Help me identify these mystery spots.

raytoei@gmail.com

raytoei@gmail.com

Veteran
Local time
12:30 PM
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Messages
2,022
hi,

sorry for sounding like an alarmist.

I found a whole roll of fomapan 400 with spots in the frames.

I either shot this with a Rolleiflex or more likely with a Hassy.

At first I thought it has to be the shutter cloth but I realised that both does not use a focal plane shutters. (doh!)

Can I know what is the cause of this problem ?

Is it:

* light leaks ?
* in adequate fixer ?
* defective or expired Fomapan

thanks !

this is a 100% crop of the photo.

belle-bad.jpg
 
One possibility for the spots are bubbles that formed on the film during development. This has been my experience with Foma 400 in the past but when I started presoaking the film before development the problem went away.
 
ItsReallyDarren said:
One possibility for the spots are bubbles that formed on the film during development. This has been my experience with Foma 400 in the past but when I started presoaking the film before development the problem went away.
Click to expand...

Nah, air bubbles during development would be turn out black in the image.
I know similar effects from not complete solved powder developer...
 
haempe, isreallydarren,

thanks.

this is my 5th roll being developed in the same process.

pre-soak + rodinal developer + water stop bath + fixer + wash.

I am more inclined to think that it is not fixer problem as insufficient fixer = milky. Whereas in this case, there seem to be pinpoint problems througout the whole film.

FIlm defect anyone ?


raytoei
 
I would be looking at the chemicals to see if there were any bits floating about, it looks like contamination to me
 
It's a common problem of having Calcium salts in your water. Fresh films have more problems with it and even Ortho and Orthopan sensitizers are very sensible for this.

So you have to switch from water quality. Try demi- water or even better destilled water for preparing your chemicals. A Britta (TM) filter will normally also work well. Also cooking the water will remove also the oxygen and the calcium salts for 80%.

I am also using Fomapan 400 film and have not one spott on it. You can only have micro scratches due to a tight loading system of your camera. To much stress between the film emulsion and backing paper but .... Foma changed of type backing paper to a better (German) quality and this small problem will be over. Except from the fact the film has an iso 250 rate in most developers it has a nice pronounced grain.

Greetz,

Robert
 
Fotohuis,

thanks, one question is:

is this largely at the developing portion ? ie. the water used for devleoping is the issue. Or does this affect washing or fixing as well ?

I noticed this in the previous 5 rolls from the last 2 days. But this roll is the most pronounced and this whole roll is unusable :(



thanks
 
The problem exists in the pre-wash, the developer but not in the stop (normally Acid so Calcium will dissolve) and so far as tested not in the fixer. The washing is a diffuss process and only in the last step you can have stripes or drops so a good idea to use destilled water with a small amount of wetting agent.
 
I had/have the same problem with two Pro-Packs of TMY 400 in 120 format...
It's not the developer, or pre-wash, or fix or calcium in the water...I can develop any other film that I have right now in the exact same chemistry and it will turn out perfectly fine...
Looking at the film after it's dry you can see the black spots all over the film surface not just in the image area...on the last rolls I developed I scraped the emulsion to see if it was on the surface or in the film and I had to scrape a bit to get to the black spots...
This film is expired BUT it's been in the frige since I bought it...
I do use this film for testing cameras and that's it...
I just figure it's bad film and nothing I'm doing has caused it...
I bought 4 or 5 pro-packs of this film and it's the last ten rolls that are bad the others were fine...I sometimes wonder if being in the frige this long had any affect on them...
The boxes were sealed up until I started using them...
 
Last edited:
fotohuis,

i used mineral water for pre-soak, development, water bath, post-fix wash. there weren't any spots.

<hooray> but yesterday I reverted to using normal tap water...didn't have problems as well ...

Hmmm.....i am gonna monitor this closely.

btw, this problem doesn't affect my 35mm film, only the 120 gets these white deposits.

thanks
 
Last edited:
Do you use Fotoflow (or similar)? Do you mix it fresh for each session or save it for reuse? I found things growing in a batch after a week that caused spots on my negs just like those.
 
Fresh film is more sensitive for the problem. So that can explain the difference in 35mm and roll film.
But the main problem is in your (tap-) water quality not the film itself.

At least and fortunateley for you it seems to be possible to generate good quality negatives.
 
Ray, get a Charcoal filter for your kitchen tap, this will solve the mineral in the water.. I use one that screws into the tap itself. I used Xtol, and mixed with filtered water, but still had this problem every so often.. I now use Rodinal, and so far, no problems... I know Xtol is REAL SENSITIVE to minerals in the water. Plus Rodinal is a liquid to start with... BTW, No need to pre-soak, I have found advantage to this at all for 35mm.
 
Examine the negatives with a high poser magnifier. Is it over developed black spots or something clinging to the surface of the negative?
 
I was getting similar spots - but *a lot more* of them - using rodinal with Fomapan 400. My well water is very hard. Started using Britta filtered water for developer, H2O stop, mixing fixer, rinse after fixer, final rinse after washing, and for foto-flo. Only tap water was the rinse - preceded and followed by filtered water.

No more spots - well maybe a very rare one.

KenD
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom