hazy film

SoulfulRecover · Aug 21, 2013

I picked up a roll of 120 B&W film my girlfriend shot (teaching her some basics of photography) and all the shots are hazy but one. I dont think its the processing because if it was, then I dont think one of them would be fine. Is she under exposing? I bought her a Yashica MAT EM (has a built in light meter which seems to be quite accurate)

the one that came out

how all the others came out

only 8 of the 12 frames came out as well. She may have just skipped them as they are at the end of the roll.

compur · Aug 21, 2013

Looks underexposed. How do the negs look? Are the hazy frames thin in comparison with the good one?

Gavjenks · Aug 21, 2013

This looks like extremely pull-processed film. As in, it was developed way under what it was exposed at. Overall, the tone of gray looks fairly neutral, though, so it came out to about 0 EV.

My guess would be that she vastly overexposed the whole roll, by like, a lot. And then the lab noticed it and attempted to salvage the roll by underexposing it the same amount. They succeeded in getting to a neutral gray, but it was too far gone already.

The one decent photo could just be one that was much less exposed in the first place.

The only other thing that produces that much haze I can think of would be fogging the film with a significant light leak somewhere, but it doesn't look fogged to me. It might be, though. Why would the one photo be okay? Well, it looks like she took two of almost the exact same photo there of that vase. So if there is a light leak in the main body of the camera, and she fired off 3 shots in rapid succession of that vase, then the one in the middle would only have been exposed to the leak for a few seconds before being reeled back up on the other side. Whereas the other frames sat there for 10 minutes, or an hour, or a day, until she got around to taking the next shot. Reciprocity failure could then have kicked in and stopped any of them from looking particularly more fogged than any other one.

???

Derrel · Aug 21, 2013

Looks very under-DEVELOPED to me. Look at the wall and frame on the wall scene...plenty of "exposure", but not much "development".

Was this roll of 120 home-developed by somebody who's not that good at loading 120 film on reels?

Is the first frame the frame that would be on the very,very OUTSIDE wrap of the 120 film reel in the developing tank?

SoulfulRecover · Aug 21, 2013

It was developed at a big photo shop in austin called Precision Camera. They have done quite a few rolls of my own work just fine as well as some great 4x5 color slide work for me. Ive never had any issues but it is entirely possible there is someone new there or someone used the wrong chemicals? I'm not sure. We've put color negative roll of film through the camera before this one and there were one or two frames similar to this I believe. Ill pull those out and take a look. Maybe the camera back is not sealing.

Derrel · Aug 21, 2013

If the film back was leaking light, B&W negatives would have DEEP, DENSE BLACK patches on the negatives...I see absolutely none of that. The Yashica 120 TLR cameras have a very simple back system that's unlikely to leak light.

SoulfulRecover · Aug 21, 2013

here are the photos from the first roll

Designer · Aug 21, 2013

Sticky shutter? That sometimes works better than at other times?

Ask the folks at Precision Camera to check it over for proper functioning.

Most likely they will then run a roll through it to confirm.

vintagesnaps · Aug 21, 2013

I haven't had anything happen that I can remember like the fogginess of the first set, I've had negatives that weren't exposed properly and were real thin (or real dense) but they didn't look like these.

With it looking like there's shutter or movement blur in some of the second set maybe the shutter is sticky as mentioned or is set at a speed that's too slow. I've had old cameras that the faster speeds work better than the slower speeds.

I too would ask at the camera store, and if you/she try another roll maybe write down what's done with each shot - film speed used, shutter speed and aperture, existing lighting conditions, and see if that helps figure it out - unless you get the camera looked at and find out something isn't working correctly. Looks like she would have had some nice pictures once she gets the hang of using the camera and framing shots etc.

Gavjenks · Aug 21, 2013

Is the first frame the frame that would be on the very,very OUTSIDE wrap of the 120 film reel in the developing tank?

Ooh I like the first frame exposed to chemicals by a shoddy reel wrapping technician theory.

This is fun. Are you absolutely sure there wasn't a second sharp shot, of a grassy knoll perhaps?

maris · Aug 22, 2013

None of the pictures you show are the negatives that your girlfriend actually shot. They look like the results of what the lab tried (and failed?) to do with with scans of those negatives. If you show the negatives themselves, the actual things that went through the camera, I reckon the problem could identified immediately.

Derrel · Aug 22, 2013

On the first three shots from the color film roll there are very clear,plain vertical bands that indicate a bad SCAN was done on those frames of the film after they were developed, OR that the film is so,so under-exposed and dark that the scanner is doing its best to pull detail out of a very bad piece of film. Same goes for the shot of the dishes in the China hutch--vertical digital lines, which are noise from the scanning process.

What is odd is that you have TWO photos, shown consecutively, that feature the orchid on the dining table, and the first shot looks okay, and the second one is awful; I wonder why one frame would be okay, and the other so awful? Makes me wonder if the scanner that's scanning the negatives is acting weird, maybe not picking or being assigned the correct film profile, and thus utterly botching up the scans?

This hybrid process, of developing the film, then scanning the negatives and making any prints "digitally", as opposed to printing "wet, directly from negatives" using the older style method, has become the norm at many labs.

I have a question: is the light meter in the camera COUPLED to the f/stop and shutter, or is the meter non-coupled? Does one need to transfer the f/stop and shutter speed settings by hand, or is it automatically done?

Gavjenks · Aug 22, 2013

What is odd is that you have TWO photos, shown consecutively, that feature the orchid on the dining table, and the first shot looks okay, and the second one is awful; I wonder why one frame would be okay, and the other so awful? Makes me wonder if the scanner that's scanning the negatives is acting weird, maybe not picking or being assigned the correct film profile, and thus utterly botching up the scans?

Most likely exposure bracketing. People don't often just waste a ton of film shooting the same thing with the same settings over and over. Two identical shots were probably taken with different exposures on purpose to make sure one came out if the photographer was unsure. She failed at one and got closer it on the other. I do this often with a digital camera, despite it quite definitely having a working and coupled meter.

I really doubt the scanner failed, as opposed to the alternative of trying to signal boost an almost black negative (the incorrect side of the bracket) by multiple EVs

The whole scanner thing probably also sheds light (ha ha) on the original black and white photos puzzle. You thought it couldn't be a leak, Derrel, because there were no super dense black spots. Well, maybe there WERE super dense black spots, like that cat, and the scanner simply automatically boosted the signal to neutral gray. Or if it's a development problem, it would more easily explain that, too.

SoulfulRecover · Aug 22, 2013

with the photos that are the same, she said she tried a different setting for each. So one was at say f16 and the other at f5.6 (just as an example)

here are the photos of the B&W negatives:

and the light meter on the camera:

its completely independent from the camera. You set the film ISO which is attached to the shutter speed. so the tab moves as you adjust the ISO knob. then you line up the green arrow with the red arrow (red arrows moves on its own depending on the light) and that is attached to the aperture tab which moves. then once you have the two arrows lined up, you can choose your shutter speed and aperture. so in the photo as an example you would be shooting 100 ISO film at f/5.6 @ 1/4th of a second for the correct exposure. thats when you would adjust all the knobs on the camera.

sorry for the cell phone pics. I had to get them right before work.

Designer · Aug 22, 2013

SoulfulRecover said:
with the photos that are the same, she said she tried a different setting for each. So one was at say f16 and the other at f5.6 (just as an example)

With an inquiry of this type, you're going to have to control the variables so that only one is being changed at a time. Have some camera technician examine the camera for proper function, THEN run another roll through it, making detailed notes on each exposure, and changing only one thing at a time. When you get that roll processed, compare the negatives and prints with the notes taken during exposure, and perhaps then you will have your answer.