Dark Spots on Negatives

[Justin Roxbrough]

Hello,

I’m new to large format, so bear with me, but I’ve been having some problems with my negatives. I shoot fp4 and tray develop in hc110 at 1:49. My N development time is 11min. The problem I’m having is I keep getting black spots on my negatives (photo attached). This seems to have started when I switched to hc110 from d76. Hoping to get some help on this. Thanks in advance!

Best,
Justin

178498

[Eric Woodbury]

Looks like a wet fingerprint, except a bit small. And to me, the entire left edge looks over processed as if the tray were too small or too much agitation.

These are guesses, but that's where I'd start.

[ As an aside, foreground of negative gives interesting effect of looking positive. ]

[Willie]

Check the aperture opening on your lens.

Does it open with 6 sides to the aperture blades.

Look at the angle the sunlight is coming from.

Lens Flare?

[Fred L]

are the spots in the same spot or vary ? If you're tray developing, I'd be inclined to consider a finger was contaminated and left something on the sheet. also, and this may not have any bearing, but are you shuffling or sloshing ?

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I had some photos developed had little black dots all over them what a pain to remove in post. Like something splashed on them.

That smudge in your image looks like where you hold film to insert into film holder. Did you have gloves on when loading film or unloading?