Fixer or developer

[zzmike76]

hello all

from time to time I get the following spots on my negatives, and would like to understand whether it is the fixer or developer who is causing this issue. For fixer I usually use demineralized water as I use it more than once, while for developer tap water

thanks and regards
Michele

 

[Bill Clark]

Hard for me to figure out.

Could be a number of things.

Can you tell if it's embedded in your negative or something sitting on top of it?

 

[zzmike76]

am afraid of scratching it as I never did it, is there a way to understand whether it's on the surface or embedded?

 

[Larry H-L]

As Bill said, it is difficult to say without more information.

Can you see something dark or black on the negative in that spot?

Can you feel the defect if you touch it lightly with your finger.

Is it on the emulsion side, or base side.

Without knowing more, since the edges of the spot are white and relatively crisp, I am guess it is a tiny piece of lint or other substance stuck the the film.

 

[Steve M.]

I'm not sure what that is, but I will relay this little tid bit of information....when I started filtering all of my chemicals through a coffee filter and used only distilled water (except of course for the rinse), 99% of my developing issues like this disappeared. You can do this either after mixing up your stock solutions or before a developing session, but I found it more convenient to filter stuff before each session because you are dealing w/ smaller quantities of chemicals.

 

[alexandru_voicu]

In my opinion, these spots are caused by old fixer. I once experienced something similar with some old foma rapid fixer.

 

[John Bragg]

Can be some debris in the fixer which has come from the inside of the bottle. I have had similar artefacts caused this way. Even fresh solution in an old bottle can be affected this way. One way of avoiding this is to use a fresh bottle every time you mix fresh stock.

 

[zzmike76]

thanks to everybody, will try with a new fixer/bottle combo. when trying to mechanically clearing the negative the spot was removed,so it is not embedded in the emulsion. but it looks like debris and not dust