Developing Problems and Bad Photos

I'll only share a couple photos today. For some reason, this TMax 400 roll did not develop well. Two major problems plague the result: surge lines and incomplete fixing. I developed this exactly as I always develop 400 ISO film and, in an effort to prevent surge marks (a few rolls this year have has minor and limited surging), I agitated the two rolls in this tank very slowly. Still, these are the worst surge lines I've ever seen.

Surge lines occur on film when the agitation is too quick. The developer moves over the film at different speeds. During development, developing chemicals read the film surface through the perforation holes as well as through the gaps in the loading spiral. So, for some reason, this roll developed surge lines. The other roll did not.

Also, this roll came our purple when finished. Even though this was fixed for seven minutes, the fix did not clear all the film surface off the negatives. The purple tint made the negatives slightly less contrasty and, in a few years, the images will be completely muddy. To fix this, I could re-fix it in another, longer fix bath. However, that would not correct the surge lines, so I don't see any reason to bother.


1/30th, f5.6. Taken from one angle, the hand appears to be giving the ball to someone.


1/50th, f5.6. Taken from a different angle, it appears to be mid-pitch.


1/640th, f4. These are the surge lines I mentioned. They were less evident in the above photos because of the light background.


1/800th, f4.

So, today's lesson: even gentle agitation can leave surge lines. To prevent this, I'll need to agitate even more slowly in the future. Also, TMax requires a much longer fixing time than other films. So future rolls will go back to a ten-minute fixing bath with three sets of rotations. This fixing bath was seven minutes with two rotations (one minute at the outset and then 30 seconds halfway through.)

In sum, very disappointing results from last Monday.