Re: Pinholes?? In MY negatives??

[Marco Pauck <pauck@xxxxxx>]

Geoff McAuliffe wrote:
>     I have been shooting HIE on and off for almost 30 years. Never have I
> encountered the pinhole problem often discussed on this fourm. My usual
> developer is straight D-76 but I decided to try Xtol (diluted 1:1) yesterday.
> Many frames have small white (clear) spots of varying sizes, which I assume are
> the dreded pinholes. The rest of my processing technique was unchanged, dilute
> stop bath and Kodak Rapid Fixer. All chemicals are made in distilled water.

That's funny! Almost exactly a year ago, I've reported
the same problem:
http://www.pauck.de/archive/mailinglist/infrared/mhonarc/msg08597.html

As you, I never had this problem with HIE in D-76 (stock
dilution as well as 1+1).

I don't think that these defects are 'real' pinholes, as
these have been identified as emulsion defects mainly
occuring in HSI sheets.

'Our' defects are probably caused by air bubbles.

But if this is true, the questions that remain are:
- Why do only a few people (two?) have this problem
  while other are happy with XTOL?
- Why does this problem not occur with D-76?

There seems to be one or more unknown parameters. Water
quality may be such a parameter. I always use tap water.
However, our local water quality is quite good and now
that you are reporting the same problem using distilled
water, I don't think that water quality is the main
parameter.

An addition to my previous message: I made another attempt,
this time with presoking for one or two minutes. The result
was a real disaster - the defects became even stonger!

Here're two examples:

Full image 1:
http://www.pauck.de/marco/photo/infrared/hie/defects_from_xtol1a.jpg
Magnified extract of image 1:
http://www.pauck.de/marco/photo/infrared/hie/defects_from_xtol1b.jpg
Full image 2:
http://www.pauck.de/marco/photo/infrared/hie/defects_from_xtol2a.jpg
Magnified extract of image 2:
http://www.pauck.de/marco/photo/infrared/hie/defects_from_xtol2b.jpg

After this experience I went back to good old D-76 and am
happy again, but I would also be interested in some good
theories about the cause and maybe even the cure ...

	Marco
--
Marco Pauck -- marco@xxxxxxxx -- http://www.pauck.de/marco/
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple,
neat, and wrong.  -- H. L. Mencken
*
****
*******
******************************************************
*  To remove yourself from this list, send:          *
*         UNSUBSCRIBE INFRARED                       *
*       to                                           *
*         MAJORDOMO@xxxxx                            *
*----------------------------------------------------*
*   For the IR-FAQ, IR-Gallery and heaps of links:   *
*  http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/mainpage.htm  *
******************************************************