8mm Forum: film fungus

This is topic film fungus in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Del Phillipson (Member # 513) on September 26, 2006, 01:39 PM:

Wondered if any of you out there could help. I dug out an old home made cine film of me and the wife when we were courting, unfortunately when I got the spool out, the film was loose on the reel. When I ran the film the first 50 feet was fine, but when I got to the next 100 feet it had black blobs all over the screen (it looked like black snow flakes) I was gutted and wondered if there waqs anything I could do to remedy this, any advise would be appreciated, Del.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on September 27, 2006, 04:15 AM:

Hi,

this could be anything from dirt to fungus. (Film fungus is rumored to occur especially on Afga and Perutz material processed before 1980.)
I would try any of the standard film cleaners - at the end of film or with an unimportant scene.
If no DIY-method helps: several labs over a film-restauration/-cleaning which includes ultrasoniq cleaning, ... .

Jörg

Posted by Del Phillipson (Member # 513) on September 27, 2006, 04:02 PM:

Thanks Jorg, it could be fungus, didn't know whether or not it might be a result of frost, It is on the underside of the film.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on September 29, 2006, 08:23 AM:

Hi,

if it is fungus:
a) store that film separately from your other films
b) clean your projector/viewer with a cleaning-liquid that is suited for your equipment and that kills bacteria and fungus.

You should send the film to someone who could clarify whether it's dirt or fungus (or maybe some remnants from processing that hardened and turned black).

Jörg
P.S.: There might be more things to do to prevent the fungus from spreading.

Posted by Del Phillipson (Member # 513) on October 02, 2006, 10:09 AM:

Jorg, you've got me worried now, although the 2 fifty foot films that are affected are spooled together with another 50 foot sound film and this is totally unaffected. Del.

P.S. the sound film is the first one.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on October 02, 2006, 11:10 AM:

http://www.filmshooting.com/scripts/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5285&highlight=film+fungus

If it is film-fungus, it'll try to spread like all other fungus. Hence cleaning the film-path, ... should be done before risking to infect other films. (Being paranoid in this case wouldn't hurt - better to waste some time than to ruin other films, isn't it?)
But I haven't seen/encountered any film-fungus myself, hence I can only repeat info found on the web. Maybe some other board-members can help?

Jörg

Posted by Del Phillipson (Member # 513) on October 04, 2006, 04:11 PM:

Joerg, I may have had some success, I cleaned the film with an optical cleaner and it removed whatever it was on the film, it was a long hard process and I'm now going to wait and see what the results are. First impressions are promising, I'll keep you informed. Del.

Posted by Andy Oliver (Member # 604) on October 06, 2006, 02:47 PM:

Hi, i can confirm emulsion fungus does affect agfa moviechrome film. All my 1982/3 images exposed on moviechrome 160 are totally unwatchable, cleaning the film makes no difference, moviechrome 40 is slightly better, but still plagued with fungus. I have also seen a large collection of home movies exposed around 1982-1984 on agfa and dixons super 8 stock, the collection too had suffered with fungus. Luckily i switched to kodachrome in late 1983, and those images are perfect, so too are ektachrome 160 images from the same era. BTW, going off topic, is it me, but i am sure my e160 images are sharper than the new 64t stock with less grain!!!

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on October 06, 2006, 06:06 PM:

I used mainly Agfa Moviechrome 40 sound and silent and have no signs of fungus on any of my films. I have to say that I was led to believe that this sort of problem was caused by damp. It is also possible to get bugs that feed on the gelatin and these will also cause dark patches etc on the film.

Interesting item about the sharpness issue. I saw some tests when I worked in the R&D labs of Ilford Films which showed that the grainier a film the sharper it looked.

This is caused by the more sharp edges of the silver crystals giving a sharper look to the finished photographed image. The finer the grain the less sharp edges you have to help make edges look sharp. Its very difficult to expalin all this but its all due to what are called edge effects (enhancement). The bigger the grain the better the edge effects and vice versa. This is a visual effect but measured sharpness is a differnt story.

Black and white film tends to have a different grain structure and generally better edge effects over colour film. This is why Kodachrome was so sharp for a fine grain film becuause it really is layers of monochrome film until processed at which point the dyes are added.

Kev.

Posted by Del Phillipson (Member # 513) on October 08, 2006, 01:08 PM:

well, whatever it was has been removed from the films and the films relubricated. They are now stashed away from the rest of my films and we'll see in a month or two. I must admit that these films will at some point have been stored in the loft so damp could have had a major effect, strange though how it didn't effect the sound film that was also on the same reel. Del.

Posted by Barry Johnson (Member # 84) on October 09, 2006, 08:12 AM:

Slightly off the subject,but recently,I have been copying my seriously old favourite VHS tapes to DVD-even so called protected ones (there is a way and not using computers) and noticed that a white powdery mould had grown on the stored tape.Once fast forwarded,it all deisappeared.Strikes me that all polyester type substrates react in this way-film or film based things like recording tape.
It must pay to check ones archives from time to time to see if they have any unwanted moulds appear and run them through to get rid of this.

Posted by Hugo Onghena (Member # 4347) on July 09, 2014, 06:50 AM:

I noticed those stains too. I have one film that is completely "unwatchable". Some are more or less affected.
Oddly enough, parts that were added in between, like titles, are not affected at all.
I had no succes with a film cleaner. Films are stored in a dry place. The Kodak's are OK. Wish I could contact a Chemist from Agfa, but sadly they were probably all retired with the firm.

Posted by Marshall Crist (Member # 1312) on July 09, 2014, 01:09 PM:

About a year ago I got a silent print of Castle Films' THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US and it had brown dots on it. Based on comments in a thread that was circulating around here at the time, it seemed like it might be due to faulty lab work. I recently got a Little Rascals print with the same dots and am concerned that it may be something more sinister. Any thoughts?

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on July 09, 2014, 01:20 PM:

I have a couple of 16mm prints with those brown dots on them. They haven't worsened over the years I've had them.

They are thought to be due to incomplete washing of the print during printing allowing droplets of fixer to remain.

They are also deemed to only show up in B&W prints, higher silver content prints.

They don't wash off, but as I said, they don't appear to worsen either.

There's been a lot of discussion of this condition on the 16mm forums.

Posted by Marshall Crist (Member # 1312) on July 09, 2014, 05:58 PM:

Thanks. Pretty much what I remembered, and glad to have it confirmed.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on July 10, 2014, 11:02 AM:

Welcome on this forum, Hugo.

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