Hi folks, Thanks for taking a look and for all the suggestions. Thought I would give an update.
William Robb: > Pull the film entirely out of the cassette and inspect it carefully > for scratches. I did that, thanks for the tip on leaving the leader out. Looking sideways on the dark (back) side of the film, I can see periodic marks (just under a shot apart) in the first few shots. I would place them on the rubber roller on the film take-up shaft, or the plastic roller under it. I cleaned them both with my hand. I can also see a scratch going all the way along the film, about 1/3 of the way from the top. On the other side I can see a light scratch going all the way along the film very close to the bottom perforations. I can see no related artifacts on my prints from the previous films. Rob Studdert: > Inspect the film cavity, guide rails and rollers inside the camera > and blow out any debris. As I had nothing to blow with, I used a vacuum cleaner. I went nowhere near the shutter, as suggested. Before that, I did the shake-with-the-lens-up trick and nothing fell in my eyes :-) Boris Liberman: > You see, if you shot several frames one right after the other and > all of them had been scratched, then perhaps it could be a camera. That's what I thought too. I shot two films very close to each other and posted them both to Ilfords at the same time. Before these I had shot one on crappy (old?) film that came up with large with lines across the film (incl perforations) but no horizontal scratches or marks of any kind similar to the B&Ws in question or what I see with naked eye on the sacrificial film. After the old film I shot another one very quickly and had it developed but not printed (only an index print). My next step is to try to scan these and see what happens. Then there were the 2 B&Ws (with the first exhibiting the known problems and the other slightly better) and then the victim-in-the-name-of-science film :-) No conclusion for me so far... William Robb: > > http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/~kavousan/scratches.jpg (48KB) > > The scratches on the lower left...are they on the base or the > emulsion? It looks like its from the film carrier. Sorry, can't tell :-( Also, the film carrier, is that in the camera, or the lab's processing equipment? And on the same post: > The cluster puss on the child's arm looks like a finger print, the > rest is just basic dust. The cluster puss goes all the way down to the perforations. Perhaps I put that. But the white mark on the baby's chick and that on the priest's gown or that just next to the man's head? Are they dust in the camera exposed on the film? Butch Black: > Was this conventional or C-41 B&W? and if it was traditional B&W > were they using a leader card processor? I think C-41 is the colour process, right? TMAX400 is an old-style B&W film. Am I answering your question? As for the leader card, this was mail-order at the UK Ilford lab; no phone known (but I will find it if I am sure that it's the lab to blame) and no direct human contact. Marnie: > I had some B&W prints developed at local camera shop. As I said in my first post, this is Ilford's Premium lab, not some dive. Which is why I appreciate everybody's help, before telling them I have a problem with their work. Any opinions on the marks and scratches? Any other ideas for investigation? I will scan the previous film and ask the previous owner too. Kostas
