have tried processing in various labs but keep experiencing this problem. I scan my film and produce Lightjet prints; these flaws ruin so many negs. I have been told that one problem is that modern dev tanks are smaller than the very large old ones, and consequently the chemistry does not engage consistently with the 8x10 sheet; it has been suggested that I have a technician develop the film at a lower temp for longer. Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on this problem? I'd be grateful for help.
    Thanks
    Michael
    P.S. example (in exaggerated form to make flaws more visible) attached

  2. #2

    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra

    Do you know what type of processor the various labs used? Continuous processors, dip and dunk, and rotatry processors are so very different from each other that it would be very odd for the same issue to show up with different methods.

    At a guess, I would have thought this was a bleach or fix issue, but that coming from more than one source seems odd. I did extremely large negatives by all kind of crazy methods and never recall having that particularly problem. Inadequate agitation would be a possible contributing factor, but not likely from a variety of labs.

    Hopefully someone from one of the current labs posting here will have a better idea of what is mostly being done for 8x10 C41 processing today. I'd be tempted to get someone to run some in a Jobo Expert drum.

  3. #3
    おせわに なります! Andrew O'Neill's Avatar
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    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra

    Where's the example?

  4. #4

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    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra

    Inconsistencies with dip/dunk machines & 8x10 are not unknown - if two were above each other, the lower could be denser than the upper owing to the time taken to submerge & the short developing time. Have you had optical prints made &/ or the negs scanned on different scanners to eliminate the possibility that it came from somewhere else in the imaging chain? Are the flaws observable under direct magnification on the negative?

  5. #5

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    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra

    This sounds like the mottling I experienced on my 8x10 negs with some dip-and-dunk labs: faint light blobs, streaks and blotches particularly visible in relatively clear areas of the negative such as open skies. My understanding is that this results from inadequate agitation. My local B&W lab at the time resolved the problem by upgrading the agitation in their Refrema machine. For C-41 I had to switch to another lab. I experienced this problem only with 8x10; all the labs had no problem with 4x5.

    My suggestion would be to try finding a lab still running a Refrema (or something similar). Of course very worst case you could ship your negs internationally, I had many of my 8x10 C-41 negs processed at Edgar Praus in Rochester, New York without problem. He runs Refremas and was familiar with the potential problems with processing 8x10.

    This mottling I experienced was clearly visible on a light table and was not a scanning artifact.

  6. #6

    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra


  7. #7
    Old School Wayne
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    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra

    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew O'Neill View Post
    Where's the example?
    Yeah, there's no attachment.

  8. #8

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    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra

    Praus has the direct solution. It's the only place I'll have 8x10 developed. You could also use that nyc lab that created the slow processing... If you want to pay double and are fine with their round about solution.

    Sent from my LM-V350 using Tapatalk

  9. #9

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    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra

    It would help if the OP told us which labs they have used - the chances of them having really tried all the available labs over here that handle 8x10 is small.

  10. #10

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    Re: development flaws on 8x10 portra

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Hi,
    Thanks. Apologies for my tardy response - been away. Hopefully my jpeg of a flawed sky is attached for you to see. The flaws are particularly evident on pale neutral areas - and a lot of my exposures are of such subjects.
    Thanks for any advice. The response above from Eric Lappanen sounds as though this might be the answer, but I live and work around London and hate the idea (let alone expense) of shipping negs abroad and back.

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