Lab said my ECN2 film is heat damaged ( thoughts?)

CHballer · Mar 4, 2025

ECN2 processed at a local lab - they called and told me the film looks heat damaged/ went through x rays. I'm skeptical as the film have been kept in the fridge since purchasing.

PS. the negatives have a really red base and seem to have positive image on them already (Highlight light and shadow dark)

The film is respooled 120 250D from Photodom Lab, did the Lab messed up the processing? or is it the problem of the film?

Romanko · Mar 4, 2025

Are the gaps between the frames the same red/magenta color? The leaders as well? Are you confident that your camera has no light leaks and the shutter is working properly?

koraks · Mar 5, 2025

CHballer said:
looks heat damaged/ went through x rays

I'm not buying that. Either would cause fog, generally only quite mild at that. It wouldn't create a reversal effect as shown here.

Did they run this film through E6 by mistake?

koraks · Mar 5, 2025

Romanko said:
Are you confident that your camera has no light leaks and the shutter is working properly?

This is not a camera/shutter issue. Don't even bother checking that factor.

lamerko · Mar 5, 2025

I once dropped the developing tank while the developer was inside - the lid opened in the light (a fluorescent lamp, about 4200K). In the chaos, it took a while before I doused the film with water and stopped the process. It turned out something similar, although not exactly the same.

ChrisGalway · Mar 5, 2025

If I understand it correctly, the film is showing the red/magenta colour right to the edges of the film itself, beyond the normal "frame". It's therefore not a camera/shutter issue, and does not look like fogging to me.

How old was the film?

lamerko · Mar 5, 2025

koraks said:
I'm not buying that. Either would cause fog, generally only quite mild at that. It wouldn't create a reversal effect as shown here.

Did they run this film through E6 by mistake?

It shouldn't. Reversing will make the areas between frames in DMAX.

koraks · Mar 5, 2025

ChrisGalway said:
How old was the film?

It's Vision3; this product line was introduced in 2007. It cannot possibly be old enough to produce very severe problems - apart from the fact that age alone won't do anything like this in the first place.

lamerko said:
I once dropped the developing tank while the developer was inside - the lid opened in the light (a fluorescent lamp, about 4200K). In the chaos, it took a while before I doused the film with water and stopped the process. It turned out something similar, although not exactly the same.

Yeah, something along those lines.

There's some kind of odd solarization going on which I'd expect to see if the chemistry is totally out of whack (e.g. a massive failure related to the bleach). Given that there's still a clear image exposure visible. This means that during development, no dramatic fogging to light could have taken place as this would have obliterated the image - and it would also simply result in very dense, more or less monochromatic negatives. Plus, fogging to light virtually always involves unevenness in the form of gradients, shadows, projected sprocket holes etc.

lamerko said:
It shouldn't. Reversing will make the distances between frames in DMAX.

You're correct; my E6 hypothesis also doesn't add up; you'd get fairly normal looking slides that way.

I'd like to see some more photos of the film as seen by the naked eye, especially the emulsion side, and also with light shining at an angle across the emulsion layer.

foc · Mar 5, 2025

If I remember correctly from my minilab days, heat damage to negative is usually seen radiating from the film edges and displayed magenta in the print. This would mean the negative displayed a greenish cast from the edges and not uniform across the negative.

From what I have seen in the OP images, it appears to be a processing error.

This is what the negative might look like (simulation)

dokko · Mar 5, 2025

difficult to tell for sure, but my guess would also be processing error.

looks like some strange solarisation, so could be they had light coming in in the middle of the process or some really wonky chemicals.
it's definitely not coming from hot storage, even if you cooked it, it would not look that way.

my experience was that most labs will mess up at some point, but blaming the photographer either means they are clueless that they had a problem in their processing or don't want to admit their error, both of which for me is a no go.

loccdor · Mar 5, 2025

Many are unwilling to entertain the possibility that a mistake is theirs, both in selling film and processing it.

I was sold about 20 rolls of film that were fogged. Opened in the light. It was obvious it couldn't have been anything I did because of the uniformity of it. The seller kept trying to find a reason that it was my fault.

My guess is that someone wasn't careful, and probably didn't even realize their mistake. Not malice, incompetence. It happens. I'd switch labs.

runswithsizzers · Mar 5, 2025

CHballer said:
The film is respooled 120 250D from Photodom Lab

I'm confused. How do we get from "respooled 120" to sprocket holes? Who did the respooling, Photodom, or...?

Is this 135 film shot in a 35mm film camera?

lamerko · Mar 5, 2025

runswithsizzers said:
I'm confused. How do we get from "respooled 120" to sprocket holes? Who did the respooling, Photodom, or...?

Is this 135 film shot in a 35mm film camera?

This is 65mm film that is perforated. It was cut to 61mm and rewound to 120. Recycled reels and rewinding paper were probably used.

CHballer · Mar 5, 2025

koraks said:
It's Vision3; this product line was introduced in 2007. It cannot possibly be old enough to produce very severe problems - apart from the fact that age alone won't do anything like this in the first place.

Yeah, something along those lines.

There's some kind of odd solarization going on which I'd expect to see if the chemistry is totally out of whack (e.g. a massive failure related to the bleach). Given that there's still a clear image exposure visible. This means that during development, no dramatic fogging to light could have taken place as this would have obliterated the image - and it would also simply result in very dense, more or less monochromatic negatives. Plus, fogging to light virtually always involves unevenness in the form of gradients, shadows, projected sprocket holes etc.

You're correct; my E6 hypothesis also doesn't add up; you'd get fairly normal looking slides that way.

I'd like to see some more photos of the film as seen by the naked eye, especially the emulsion side, and also with light shining at an angle across the emulsion layer.

Hi Koraks,

Here are the non scanned version of the negs. It's pretty dense - the subjects are pretty much undistinguishable

CHballer · Mar 5, 2025

ChrisGalway said:
If I understand it correctly, the film is showing the red/magenta colour right to the edges of the film itself, beyond the normal "frame". It's therefore not a camera/shutter issue, and does not look like fogging to me.

How old was the film?

The film was respooled last Sep and Ive purchased it and fridge stored since I took it out 4 days ago for shooting

CHballer · Mar 5, 2025

lamerko said:
I once dropped the developing tank while the developer was inside - the lid opened in the light (a fluorescent lamp, about 4200K). In the chaos, it took a while before I doused the film with water and stopped the process. It turned out something similar, although not exactly the same.

Were you able to recover the negatives at all? due to the reversal effect on the negatives, I was able to somewhat get some images back in lightroom:

Willyekerslike · Mar 5, 2025

Looks like it may have been respooled under a red safe light?

retina_restoration · Mar 5, 2025

loccdor said:
Many are unwilling to entertain the possibility that a mistake is theirs, both in selling film and processing it.

I was sold about 20 rolls of film that were fogged. Opened in the light. It was obvious it couldn't have been anything I did because of the uniformity of it. The seller kept trying to find a reason that it was my fault.

My guess is that someone wasn't careful, and probably didn't even realize their mistake. Not malice, incompetence. It happens. I'd switch labs.

That's what I think as well. I'm betting it was a lab error and for whatever reason, they're not taking responsibility, Switch labs ASAP.

However, you could easily verify whether the film is compromised or not by exposing another roll and send it to a different lab for comparison. If it comes back looking the same, then the film was compromised at some stage before it was processed.

lamerko · Mar 5, 2025

It looks like a very massive dichroic fog with silver casts...

CHballer said:
Were you able to recover the negatives at all?

Unfortunately, no...

OAPOli · Mar 5, 2025

Have you had successful rolls before that one? Or is this the first one from the batch? To rule out that there is an issue with the film itself, given that this is cut and respooled from 65mm stock.

koraks · Mar 5, 2025

lamerko said:
It looks like a very massive dichroic fog with silver casts...

Yes, I see what seems like (lots of) retained silver.

Looks like a major chemical malfunction.

You could try and re-bleach & re-fix them, which may make a small difference, but I'd consider these negatives FUBAR.

Willyekerslike said:
Looks like it may have been respooled under a red safe light?

That thought crossed my mind as well. But you generally end up with (unsurprisingly) negatives that invert to very red positives.

foc · Mar 5, 2025

koraks said:
Yes, I see what seems like (lots of) retained silver.

IIRC retained silver in C41 negatives can be viewed from the emulsion side and if tilted towards the light, the negative can appear to look like a faint positive (a bit like a Daguerreotype ! ! !).

koraks · Mar 5, 2025

foc said:
IIRC retained silver in C41 negatives can be viewed from the emulsion side and if tilted towards the light, the negative can appear to look like a faint positive (a bit like a Daguerreotype ! ! !).

Yes, that can certainly happen; I've seen it from time to time on color negative. It's in general the case that very thin silver images show up as positive due to how the light reflects on the silver. This only happens with very thin images, and since color negative is a relatively thin image (especially if it's partially fixed), it's very plausible indeed. I think I see precisely this in the bit I circled.

mshchem · Mar 5, 2025

So this is 65mm re-spooled onto 120 backing paper? Is this common? I recall Mercury, IIRC ?, did something like this. I would question the original supplier and the lab.
This is why I shoot Portra, Ektar, and Chrome films. If I plan to scan it's Fujichrome or Ektachrome hands down.

lamerko · Mar 6, 2025

Just out of curiosity, I looked up some Google reviews of the Photodom lab. Apparently, you're not the only one with these issues. Some of the things I read are pretty... stressful.
I wouldn't blame the film rewinding, but I wouldn't have my film processed (and scanned) there. The pricing for C-41 vs. ECN-2 also struck me - maybe a few red flags.

Lab said my ECN2 film is heat damaged ( thoughts?)

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Lab said my ECN2 film is heat damaged ( thoughts?)

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