Wet Scanning negatives

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Other than dust being a royal pita! Which I a solving with some items from Kinetronics as well as a table top clean room for my scanner, and mounting/clean film and supplies, that Kami fluid has a good smell. Strange, I know, but I look forward to mounting film for scanning. I wonder if they did that on purpose? It is a very unique smell from all the other harsh chemicals for developing and working around the house.

How does everyone keep dust off their film for scanning? I am pretty careful and meticulous, but it seems certain images are dust magnets and others no or very little dust. Can't figure it out. At some point, I will have a table top clean room and some of the Kinetronics anti-static brush and ionizing air devices. AZ sucks for dirt in the air!

[Alan9940]

How does everyone keep dust off their film for scanning?

I live in a dust free home! ;) ;) ;)

Seriously, though, I live north of Phoenix and AZ is absolutely the dustiest place I've ever lived! I suppose it's not surprise when we have 1,000 foot walls of dirt move through the valley. ;)

The spot healing brush is your friend.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I live in a dust free home! ;) ;) ;)

Seriously, though, I live north of Phoenix and AZ is absolutely the dustiest place I've ever lived! I suppose it's not surprise when we have 1,000 foot walls of dirt move through the valley. ;)

The spot healing brush is your friend.

I have an affair with that brush!

[Peter De Smidt]

Run a Hepa filter in room, both before scanning and before you hang negatives to dry. Use clean compressed air to blow off surfaces. I also use tape to pick up dust on non-sensitive areas. If your air is dry, add moisture to the air to minimize static. I have Kodak electrified anti-static brushes. (Zone VI old a version by Chapman.) These kinda work. Keep scanner covered when not in use. Before taking cover off, lightly spray with Windex or similar and whip off dust. Scanning mylar is a tremendous dust magnet.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Run a Hepa filter in room, both before scanning and before you hang negatives to dry. Use clean compressed air to blow off surfaces. I also use tape to pick up dust on non-sensitive areas. If your air is dry, add moisture to the air to minimize static. I have Kodak electrified anti-static brushes. (Zone VI old a version by Chapman.) These kinda work. Keep scanner covered when not in use. Before taking cover off, lightly spray with Windex or similar and whip off dust. Scanning mylar is a tremendous dust magnet.

I need to get a humidifier and a hepa filter system. I run the level 4 hepa filters for my AC. Problem is my office/studio is an open room :(. I am looking at the Kinetronics Brushes and film cleaners that are grounded, and use ionized air as you clean the film. I am also looking at their ionizing gun that uses compressed air. http://www.kinetronics.com/product-category/cleaning-devices/

The mylar is a pain for sure. If I could make ANR work in place of the mylar I would use that. Attaching it would not be an issue, but separating the two ANR pieces could be problematic. I might be able to get a room fan of sorts that blows filtered air across the work area that might help keep the dust down. There is also a way to use an ionizing system in the room that will reduce the static electricity in the room to almost zero that might work to help keep dust from sticking.

If none of this works then I will either build a small table top clean room with positive pressure and filtered thru hepas or buy one. Pricey, but not too bad. Building should be straight forward.

[Alan9940]

Peter, I do all those things, except running a Hepa filter and dust is always a bit of an issue. After nearly 20 years of scanning I've gotten better at minimizing dust, but it's still there! ;)

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Dust is like a wart. You get rid of it in one spot and it pops up in another.

[Peter De Smidt]

Yeah, I hear you, Alan! I do a lot of spotting, too.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Just got done scanning 5 bwnegatives. 3 processed with 2-bath Pyrocat and 2 processed in Tmax developer. First I took precautions prepping film when mounting to scan. After scanning, there were a lot of black dots upper left of negative and a few elsewhere. Very, verylittle dirt. At first I though ght damn, I know I wasn't that dirty, but realized they were white spots where the emulsion was missing. All three pyrocat sheets bad same thing in same area. Tnax developed negs didn't. Although all 5 had same white stripe in same location top of frame running from mid height of frame on left to right and what looks like a spot where liquid pooled. Has to be sp-445 tank. I am going to process a small batch in the tray to see for sure where in he process this is happening and elliminate it

[Alan9940]

Steven, my immediate guess is that it's the lugs on the SP-445 holders. Lots of folks, including me, have reported issues of the lugs gouging the emulsion. I have sanded the corners, etc, of the lugs on my v3 holders, but still get marks on my film. My v1 holders, so far, work without issue. To be honest, I have stopped using the SP-445 for any serious work.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Steven, my immediate guess is that it's the lugs on the SP-445 holders. Lots of folks, including me, have reported issues of the lugs gouging the emulsion. I have sanded the corners, etc, of the lugs on my v3 holders, but still get marks on my film. My v1 holders, so far, work without issue. To be honest, I have stopped using the SP-445 for any serious work.

I am starting to come to that conclusion. I was looking at this https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/25424-REG/Jobo_3010_Expert_Sheet_Film_Drum.html and I am considering going to tray development.

It is a lot of work to get that annoying streak out. It must be the way the liquid enters and exits the tank or swirls around. I think for my next try with the tank, I am going to vigorously agitate for 1 minute, then agitate as usual. I also thought about semi stand to stand development as well after vigorous agitation.

[Peter De Smidt]

The options appear to be:
1: Drum on manual roller,
2: Drum on Jobo,
3: Trays,
4: Hangers, manual,
5: Hangers, gas burst,
7: Trays plus slosher.
8: Brush development in trays,
9: Beyond the Zone System tubes,
10: Minimal Agitation in tubes, ala Steve Sherman.

By far the cheapest is trays. It works very well with robust film. (It's not a good system for developing easily scratched film.)
I use Jobo Expert drums with a CPP-2, but that route has gotten much more expensive than when I bought mine. BTZS tubes are a good choice for fairly small amounts of film.

[Alan9940]

Like Peter, I use Expert Drums on the CPP-2 for "regular" film development. I do use a stainless steel Nikkor style 4x5 tank and tanks/hangers when doing minimal and/or stand development. As Peter suggests, I'd look into the BTZS tubes, but do a bit of research first because I've heard the newer black tubes (at least, for 8x10) can scratch the base side of the film. If you're doing 4x5, you may want to consider a Jobo 2509n reel for the 2500 series tank; cheaper than the Expert Drum and you would have the option to spin on a rotary base or inversion agitation.