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Dark & Light Spots on Negatives

americanmotor

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Jan 9, 2023
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NYC
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I am getting random spots on my negatives, as seen in the photos here.


Processing / Chemistry Details:
  • Plastic Paterson Tanks / Reels
  • Sprint Standard Developer > Sprint Block Stop Bath > Sprint Speed Fixer > Water Rinse > Sprint Archive Fixer Remover > Water Rinse > Photoflo > Hang Dry
  • All Chemicals mixed with distilled water, including developer, only the final rinse is done with unfiltered water.
  • Light to normal agitation, both inverse and shaking.
What is causing this? Any help is appreciated!
 

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the film brand and type wasn't mentioned, as well as the storage conditions and age of it. None of the other information would lead to believe it was any of that.
 
americanmotor said:
All Chemicals mixed with distilled water, including developer, only the final rinse is done with unfiltered water.
Click to expand...

Hm, I'd suggest doing that the other way round - use unfiltered (tap) water for all the rest, but demineralized water for the final rinse, where it really matters. You can also skip the fixer remover; it doesn't really serve a purpose on film. Doesn't hurt either, though.
Your process mentions two water rinses. Do you actually wash the negatives, or only give them a rinse? Not that this problem appears to be associated with underwashed negatives, but if you only rinse them briefly, you can expect problems to pop up later on (months, years).

How are these defects distributed across the film? Do they occur on only a part of the film, or all of it? Do the light and the dark spots ever appear apart from each other, or always together? Do the dark spots ever appear on unexposed areas of the negative?

F4U said:
the film brand and type wasn't mentioned, as well as the storage conditions and age of it.
Click to expand...

I'd like to know this, too. And also whether the film was refrigerated/frozen and if so, how it was brought back to ambient temperature before loading it into the camera.
 
OP your processing regime suggests that whatever make of film this was, it was a b&w one and yet there is a distinct green cast on the left hand side as I view it. Is that just a scanning artefact that shouldn't be there?

Thanks

pentaxuser
 
My experience says dust on the lens would not result in well defined areas on the film.

Since the edges of the marks, while not sharply defined, are at least defined by shapes and edges, which makes me think some liquid hit the film when dry or nearly dry - either before development, or after when hanging to dry, or after dried.
Interesting that the spots are both light and dark - assuming the OP is sure neither were in the subject, which we can see only small areas of.
 

Those are air bells (bubbles). Be sure to pre-wet your film, and be sure to fill the tank all the way with developer. Pre-wet your film with water at the same temperature. Use inversion agitation, and tap the tank vigorously on the table after each round of agitation.
 
Pieter12 said:
One can read Kodak on the second image. Could the spots be dust on the lens?
Click to expand...

Yes and thanks about Kodak. On closer examination I can see the KO of Kodak. Still leaves the mystery of the green edge on the left hand side of the third neg, assuming that it is visible to the others I just wondered what this was - a colour that appears on the neg of just the third neg -some green cast caused by the scanner and not really on or in the neg at all?

pentaxuser
 
idk doesn’t look solely like development issue given the variety of spots. Not enough info but i would start with the film then camera then processing. Get fresh film in a camera known to not have issues then see about the process
 
I don't think I've ever seen air bells causing both dark and light circles on negatives.
Dark circles are generally related to some sort of imaged flare, pinhole light leak, or localized emulsion contamination that results in increased sensitivity in those specific spots.
 
pentaxuser said:
OP your processing regime suggests that whatever make of film this was, it was a b&w one and yet there is a distinct green cast on the left hand side as I view it. Is that just a scanning artefact that shouldn't be there?

Thanks

pentaxuser
Click to expand...

Looks like the typical result of using a cel phone camera to take photos of a negative in a location where the ambient light is uneven.
 
So far the OP is not replying. I've never used Sprint chemistry. I assume it's high grade stuff. I'm inclined to call it some sort of a film problem. Perhaps age, storage or a defective roll (from Kodak?). That doesn't seem likely.
 
MattKing said:
I don't think I've ever seen air bells causing both dark and light circles on negatives.
Click to expand...

Me neither. If it's just the lighter-colored ones in the frames, then I can go with tiny airbells, but even so, it's rare to see them cling this resiliently to the film. The denser spots cannot be explained this way. Although from the partial frames we're seeing, they can still be specular highlights in the background.

pentaxuser said:
Still leaves the mystery of the green edge on the left hand side of the third neg
Click to expand...

Just color from the light source used for the phone shot; ignore it, it's a red (green) herring.

F4U said:
So far the OP is not replying.
Click to expand...

C'mon, give them a couple of days. We often get this: "whaaaa OP is not responding, what to do, they surely don't care, boohoo" and then a few days later OP drops in "sorry guys, was busy for a bit, thanks for your responses..." People have lives and stuff. Well, some do.
 
I think the curious thing is the 'bubbles' only seem to appear on what I assume is the ground behind the person, and not on the person. So maybe a sunny day and something reflective in the paving/concrete/beach etc.? Although they could be two things, something reflecting and this is confusing the issue with a fault, so maybe the dark spots are reflections and the white spots dust?
 
@250swb for the dark spots in the negative I agree a plausible explanation would be specular highlights in the background. For the lighter spots, I'm not too sure. For dust on e.g. the rear element of a lens, they are awfully well-defined; even with a wide-angle lens (which this wasn't, by the looks of it) and a small aperture you'd expect them to show up more fuzzily. Dust on the film, on the other hand, would be much more sharply defined. So the light spots are a bit of a mystery to me, so far.
 

I love Paterson but not the System 4 tank

Suggested change: Steel tanks and reels.

Using Paterson requires filling to the brim and aggressive agitation. Rap so hard you think you’re going to break it.
 
Bill Burk said:
I love Paterson but not the System 4 tank

Suggested change: Steel tanks and reels.

Using Paterson requires filling to the brim and aggressive agitation. Rap so hard you think you’re going to break it.
Click to expand...

Can I just point out this is entirely fake news.

The tanks do not require filling to the brim (a bad idea anyway), and they do not require aggressive agitation (in forty years of using them I've only ever used the twizzle stick). So you can put one film in a five film tank (should you have one) and you do not need to put five films worth of developer in, just the amount you need to cover the film. And you can be aggressive or gentle agitating with the twizzle stick and go from gorilla to butterfly any time it's required. But even if I did use inversion to agitate the developer it's sloshing top to bottom anyway (especially if the tank isn't filled to the brim) so how much more aggressive can you make it before creating bubbles?
 
I agree that the Paterson tank does not need to be filled more than covering the reel(s) present, and there's absolutely no need to violently bang it in the table either!
 
Actually, if you do fill a current Super System IV tank to the brim - which I do not recommend - you probably do need to agitate it aggressively.
The older, System IV tanks probably do need to be filled close to the brim, because you need to do that in order to cover the reels.
It has been ~ 35 years since Paterson sold the System IV tanks. Perhaps @Bill Burk needs to modernize .
The additional air space at the top of the current tanks is one of their most important features.
 

I use steel reels and tanks.

But if I'm so wrong, why is it always Paterson when someone shares a photo with bubble defects, air bells or undeveloped edge caused by obviously not enough developer to cover the reel?
 
Bill Burk said:
I use steel reels and tanks.

But if I'm so wrong, why is it always Paterson when someone shares a photo with bubble defects, air bells or undeveloped edge caused by obviously not enough developer to cover the reel?
Click to expand...

Because there are so many people using Paterson tanks .
More usefully, it is because the Paterson tanks that people have and use are very flexible, in that they are designed to be able to be used with a variety of sizes and quantities of film, so the possibility off using them with either too much or too little developer is very real.
The old Paterson System 4 tanks didn't build in space for an extra amount of air above the liquid, so one had to be extra careful to get the volumes right.
~35 years ago the people at Paterson realized the problem, so they replaced that design with the Super System IV.
If you (over) fill one of those to the brim, you will be using way more developer than necessary, the lack of air in the cavity providing for it will inhibit correct agitation, and you will greatly increase the chance of leaks.
 
I remember more than 50 years ago that the NASA moon missions used Honeywell Nikor tanks and reels. So it was good enough for me ever since. Considering there were hardly any opporunities for a "do-over" for them, I took that as definitive. Yes, the SS reels can be a bit finicky to load sometimes, but properly done, still to this day there was none better. So many companies of old are long out of business and gone, Apparently not Paterson, which is a good thing. I remember them from back then with those red boxes the products were sold in. I admired them then, as now. But it never pulled me away from what worked for me. As for the Bill Burk comment above... you said it, brother.
 

That sounds like a design flaw to me.
Like Bill, I only get failed film development questions about Paterson tanks - never steel tanks/reels. It is my impression that the Paterson tanks are far more likely to introduce problems.
 
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