Help on My Scanned

[angah316]

Hello .. recently just bought Canon 9000F scanner. I'm used to scanning the 120mm (medium format) film ... i attached the my scanned images. i noticed lot of white mark .. im not sure is it came from the scanner or the camera .. those have this experience may be can share some tips with me .. and usually if we wanted to clean up old lenses or glasses in camera, what liquid chemical we are using ? does anyone have that tips ?

 

[koraks]

i attached the my scanned images

I'm sorry, the attachments haven't come through yet. Could you try uploading them again, please?

i noticed lot of white mark

This is usually dust, but let's wait for the example images.

if we wanted to clean up old lenses or glasses in camera, what liquid chemical we are using

I'd suggest asking this question elsewhere on the forum since it's not related to scanning. But perhaps do a search first, because the question how to clean camera lenses has been discussed quite extensively before.

 

[angah316]

sory .. pls find attached

 

[brbo]

Looks like negatives might be dirty. Canon 9000F should have ICE (well, FARE in Canon's case) technology which should help correct for that. Not all software will use this though, so if you are not using OEM software bundled with the scanner or Vuescan or Silverfast you might not benefit from dust&scratch removal capabilities of the scanner.

 

[loccdor]

The first image shows sign of underexposure, which on negative film can magnify the appearance of other problems.

Though I can see you have some dust on your negative (the tiny hairs), the pattern of the dots looks more regular and uniform than how I usually see dust. It could be an emulsion problem.

Is this expired film? Did you develop it yourself? What was the last step before hanging to dry? How long did it hang to dry and in what conditions? Where and how long did you keep it before scanning?

For cleaning lenses, I use Zeiss wipes, but I'm sure that's not related to the problem you're having.

Can you provide more details?

 

[runswithsizzers]

I'm pretty sure it is not dirty camera lenses causing your spots. Nor is it your scanner unless you can see a lot of dust on the glass.

If it is simply dust on the negatives, then the dust should blow off or brush off -- unless the dust got stuck to the emulsion before the negatives were dry. Try looking closely at the negatives with a magnifying loupe. You should be able to see if there is dust on the surface of the film, or if there is something embeded in the emulsion.

One possibility is that some kind of preciptation or dirt contaminated the film during processing. Any of the above problems would have happened during processing. You might take the negatives back to the lab where they were processed and see what they have to say?

 

[koraks]

As outlined above, this looks like a combination of dirty negatives, possibly some underexposure and perhaps also a film processing problem. Especially the second example makes me suspicious of the quality of the negative itself, but it's hard to tell much from this isolated snippet/section.

 

[SMD]

Can these be air bubbles during development?

 

[koraks]

Can these be air bubbles during development?

That's an interesting thought, but I really doubt it for two reasons:
1: They're kind of small.
2: They're white on the positive, which suggests high density on the negative. Bubbles tend to retard development due to lack of local replenishment, resulting in reduced density.
W.r.t. 2, the story is a little more complex if you look at typical bubble/foam issues, as the emulsion touching walls of the bubbles tend to be overdeveloped, while the emulsion touching the void inside the bubble comes out as minus density.

Overall, it doesn't look like a bubble problem to me. This kind of speckling I've seen as a result of particulate contamination of processing solutions or wash water. Think of things like precipitated silver specks in re-used fixer or small specks of calcium scale in hard wash water.

 

[runswithsizzers]

I tend to agree with @koraks, "...particulate contamination of processing solutions or wash water."

Years ago a friend and I co-owned some darkroom equipment which we set up in his rural house. In periods of low rainfall, his well water became contaminated with dirt that left similar looking spots on our negatives. Obviously, dirt should not a problem in a commercial lab, but ...?

Then again, @angah316 does not say if these negatives were developed in a commercial lab or at home. I am guessing diy conditions probably present more opportunities for contamination, compared to commercial labs which are supposed to be monitoring their process?

 

[koraks]

@angah316 does not say if these negatives were developed in a commercial lab or at home

I'd have to check back, but I think @angah316 is running a minilab, possibly as part of a commercial venture offering film processing services. I recall having answered questions about this in the past - questions that also involved dialing in a consistent and dependable process. It's also in this light that I cautiously offer the suggestion that maybe there's still some room for improvement in that area.

 

[brbo]

A minilab with Canon 9000F?!



If that's true, it must be a lot of fun!

 

[koraks]

Well, why not...there's a great variety of equipment being used especially in small-scale labs.

 

[wiltw]

Film surfaces need to be cleaned before scanning, a process which can take as much time as scanning the same neg! And enable the FARE / ICE software.

 

[MattKing]

I use a 9000F for all my medium format scanning, and until recently 35mm as well.
Most of the film scanned in the 9000F is black and white film, so FARE isn't available.
And there is always at least some dust that needs to be spotted out digitally - even with negatives that print optically without showing much or any.
I think it is at least partially a result of the scanner's optics and the light source.

 

[250swb]

If you look top left at the photo with the chair there's a hair, now next to it see the line of 'dust' that forms part of an arc. When you've seen that you'll see the same pattern is formed across the whole negative with the dust forming irregular circles and arcs. It reminds me of the irregular pattern made if a liquid is blotted up, but any other ideas could well be the real answer to the pattern, however I do wonder about how the negative was dried.