A story about a problem with an outdated roll of Ilford SFX 200, and excellent service.
I visited Oare Gunpowder Works in Kent, England, with a few other members of Whitstable Photographic Group, and shot infrared film with my Bronica SQAi. I used Ilford SFX 200 and an IR72 filter, setting the exposure meter to 3 ISO. I also took the opportunity to test a 250mm PS lens bought recently from Canterbury Cameras for a bargain price. The lens performed very well. I did sometimes forget to put the IR72 filter back on after composing and focussing my image though; I've previously shot infrared with a TLR and a rangefinder camera, both of which allow me to leave the filter in place.
I developed the film in Ilfotec DDX and found a serious problem, there were dark spots on the negatives. When printed, it looked a little like heavy snow.
The problem was noticeably worse at the start of the film than the end. I initially assumed the spots were caused by a little accident in the fridge a couple of years ago, when the film carton was soaked with blood. Let me assure you, this wasn’t the result of a violent end for somebody trying to steal my last precious rolls of Fuji 400H. The refrigerator in the utility room serves two purposes; I keep my film on the top shelf and my wife keeps the dogs’ raw meat on the next shelf down. At some point my wife had contaminated the film with the raw meat! I thought the film would be OK because it was still sealed in its foil packet but when I saw the problem, I guessed it was caused by damp from the blood and the fact the film was 18 months out of date.
One of the images at the end of the roll was, I thought, quite effective with the mottling adding a texture to the image so I shared it on Flickr and it actually made it into Flickr “Explore” as the 289th most interesting image uploaded that day! It also attracted a few comments from people suggesting the real problem with the “Ilford Backing Paper Problem”, about which I had not previously heard. I contacted Ilford, providing the index number from the edge of the film and giving them a link to the image on Flickr. They agreed it was the backing paper problem, which they have discussed here.
They agreed to replace the film and sent me a roll of SFX 200 to replace the outdated one which had the defect. I think that’s astonishing service, I can’t think of any other company who would do this given the film was out of date anyway. Take a bow, Ilford. They even sent a hand-written note with the films. I’ll repeat the shots at the Gunpowder Works when there’s a hot sunny day and I’m not at work. And I'll definitely keep shooting Ilford film, but I keep the boxes in sealed food bags in the refrigerator now!
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