What has gone wrong here??

[Jim C.]

That's a awesome lead, the particulates look virtually the same with the questionable developer from Boliva.

[bc_69]

Ok, I believe the culprit has been unmasked. I did two tests, one in an expert drum and the other in a tray. Before mixing the solutions I made a point of pouring some fixer into a clear bottle. There appeared to be some microscopic suspended solids in the liquid, or they were tiny bubbles that were not moving. My theory then went along the lines of this, if the fixer is the problem then the developing process needed agitation to prevent the solids from settling on the emulsion and damaging the film Both sets of negatives came out clear this time.

At least on face value this appears to be the answer. I did also change to filtered water but from my observation I'm not confident that was the problem because the blemishes were even and not randomly spread across the film.

Hopefully this is resolution to an intriguing problem.

[bc_69]

I'm not sure if this is also relevant, but I also made sure the water was heated to 20 degrees, with the first two sheets one wasn't at all, and the other minimally, with no agitation.

bc

[bc_69]

That's impressive. When you look at the neg under some magnification, is the emulsion missing outright from the dark bits, or is it still there but has no developed silver in it? Did you by any chance put your film face down on some 40-grit sandpaper and stomp on it a little?

What is the scale, i.e. how much film does that image represent? What film is it?

Only thing I can think of is maybe you had some sheets stick together from moisture and in the process of pulling them apart, ripped some emulsion off.

The emulsion is missing where the spots are, which indicates that something was stuck to it and has been removed or it has dissolved. Also of interest is how evenly spread the spots are across the entire film. To me this indicated something in the water or solution settling onto the emulsion, and eventually it looks like fixer was the problem. Perhaps some tiny crystals? The image is a scan of 100% of the film.

[bc_69]

I believe your negative scan is reversed in the original post, making it look like a positive on my monitor and making it look like some black spots on the negative. I'll bet the areas in question are actually clear, unexposed areas in the negative. What does the inside of your camera look like? Is something flaking off the lining of the bellows?

Film was scanned the correct side up.

[bc_69]

And as an extra bonus, he probably won't be able to duplicate the problem exactly...

Yes, a one off run, could be my signature shots

[lfpf]

Hm, Bolivian developer mixed in Istanbul with well water imported from Gdańsk, not to mention locust or dead ants (deadant deadant deadant . . .).

A lab operator noticed light stripes on developed photo test strips meant for scanning densitometer measurements. Turns out that the light stripe position coincided with the aluminum actuator that slides over the photo paper. The take-away is that aluminum, and not much, can inhibit development at the site. Aluminum isn't the only suspect, just an example.

Which other suspects are causing divots or inclusions in the subject, lens, camera, water, chemical mix, negative, print or all of the above?

"What has gone wrong here??" I haven't re-read the four pages, but can you try similar dev but with agitation rather than 40 min stand development? If the suspected particulates keep moving . . .

Scratch that last paragraph. But are there still persistent bits in your system?

[bc_69]

Scratch that last paragraph. But are there still persistent bits in your system?

As far as I can tell nothing is in there to crater the film. The successful scan is very low resolution so doesn't give a true indication, but as far as I can tell there are now no bats flying across the image like some Hitchcock scene :O