stuff on the film

[starless]

I've been scanning some film from last year and I noticed it has these strange things on it. Is this dust? Or is this due to insufficient washing of the film? Hard water ... The thing is I don't remember seeing those when I was looking through the film a year ago.

 

[tammons]

What sort of developer, expiration date and how old is your mix ??

I have a friend that was using xtol he had sitting around for way too long and had obviously gone bad. He had all sort of stuff on the emulsion on every roll and it slowly got worse.

It looked like dust, and it had some specs in it too.
He tried everything, distilled water, humidifier, cleaned his changing bag again and again etc etc
the entire time thinking it was dust, but it was not. It was bad developer.

When he switched to a fresh bottle of HC-110 that fixed it.

 

[starless]

All my film is done with D-76 1:1 do you think it might have been expired or exhausted? I had 6 more film developed the same day so I will check them tomorrow and see if this happened on all of them.

But I noticed that there is some white stuff on the negative sleeve as well, like a residue or like stains when hard water dries off. Could it be bad fixer or something in the water?

But yes, definitely no dust.

 

[mooge]

can you rub it off if you breathe on the film and wipe it?

 

[tammons]

I would probably dump the chems, get some distilled h20 and mix some fresh dev and fixer and see if that fixes it.

I bet it will.

 

[morback]

Looks like what I get when I do the final rinse (with photo flo) with tap water. I switched it to bottled water and now my negs are sparkling...

 

[starless]

Tried to get it off with by rubbing it off and wiping but doesn't work. Looks like it's stuck on the film and it looks like it is on the reflective side of the film.

Not that this is an important film for me but I can't afford this to happen again in the future!

 

[starless]

In fact these things seem to appear on other films as well. Films that I know have been developed up to the highest standards. So it is something due to storing them ... Could it be some kind of dust and humidity combination ...

 

[drewbarb]

This looks and sounds like chemical precipitate of some sort. Could be from hard water, but more likely it's from your chemistry. Try re-washing this film; if this doesn't get rid of it, you could re-fix while it's still wet (though I doubt it needs re-fixing if the base is clear).

If you are worried about your developer going forward, mix up some fresh, and make sure to keep it clean. Be careful to rinse thoroughly, especially between the dev and the fix with stop bath or plenty of clean water if you don't use stop. Be careful with your washes- maybe wash longer? Also- do you use photo-flo or any other washing aid? You could try mixing it in distilled water- especially if you are worried about hard water.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

 

[starless]

Thanks a lot. I will have this in mind next time I develop my film.

These are mostly 1-2 year old negs. I don't think they had this problem when I was scanning them at the time. Could it be fungus or mold? I have no idea how fungus looks on a negative film?

 

[RayPA]

If you can see that there's something ON the negative then it's probably just scum. I wouldn't toss the developer. I'd look to the washing and rinsing stages. Make sure that you are getting good flow/exchange of water during washing and use a freshly made rinse of distilled water and PhotoFlo. Give the film a good soak in the rinse and squeegee before hanging to dry.


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[starless]

Oh, ok it probably is just gunk. So I don't need alcohol, just soak the strip in distilled water for a few minutes?

 

[rover]

clean your negatives as best you can and if you still find this type of issue, then you have some post processing work to do. this type of thing is easily cloned out in photo shop.