What are these spots?

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I'm totally flummoxed by this. Check it out:

Ordinarily, dark spots means undissolved developer, in my experience. But this film was souped in D76 that I have been using for weeks, with no such problem. Also, D76 flecks are not "soft" like these, and are distributed over the whole roll.

But on this roll, only about half the frames have them--indeed, they came in clusters, three or four pictures with spots (you can see them gathering density on 1 and 4, and they are most prevalent on 2 and 3), and then three or four pictures without them.

The only thing I did different this time is to mix up new stop and fix--but they're from liquid, not powder. Everything else was exactly the same as usual. Plus, it isn't anything on the lens--I used two lenses on this roll and both had the spots.

I've almost convinced myself there was some kind of flaw with this batch of film--it's 5222-XX.

Any ideas?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I wonder if they're air bubble spots? It's hard to tell in your little image, I'd have to see the neg through a magnifier, or a decent size print or scan. If air bubbles cling to the emulsion side of the film, they'll make dark spots. Do you hit the tank on your hand or the counter after each agitation cycle? I actually do that after each and every inversion of the tank because i get them pretty easy if i don't. Are you agitating more gently than normal? That can cause bubbles to stick to the film. Also agitating too much can cause extra bubbles to form in the solution and some will inevitably adhere to the film.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I meant the air bubbles will make clear spots on the neg, dark spots on the print or scan.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Yeh, I hear ya! I was souping kind of haphazardly today, but I don't think I was agitating any differently. Maybe I was though...but why would it do this four-frame-on, four-frames-off kind of thing?

 

[drewbarb]

5222 is known to occasionally exhibit pin holes and other small defects in the emulsion, and I think that's what you're seeing here. Remember, this film was formulated as moving picture stock, not for stills. At 30 frames per second or so, you'd never see these things.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about your dev'ing technique- from this and other posts of yours, it sounds like you know what you're doing, and you are careful with your processing. It's probably just a bad roll.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

That's what I want to hear! I haven't seen this on XX before, I've done about 20-25 rolls...but a bad roll is definitely better than a bad shutter, or Sonnar, or chemistry.

 

[Cale Arthur]

I'm with drewbarb on this. I've seen all manner of odd crap on my XX negs, including anomalies just like the ones that you've got there. Maybe it's just me, but this seems to happen more frequently at the beginning and end of a 400' roll. That being said, are you fairly confident that your tank was clean?

 

[Keith]

I was going to suggest putting the film back onto the developing reel if you haven't cut it ... it sounds like the contamination was in one section of the tank and that could have caused the random effect on the full length negative.

 

[xayraa33]

I once got something similar when I developed a film that spent 11 years in a camera.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

The tank was quite clean. I suspect it's the XX. I wonder if Leo has had any problem with this, he's the one who rolled it...anyway, I got lucky, none of the best photos had the spots (though my uncle there would beg to differ, I'm sure).

 

[sepiareverb]

You might have static electricity marks? I had this one time on 35mm, a long time ago. If you really get in close with them do they have radiating "sparks"?