Mottling Problem

megob

Hello! Unfortunately, I have no idea for the "mottling issue", as we are just only buying our booth and planning to set it up soon. But I saw in your post the name of a paper / chemicals supplier, outfit up - can not find them an the internet. Would you have any web adress or telephine number? Thanks, and good luck with your printing issue!

FourFlashGuy

Does your studio have heater belt and if so, what temp. do you run your studio??

lummer57

Thanx for reply FourFlashGuy. Yes our photobooth has a heater. Just the first developer tank is heated. It is a double tank. It is metal. Think that it maintains temperature at 85 degrees farenheit. 2nd(1/2) developer and rest of tanks are all single tanks made of plastic and are unheated. This photobooth is kept indoors in a temperature controlled shopping arcade which is pretty much always 68 degrees farenheit.

megob

sorry lummer57 I misunderstood your posting a little bit ; )) I have found the canadian supplier yesterday on the internet and got into contact with him. Thx

MBphototech

Hi. What you dexcribe would normally be an indication of chemicals going bad, yet you say the condition is there right after a change. Could it be that the unopened chemical kits that you have now have gone "stale" and lost their potency. This could happen if your kits are very old (6 months or so) or if they have not been kept in a cool dark place. It sounds like you are doing everything else right. Try a fresh new kit.

lummer57

Thanx for your reply MBphototech. Indeed chemistry we are using is over 6x months old. As we get it from Canada which is somewhat involved we bought a years worth at one time. We did so aprox. one year ago. It does come in sealed bags though. My experience with regular photo chemicals is that sealed dry(which is how this comes) unmade chemicals should last a few years before going stale/bad. Wish I knew ingredients and directions for what amount of what so as we could make up our own chemistry. By any chance do you or anyone else reading this have such information ?? I tried internet search but couldn't come up with anything. Thanks very much.

Robert

The date of the chemistry shouldn't matter. I run a 1955 Model 11 and have run into the same problem, though in my 1960 Model 14 I have never had any markings. I have all the manuals and will look into it a little more.

megob

Hi lummer57 and Robert,

it seems we have the same problem (brown stains or streaking on the strips). The canadian supplier we get the chemicals from says that eiter water is too hard, or we need to heat the tanks. In his opinion, the clear does not wash off the bleach sufficently. We heated the tanks to 30 degrees Celsius now but little or no improvement. Did you find any solution already? We could exchange scans of the strips to see if the staining is the same. I try to attach a scan of a white (fully exposed) strip here - is this how it looks in you case as well? Not sure if attaching works. If not, you could leave you email and I will send you a sample to check.

Robert

I don't see a picture but if you have a brownish tinge on the right & left side of the whole strip then you need to heat the #6 (clearing). I drop immersion heaters into my #6 tanks for about 15 mins before I open the booth for the event. It takes perfect white pics then. Ask George if he has any immersion heaters that he can sell you. I am not sure what kind of heater you have in your #1 tank but if it is an immersion style it is long and hangs on the splash guard. Just remember if you're going to use an in-tank heater don't leave it on for more than 15 mins, you don't want to melt your tanks.

If you are using a belt heater around all the tanks, try going up to 32 or 33 degrees and see if that makes a difference.

megob

Robert, thanks a lot for your hints! The attachment function for the posts here did not work. I've put a sample picture here http://home.snafu.de/martin.krohs/01_scaled.JPG With photographs on it the effect is roughly speaking the same, but on a white (fully exposed) strip it is better visible. This is unheated (20 C). We heated to 28 C as George advised us to heat, and got a slightly better result. I will try heating to 34 now. We have a heater belt, it takes more than an hour to heat. As we will have an event soon that starts in the morning ; ) I will try to get hold of an immersion heater. Good idea.... ! I'll see if I can find something that does not boil the clear... thx once more!

Robert

If your heating takes an hour, try using room temp water to mix instead of cold. The more you do it the better you will get at estimating temps. I usually use 1/4 tank lukewarm - 3/4 tank cool in my #1 & dbl #6.

Try experimenting with warmer water when doing the #6 instead of buying stuff. I would suggest keeping your chems after your gig and using them to test with instead of wasting another set. They should be good for a week or 2 even after heavy use.

Also just thought I'd ask, you are using fresh chems each gig though aren't you?

Anyhow good luck, I gotta bang out 4 all-night gigs in the next 3 days.

megob

hello we did a lot of experimenting now, and the results have dramatically improved. We're heating dev and clear with two aquarium heaters each, they are heating up reasonable quickly and hold the temp at aroung 30 celsigrade. We use distilled water now instead of tap water for mixing the chems, what could have an influence on the results as well. But most strikingly, the pictures get a lot better after the 50th or so paper strip with new chemicals - did you make the same experience? As I understand lummer 57, he has... strange, but maybe some buffering has to occur before the chemicals work 100% fine. Anyway, the pictures are impeccable now and I hope they will stay like this. As to your question, Robert - we have just started running the booth, and are still on the first set of chemicals. We've already reused them after transporting the booth to a new place, and everything was fine. I do not yet see a need to use fresh chems with every gig - as long as results are ok, we plan to reuse them, at least for 6 weeks or so. But we'll see with the time how this is going. Good luck and success to you as well!

lummer57

Hello. I run a photobooth(B&W model from early '50's) for a non profit. Unfortunately it does not see much use. Only a dozen to two dozen uses a week. I change chemicals every 4x weeks and change water baths and top up chemicals every week. We sometimes have mottling problems. Usually after we change chemicals. It looks like streaking & blotches & stains. I am calling this mottling for lack of better word. Also not even sure mottling is spelled correctly. It is usually just on the top 2x photos. We get our paper & chemistry from outfit up in Canada(george). We mix it correctly. What could we be doing wrong ? What can we do to correct this issue ? Thanks in advance for replys/help/advice.