Black debris in developer tray

[Arg6442]

Hey all,

I just developed a few sheets of 5x7. When I finished, I noticed specks of black debris in the developer tray. Dev was D76 1+1 after a 4 minute presoak, film was fp4+. This is the first time i’ve seen this and the only thing I did differently was wear nitrile gloves (I usually go bare-hands). Any idea what this could be? The negatives look fine so I think it’s harmless but if there’s anything I should be watching out for I like to know.

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[Doremus Scudder]

It looks like small pieces of the emulsion along the edge of the film have chipped off and remained in your tray. Rather unusual with FP-4 I would think unless your wearing gloves made you somehow handle the film more roughly that you usually do.

I've had this with a number of other films, notably BPF-200. As long as the frilling/chipping is in the film rebate, there's no real problem. Just make sure none of them stick to the film and cause problems later. A good rinse before the final treatment in wetting agent does the trick.

I also had a batch of sheet film that had been cut poorly; there were chips from the cutting packaged along with the film. Once I discovered this, I made sure to tap an edge of each sheet on the countertop when loading it into holders to make sure none of the chips got loaded along with the sheet. At the end of loading several holders, I'd have a little pile of emulsion chips... That film's been discontinued, but I still tap every sheet before loading...

Best,

Doremus