Is this the start of Vinegar Syndrome?

[slashmaster]

I have a couple of black and white super 8 films from Blackhawk which all play fine but some of the frames or several in a row have spots unlike the normal spots from dust or hair on the film (or white spots from the negative). I stop the film to take a look at the film itself and I'm finding what looks like water spots on the emulsion side of the film, so far I have not seen the spots on the base side. I also sniffed the reel to see if it smells like vinegar but it smells like the film I just got back from processing. Could this be vinegar syndrome?

[jpolzfuss]

Hi,

this could be everything: fungus, films getting stored in a wet environment, a mistake made by the lab decades ago (remnants of the processing-chemicals that didn't got washed away properly), vinegar syndrome, ... .
The only way to detect vinegar syndrome is to use some "indicator papers" like the "A-D Strips":
https://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.or ... /ad-strips
http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic ... 15-11.html
http://www.ffr-film.de/index.php?page=a ... anguage=de
http://wittner-cinetec.com/katalog/03_v ... t.php#5174
http://www.preservationequipment.com/St ... $9D-Strips
Use google to find some more comments and/or sources.
(There several other (cheaper) "indicator papers" on the market. However most of them are only suited to test liquids. So the "A-D Strips" might be the only one to test film.)

Jörg

[slashmaster]

Thanks Jpolzfuss. I've got lots of interesting reading now.

[BAC]

Something like this was discussed on a different forum:

http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/u ... 774#000000