I've noticed freckles on the sky areas of my TMAX 100 film. I use the XTOL developer at 1:1. Do you think that this is undissolved crystals? The developer has been mixed for about 4 months, but I even notice it on fresh developer. I have some HC-110 that I could try next, but i like the XTOL & TMAX combo.
This looks like either tiny bubbles (but I'd expect them to be more sharply outlined) or its just out of focus dust in your camera. It doesn't look like undissolved developer or something like iron contamination.
Clear white circles can be air bells, linear clear ones are more likely dust or other contaminants, dark circular ones are not air bells.Originally Posted by koraks
Last edited by Bob Salomon; 25-Jan-2017 at 09:30.
I sometimes get air bells along the margins of 120 film; their minus density on the negative and thus darker on the print. They are however more sharply outlines than the dark spots in this scan. I'm ignoring the white specks as they are evidently dust/debris and I assume we're not discussing those as their origin is evident.
Nope. It's not TMAX, and it's not XTOL. What it is, is dust, dirt, general grundge. It's... user error.
Cleanliness is one of the main fights in chemical photography. Everything has to be clean. Your film holders have to be clean, and they have to stay clean. I learned that my 5x4 film holders can only live in a few places. 1) on my scrupulously clean loading/unloading table in my darkroom, 2) in my (hopefully washed) hand, 3) in a one quart size (don't you love imperial measurements?) zip lock freezer bag, or 4) in the camera. That's it. I don't ever set them down on anything in the field. Once you get them clean, you've got to keep them clean.
Then, you have to clean out the inside of the camera bellows on a regular basis. And because dirt in the bellows comes from air around the bellows, you have to clean the outside of the camera too.
You have to clean (I use an anti-static brush) your film holders before you load them. Dark slides too.
You do all this, it will reduce, but not eliminate, dust and dirt blocking light during exposure (causing low density areas on the negative).
Then there's the problem of the darkroom itself, all the equipment, and your processing. This is where you get stuff stuck to the film causing areas of increased "density" on the negative. This is a whole battle all on its own. Basically it comes down to periodic cleaning the darkroom (walls, ceiling (especially), cabinets, surfaces, floors), learning the benefits of steam distilled water in making up chemistry, in rinses, and in rinsing off equipment after use, how to prop drying equipment so that it doesn't collect dust while drying, etc.
It also means using a lot (or, like me, all) of your chemistry "one shot". I resolved a lot of "tiny dark spots" on my negatives by moving to one shot fixer. Go figure.
It's a battle that can't be won. But... you can make amazing progress. I eliminated perhaps 90% of the spots on my negatives (which weren't really all that bad to start with). This in turn cut my spotting time by roughly 90%. This is a really large reward for some not so hard work. Just sayin'.
Bruce Watson
The white-ish marks in your sky area are most likely from dust (on the film, inside the camera) rather than air bells in processing.
Last edited by djdister; 25-Jan-2017 at 10:33.
Bruce wrote:
"It also means using a lot (or, like me, all) of your chemistry "one shot". I resolved a lot of "tiny dark spots" on my negatives by moving to one shot fixer. Go figure."
Bruce, please try to explain that to me - even with the "go figure" end of the sentence.
The other day I found a sort of ectoplasm inside the fixer bottle, one that I used 2 or 3 months ago the last time.
Cheers,
Renato
I'm betting dirty fixer. Been there done that. Sometimes if you keep using the same dirty bottle for fixer, it will get chunky and leave stuff on your film. Sometimes fixer still fixes well but has been used too much. I'm not an advocate of 1-shot fixing as it's wasteful, but find a happy medium between clear fixer and dirty fixer maybe by keeping the bottle clean inside or tracking use. If it's not that, it's probably dust, but dust is usually crisper.
What's to explain? One shot means you use it once then toss it. Why this promotes cleanliness is because it keeps you from transferring contamination that your chemistry picks up from one batch of film to the next batch of film. Contamination can add, meaning your second batch comes out dirtier than the first batch. And that's why I one shot every step of the process.
One stop fixer is more controversial because the fixer isn't completely exhausted when I toss it out. But I got tired of film that made a great clean 50cm print but with little tiny spots I could see on a 1m print. When I started using fixer one shot, these tiny spots went away. So... go figure. Sub 5 micron chunks of silver maybe? IDK. All I know is, they went away when I started one shot fix, and they never came back.
As to slime in your fixer bottle. I've not had that since I started using steam distilled water for mixing. Then again, I stopped mixing fixer stock. I mix a working dilution direct from the liquid concentrate (Kodak Rapid Fix, but without the hardener). Just what I need at the time and no more. So there's less opportunity for slime to grow.
Bruce Watson
I agree with Bruce about the fixer being the possible culprit of the dark spots. I always mix my fix the day before to make sure the chemicals are well dissolved. I also recommend not storing fixer to reuse, as the fixer may reduce to a sulfide. Also good agitation is required, especially for the the first couple of minutes of fixing.
Mike
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks