processed film came out completely blank

[andrewrb]

I'm stumped. Yesterday I shot three different pictures with Kodak 160 NC 8x10 film. Since the film's expensive I usually meter carefully and expose one stop over (at least) for a denser negative. Today I get the film back, and only one out of the three came out. The odd thing is that the two that did not come out were completely blank- even the film type and batch number was missing on the side of the negative. I'm talking totally blank. I got the film processed at my trusted professional lab, and they told me they ran all three in the same batch of chemicals. I feel that this is a bad box of negatives from Kodak's side. But that one that came out is really confusing me. Are there any other possibilities?

I did a quick search on here and didn't find anything on this so if there is an old thread it would be wonderful if someone could direct me to it.

Thanks,

Andrew

[Brian Ellis]

Dark slide wasn't pulled. Shutter wasn't cocked and/or wasn't released while dark slide was pulled. Those would be my two best guesses for totally blank film. Very unlikely that you got a bad batch of film from Kodak.

Did you have two film holders loaded with four sheets? If so, try having the fourth sheet processed and see what's on it. You may have gotten your holders/sides mixed up and thought you were exposing the wrong ones.

There are a lot of threads here dealing with blank film. I'd suggest an advanced search of thread titles using the terms "no image" or "blank film" or something like that.

[BrianShaw]

Odd...

For the two that came out blank, are you really sure that you pulled the darkslide out?

I have had 100% success with Kodak film so I (personally) can't imagine a manufacturing defect like you suggest.

[Denis Pleic]

Do you trust your lab without reserve?

Somehow I'd look for errors there first, and only then blame Kodak...
Seems rather far-fetched that only some of the negs from the same box are affected... I'd look closely at the lab first - in my opinion, such errors (completely blank film) usually happen in processing - outnumbering manufacturer errors most likely by several orders of magnitude.

In short, the probability laws suggest lab error. Like I said, I'd look there first.

Regards,

Denis

[Denis Pleic]

For the two Brians :

Even if the darkslide wasn't pulled, the manufacturer's codes on the film edge after processing would still show - even if the negative was blank, right?

[Steve Hamley]

I don't believe Kodak puts the printed codes on 8x10 film. They don't on 8x10 Tri-X but do on 4x5 Tri-X.

Cheers, Steve

[Brian C. Miller]

This Brian agrees with Denis: the codes on the edge would still be there. I'm guessing that a development error ocurred.

[BrianShaw]

This Brian doesn't agree with the most recent Brian. (Which is odd; I usually agree with other Brians!) This Brian thinks Steve is correct about edge markings. This Brian is willing to be proven wrong, however.

[domaz]

Completely blank could mean they put it in the fixer before the developer. That would be a pretty big mistake for the lab to make.

[Neil Smith]

If the one that came out has edge markings and the other two don't, then I would say processing error for sure. If non of them have edge markings then your in the territory of might be dark slide, might be shutter or could be processing very difficult to prove which unless you can trace back. Do the lab process the sheets individually or together?


Neil