Getting strange spots on my film

cvansas · Oct 19, 2022

Hi there,
Lately im getting some strange spots on my BW film quite often it happens on films of different brands, ilford, bergger ect. I changed the developer and fixer and the problem still exists. Using a rotary jobo ATL system.

The film seems to be undeveloped around those spots I have the feeling that the spots sometimes arise hrs after which might suggest unfinished fixing. I reuse my kodak fixer 2 times.

Anyone an idea what could cause this? I try to prevent losing all my film

koraks · Oct 20, 2022

cvansas said:
The film seems to be undeveloped around those spots

My first guess would be splashes of fixer. Since the ATL is fully automated, I suppose it's conceivable that some kind of contamination or equipment malfunction could cause this.

cvansas said:
have the feeling that the spots sometimes arise hrs after which might suggest unfinished fixing

Nah, unfinished fixing would make the spots visible immediately. Besides, this is not a likely pattern of incomplete fixing in a rotary processor. If the spots really do appear only as the film dries, it would suggest a bleach bring the source of contamination. Is there a bleach anywhere in the ATL system (even small remnants) as you process B&W?

All considered the first thing to check IMO would be thorough cleaning of the ATL and check for any defects such as leaking valves.

250swb · Oct 20, 2022

Did you sneeze on the film before putting it in the tank? There are traces of the image inside the spots so it looks to me like something has spilt on the negative and is holding back development in the early stages when the image forms quickly, maybe it's simply a splatter of water off an undried reel? With a rotary tank the speed of the development process is generally faster than a Paterson tank leaving less time for the splattered area to catch up with the rest of the negative. Anyway just a thought.

koraks · Oct 20, 2022

250swb said:
There are traces of the image inside the spots

That's true and more consistent with a bleach contamination after development; either before or after fixing. Although this still doesn't exclude the possibility of a fixer contamination prior to development either; if the fixer concentration of these drops is fairly low and/or the duration of contamination is brief enough, it may still leave some exposed silver halide to develop.

Frankly I don't think it's inert water droplet contamination prior to development as the effect on density would be more subtle.

Doremus Scudder · Oct 20, 2022

I'm betting on some kind of bleach contamination too. You don't clean up with chlorine bleach while the film is hanging to dry do you?

Doremus

250swb · Oct 20, 2022

I think somebody would know for sure if they used bleach. But fixer contamination from a previous batch, I don't know but what happened to washing the film and therefore the fixer out of the drum to leave it clean?

Sirius Glass · Oct 20, 2022

It must have happened after the film left the tank or drum.

koraks · Oct 21, 2022

250swb said:
what happened to washing the film and therefore the fixer out of the drum to leave it clean?

OP mentioned using a Jobo ATL. These have several chemistry tanks, distribution hoses, a lift and the pumps and valves to operate all this automatically. I'm not intimately familiar with the architecture of the specific (unspecified actually) machine OP uses, but contamination in a system like this seems plausible to me.

cvansas · Oct 21, 2022

koraks said:
My first guess would be splashes of fixer. Since the ATL is fully automated, I suppose it's conceivable that some kind of contamination or equipment malfunction could cause this.

Nah, unfinished fixing would make the spots visible immediately. Besides, this is not a likely pattern of incomplete fixing in a rotary processor. If the spots really do appear only as the film dries, it would suggest a bleach bring the source of contamination. Is there a bleach anywhere in the ATL system (even small remnants) as you process B&W?

All considered the first thing to check IMO would be thorough cleaning of the ATL and check for any defects such as leaking valves.

Reading from some other posts and considered the round shape of most spots and the hard water in my region I suspect air bubbles to be the cause.
But thorough cleaning of the ATL after each development is what Im gonna start with to see if contamination is the case.

cvansas · Oct 21, 2022

I only develop bw use only developer and fixer.

koraks · Oct 21, 2022

cvansas said:
I suspect air bubbles to be the cause.

Air bubbles are virtually always round, mostly with a soft edge, but sometimes with a sharply defined one (but in those cases the edges tend to have higher density and the inside will be lower density than surrounding film), and if they're there, they're nearly always perfectly round, and usually packed together in a kind of honeycomb pattern. What you have are 99.98% certain not air bubbles.
Besides, air bubbles have not all that much to do with hard water and usually are related to remnants of surfactants from a final rinse in an earlier development run, surfactants in the actual film emulsion etc. But that's another matter and not really relevant now.

Given your additions I put my money on droplets of fixer somehow having made it to the surface of the film before development commenced.
In any case, you have a water/aqueous solution droplet contamination, most likely prior to development.

Saganich · Oct 21, 2022

Waite, when you hang the film to dry you do or don't see this? It happens later? That has to be definitely decided before you can troubleshoot.

cvansas · Apr 1, 2023

This problem is solved, since I use a jobo ATL and didn’t clean the tubes in the system after use on default some fixer polluted the developer. Now with standard clean after development it never occurs anymore.

Sirius Glass · Apr 1, 2023

cvansas said:
This problem is solved, since I use a jobo ATL and didn’t clean the tubes in the system after use on default some fixer polluted the developer. Now with standard clean after development it never occurs anymore.

Another success story!

Getting strange spots on my film

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