Is all B&W 120 film curly?

The Oldun

The Oldun

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I have been home developing 35mm since march this year and enjoy the experience, but recently I was gifted an Ensign Selfix 16-20 camera and shot some 120 on it. I chose Fomapan 200 because it was cheap. Developing was fine and the film went easily on to the spiral, but after drying the film wanted to roll itself back up, and this made it a pain in the bum for scanning. I would like to ask any medium format experts if this is the norm or is it just this brand of film?

EDIT: I forgot to mention it was developed at box speed in Ilfotec LC29. After drying, I left the film for 24 hours flat in my loose leaf file in a proper sleeve while I worked out a way I could scan them.
 
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I've had curly Foma 200 and non-curly Foma 200 in 120. Might have used different developers I can't recall but it is, in my limited experience, the curliest one yet.

Don't get much curl at all in the other 120's such as HP5 and Delta 100.
 
I have a vague recollection that when I developed roll film back around 1960 and before, that the film did have a tendency to curl; but in those days I didn't have weighted clips to use when drying.

Modern films usually/often (?) have a second gelatine coat below the base, partly to introduce a "reverse curl" which is caused when the gelatine dries out. After some searching, I found this site which gives more info:


I don't know if Foma follows this pattern...
 
The Oldun said:
I have been home developing 35mm since march this year and enjoy the experience, but recently I was gifted an Ensign Selfix 16-20 camera and shot some 120 on it. I chose Fomapan 200 because it was cheap. Developing was fine and the film went easily on to the spiral, but after drying the film wanted to roll itself back up, and this made it a pain in the bum for scanning. I would like to ask any medium format experts if this is the norm or is it just this brand of film?
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I've possibly only shot a single roll of this film , but pulling out the sheet of negs from the folder and holding it up still results in a slight curl, even 8 months after they were filed! I used to have curl problems with other 120 films, to the extent that I ended up scanning them back to front to get the strip of negs to actually sit better in the holder, then flip them in Photoshop. I finally sourced a 120 filmholder with anti-newton glass to hold the film flat, so that reduced the problem greatly.

The cheap and simple way of improving things is to sleeve the neg strips and weigh them down with heavy books or similar at least overnight to try and flatten them before scanning.
 
I find the 120 Ilford films are much curlier than their 35mm version.
 
The Oldun said:
I have been home developing 35mm since march this year and enjoy the experience, but recently I was gifted an Ensign Selfix 16-20 camera and shot some 120 on it. I chose Fomapan 200 because it was cheap. Developing was fine and the film went easily on to the spiral, but after drying the film wanted to roll itself back up, and this made it a pain in the bum for scanning. I would like to ask any medium format experts if this is the norm or is it just this brand of film?
Click to expand...

I have noticed Fomapan's curliness depends somewhat on temperature/humidity in my house.

In my previous flat I noticed it dried, and stayed, almost perfectly flat. Where I now live it tends to curl much more, and this place is drier than the old one, on average, based on a number of humidity/temp sensors I leave around.

One thing to add though is that the film plastic base with Foma is much thinner than say TriX or even Delta. I found this helps a lot when loading it onto the reel (it just goes through beautifully), but I suspect it also plays a role in making it prone to being curly. I have some rolls of Delta 100 which are really flat.
 
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trypdal said:
I have noticed Fomapan's curliness depends somewhat on temperature/humidity in my house.

In my previous flat I noticed it dried, and stayed, almost perfectly flat. Where I now live it tends to curl much more, and this place is drier than the old one, on average, based on a number of humidity/temp sensors I leave around.

One thing to add though is that the film plastic base with Foma is much thinner than say TriX or even Delta. I found this helps a lot when loading it onto the reel (it just goes through beautifully), but I suspect it also plays a role in making it prone to being curly. I have some rolls of Delta 100 which are really flat.
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Very good observations, hadn't considered the humidity or the thickness of the film base.
 
The Oldun said:
I have been home developing 35mm since march this year and enjoy the experience, but recently I was gifted an Ensign Selfix 16-20 camera and shot some 120 on it. I chose Fomapan 200 because it was cheap. Developing was fine and the film went easily on to the spiral, but after drying the film wanted to roll itself back up, and this made it a pain in the bum for scanning. I would like to ask any medium format experts if this is the norm or is it just this brand of film?

EDIT: I forgot to mention it was developed at box speed in Ilfotec LC29. After drying, I left the film for 24 hours flat in my loose leaf file in a proper sleeve while I worked out a way I could scan them.
Click to expand...
You could always switch to a 4x5 camera, those negs rarely curl ;)
 
I have discovered that I had missed the edge "traps" when I was inserting the film strip into the holder :(. Having purchased Vuescan, I can now rescan on my Canoscan 8800F and I will now experiment with other stocks.
 
As I always say, large format is just like medium format, but more so :)

I got into LF after a chat in a dealer's when buying some 120 film.
 
I've shot everything but I mostly use 120 Ilford these days, never had too much trouble with curling except 3200, that stuff ties itself in granny knots no matter what.
I kinda wonder how people do their drying, there may be other factors at play but I find film reasonably flat if its hung weighted over night.
135 sometimes curls down its length which can be as awkward to deal with as a tight spring, I don't shoot 135 much though so....
 
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