Odd grain pattern on efke 100 film, little white dots

[mentalcrisis00]

I developed some of my efke iso 100 film tonight and scanned it with an epson V750. I noticed immediately this weird pattern in the grain, like tiny white tin pricks. This wasn't on my Kodak Tmax 400 film. I scanned them at 1200dpi and downed them to 200dpi for web viewing. My developing procedure is below, I used trays.

2 minute prewash, 10 minutes D76 1:1, water stop for 1 minute, fixer with 30ML hardener 5 minutes, rinse for 2-5 minutes.

Could this be a problem with my development or is it dirt on the scanner? I'm trying this film because a friend recommended it. Would I get better results with Rodinal?

Example picture below, enlarged 100% from original. You can see it mostly on dark tones like the church doors.

[Shadowtracker]

It looks like micro dust on the film itself; hard for me to say really.

If it were my film, I would suspect dirty film holders first, and static attraction to dust second. I have found that when loading film holders in winter, indoors, it better for me to get some humidity in the darkroom first - kind of like steaming a bathroom before hanging up film to dry. That seems to help prevent dust from being attracted to the film some. I can't really decide if that's actually happening or just a good habit to be in during winter month though.

My 2 cents.

Tim

[mentalcrisis00]

Thanks unfortunately I don't have much control over darkroom conditions because I rent from a community darkroom studio. Could the dust be getting on there pre or post development? I looked at the negatives on a light table and there seems to be tiny black dots on the film. Could the dust be on there pre development and than during development it gets burned in?

I use a dark tent to load and unload my film, when I unload I put it in a spare 50 sheet film box. I developed some kodak tmax last month and it was a lot cleaner than this.

[Gem Singer]

Enlargement of the white specks shows that they are round and appear over the entire negative.

Dust spots are usually not round and uniform.

Looks like a chemical reaction during the development process.

[ic-racer]

Are there black specs on the negatives? Why is it that people that scan can't look at a negative?

[mentalcrisis00]

I looked at the negatives on a light table and there seems to be tiny black dots on the film.

As I stated above I look at all my negs on the light table first before scanning. There are black specs on the film and they don't seem to be physical dust because when I try to brush or blow them off they don't move. Probably a chemical reaction of some sort as Gem says, these were my first attempts at using Efke 100 film so I probably did something wrong while I was developing.

[dsphotog]

Ray, Is there a rough texture when you lightly rub the emulsion side with your finger tip?

[mentalcrisis00]

Ray, Is there a rough texture when you lightly rub the emulsion side with your finger tip?

No there doesn't seem to be. When I was drying I didn't wipe the film, perhaps it got dust on it and it adhered to the film during drying. I didn't wipe my kodak film either and didn't seem to have this problem. I did have a few white specs on my Kodak film however no where near this bad.

[dsphotog]

Was the Kodak & Efke processed at the same time?
If so it's not the process.

[mentalcrisis00]

No they weren't I developed my last batch of Kodak Tmax 400 about 3 weeks ago. The Efke is stuff that I've done in the past couple weeks, just developed it tonight. I searched google and it seems like most people agree that this is caused by 1 of 3 things. 1st mineral deposits from hard tap water. 2nd Dust that gets on the emulsion as the film is drying. 3rd a chemical reaction from bad developer or fixer.

I'm not really sure at which stage in my process this stuff is coming from. Any dust that gets on the film before exposure will show up as white on the neg (black in an enlargement or scan). Any dust after/during development will show up as black spots on the neg (white in an enlargement or scan). As I understand it anyhow, however as Gem said the particles don't look quite like dust so it may be a bad chemical somewhere along the line.

Only reason I'm in kind of a panic is that I'm leaving for DV tomorrow evening and I want to make sure it's not the film that is the problem. And to pin point what exactly I'm doing wrong during my process to cause this to happen so I can prevent it. Going to vacuum out my changing tent, film holders, and camera tomorrow just to be on the safe side.