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