Small white specks on negatives, don't think it's dust, what is it?.

horacekenneth · Apr 25, 2015

This is arista.edu 400 developed in D76. Did everything the same way I always do it, hung them up to dry in the spot I always hang them. I get dust but nothing this small or this much. It's on every picture, on both rolls I developed together, it's everywhere.

Does this look like anything you've seen before? I've got two ideas right now, maybe a problem with the chemicals (didn't happen last time though with the same batch), I'm also wondering if maybe it's pollen. It's just very very fine and everywhere.

Kawaiithulhu · Apr 25, 2015

Maybe precipitate since the last time you used the chemicals? If they are white on the contact, it means it is blocking light and that would make sense. Run your soup through a filter, coffee filters and a funnel work for me

antmar · Apr 25, 2015

+1, I've seen them rarely on my negatives too but never with fresh chemicals.

Xmas · Apr 25, 2015

Very hard water can do that our water can vary a lot in hardness month to month.

If your kettle scales you may need to micro filter wash water.

Doremus Scudder · Apr 25, 2015

"... don't think it's dust..."

Are you sure? Examine your negatives with a 10x loupe and see what's there. It sure looks like something physically in the way of the light. So, if it's not dust, it may be particulates from one of your solutions that have deposited on the neg. This should be visible under magnification as well. Check your solutions for particulates. Fixer can precipitate silver and/or sulfur when it goes bad.

Particulates from hard water forming on the neg during drying is also a remote possibility. Usually these "drying marks" have contours to them that match the water run-off pattern. Nevertheless, if you have hard water, use distilled water for you final rinse.

If it's not particulates on the negative, but small areas of extra density, then it might be from poorly-mixed developer. Powdered developers often need time to go completely into solution. Using them too soon results in bits of the developer powder sitting on the negative during development and causing extra development in a very small area, which gives a speckled pattern of extra density that looks like dust.

Best,

Doremus

AlanC · Apr 25, 2015

I had this problem on a regular basis when I used D76, though not as bad as in the right-hand photograph. I tried filtering everything, I tried eliminating my tap water by using bottled water, and de-ionised water, but none of these things made any difference. When I used Rodinal, and processed with tap water I got clean negatives, so I concluded that my tap water wasn't the issue, and the problem was with the D76. So I switched to ID11 and immediately got clean negatives. People say there is no difference between D76 and ID11, but ID11 comes as a two bag kit, wheras D76 has all the chemicals in one bag. So there has to be some difference between the two.
I used ID11 for many years - it was always cheaper than D76 here in the UK - and usually got clean negatives. I only switched to D76 when it became the cheaper option, but I'm back with ID11 now.

Alan

hoffy · Apr 25, 2015

I've had this before, but it was confined to one specific roll of film....and guess what, it came from the same factory.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I never did find out what the cause was, but there were some theories floated around in the thread above.

gone · Apr 25, 2015

Well, it's pollen time, so maybe. You should see the pollen accumulate here in a short time, so maybe while the negs were drying that happened. But negs dry fast, so that wouldn't be my first suspect. I never have any issues w/ D76 myself. Great developer, but for the Arista films I do prefer Mic-X. I suspect you got a bad roll of film or maybe even contaminated developer if you used the same protocols and tank that you always use. Next time use fresh developer (I filter all my stuff thru coffee filters just in case), use distilled water, make sure all your reels and tank are spotless and use a different batch of film. I'm sure it will be fine then.

NB23 · Apr 25, 2015

AlanC said:
I had this problem on a regular basis when I used D76, though not as bad as in the right-hand photograph. I tried filtering everything, I tried eliminating my tap water by using bottled water, and de-ionised water, but none of these things made any difference. When I used Rodinal, and processed with tap water I got clean negatives, so I concluded that my tap water wasn't the issue, and the problem was with the D76. So I switched to ID11 and immediately got clean negatives. People say there is no difference between D76 and ID11, but ID11 comes as a two bag kit, wheras D76 has all the chemicals in one bag. So there has to be some difference between the two.
I used ID11 for many years - it was always cheaper than D76 here in the UK - and usually got clean negatives. I only switched to D76 when it became the cheaper option, but I'm back with ID11 now.

Alan

Do you wash your film?

AlanC · Apr 25, 2015

NB23 said:
Do you wash your film?

Yes!

Alan

Greg Heath · Apr 25, 2015

I had something like this when I was not filtering our hard water full of city chlorine. I put in a darkroom inline filter and haven't had any problems since. I wasn't sure it was the water as I was using Arista film. It's like one of the cheapest films you can get.

I thought it was either, crappy water, chemicals, air bubbles..

I think for me, it turned out to be chlorine in the water reacting with the chemicals. I use rodinal pretty much all of the time, so I can't comment on any other developer. I can't prove that but I installed the house filter on the cold water side in the darkroom and I had no more problems. I dumped all my chemicals and started over with the filtered water.

Greg

R.Gould · Apr 25, 2015

The only time I have had this problem with D76 was when I disovlved the powder in water that was cooler than suggested by Kodak, it needs very hot water to disolve the powder properly, Irocanly it was on Kodak Tri X, a long time ago now, I had it on odd negatives on a few films, drove me crazy, tried everything, then threw away th D76, used some Rodinal and all was well, had a packet of D76 and mixed it, again at lower temperture, and got this problem again, disposed of the d76 and went back to rodinal, tried D76 one last time after realising the temp problem, used water at the correct temperture and all was well, so it could only be the D76 as that was the only thing I changed,

MattKing · Apr 25, 2015

How old and used is your fixer?

AlanC · Apr 25, 2015

Here is a bit more information on what happened when I changed from D76 to ID11. I had two films to develop -120 Foma 400. So I "borrowed" a bottle of freshly mixed ID11 from a friend. The plan was to develop one film i this, and use D76 to develop the other film. First a large bowl of tap-water ws prepared, at 20 degrees C. (Nothing was filtered). I then used some of this to mix fresh working strength stop bath and fixer. Then the ID11 and D76 were diluted to 1:2 with water from the same bowl, and the two film were developed side by side in two tanks. And after fixing they were washed using the Ilford method (but doubled up) with water from the same bowl, then hung up to dry side by side in the shower cubicle.
Subsequently, prints from the negatives developed in D76 were found to have white spots on them, like other previous results with D76. Prints made from the ID11-developed negatives were clean.
I think these white spots come from solid matter embedded in the film emulsion. Not dust. These bits are there when the film comes out of the final wash. I have seen them on numerous films developed in D76. When you hold the film up you can plainly see water drops clinging to the emulsion where these particles are stuck. Whatever is causing the water to cling can't be removed by sluicing water down the surface of the film. When I finished washing the two films described above, I could see evidence of particles on the film deeveloped in D76, but not on the one developed in ID11.

As a result of this I decided to go back to ID11, despite it being more expensive. I bought a pack and so far have developed 7 films and they have all come out more or less clear. I do get the odd spot, but nothing like what I got when I used D76.

Alan

horacekenneth · Apr 25, 2015

Alan, that's very interesting. And they happen in correspondence with dried water drops? As best I can tell these spots aren't associated with water drops.

I'm wonder if perhaps there's something going wrong in my chemistry. A few weeks ago I took a bottle of D-76 that was already a couple weeks old and mixed in freshly mixed developer. This is my third time using that batch since then (same batch, but of course I dump out the used chemicals) but the first time I've seen these spots. I was hoping the older D-76 would seamlessly mix with the fresh D-76 (and it did for a while) but perhaps the older stuff is now doing something to cause these spots?

As far as particles vs higher density, I'm not sure how to tell. I have an 8x loupe but I'm not sure what I'm looking at.

AlanC · Apr 25, 2015

I don't know if the dried water drops leave their mark, but they show up on wet flm where they cling to what I think are small solid deposits.

Alan

pentaxuser · Apr 25, 2015

Just to be clear here. Can you see the particles on the negs with a loupe?. If not, can you see the particles under a grain focuser when the negs are in an enlarger. Are your scans of the negs simply reversed so they appear as prints and are not scans of a darkroom print. I suspect they are not scans of prints as if you had darkroom prints then it would show up more clearly?

If you don't mind me saying so the scans apart from the particles appear to be very low density and "foggy" looking

What I am leading to, depending on your answers above is that if the scanner has produced the grey, foggy look is it possible that the problem lies in scanning?

This may be just me who has missed the obvious as no-one else has even hinted at a scanner issue at all.

pentaxuser

horacekenneth · Apr 25, 2015

pentaxuser said:
Just to be clear here. Can you see the particles on the negs with a loupe?. If not, can you see the particles under a grain focuser when the negs are in an enlarger. Are your scans of the negs simply reversed so they appear as prints and are not scans of a darkroom print. I suspect they are not scans of prints as if you had darkroom prints then it would show up more clearly?

If you don't mind me saying so the scans apart from the particles appear to be very low density and "foggy" looking

What I am leading to, depending on your answers above is that if the scanner has produced the grey, foggy look is it possible that the problem lies in scanning?

This may be just me who has missed the obvious as no-one else has even hinted at a scanner issue at all.

pentaxuser

Yes, they are scans of the negatives. I can visibly see the specks on the negatives with my eye (but they are very small). As far as the low density and "foggy" look I'm not sure whether that's because of my scanner settings or because of the light leak in the camera (first time I used this fm and there is a light leak, just to be clear the other roll with these specks is from a camera I use often and has never demonstrated anything like this before).

horacekenneth · Apr 25, 2015

Could old developer, even if it's been mixed with fresh developer, cause something like this?

(I'm thinking the first thing I need to do is mix a new batch of D-76 and maybe text my fixer and see if it happens next time.)

horacekenneth · May 18, 2015

Mixed some fresh D-76 and some fresh fixer, no more spots. I think the D-76 was fairly old and my 1st wash fixer was definitely done. Not sure which one caused the dots, I think it was probably the D-76.

Ricardo Miranda · May 21, 2015

AlanC said:
(...)People say there is no difference between D76 and ID11, but ID11 comes as a two bag kit, wheras D76 has all the chemicals in one bag. So there has to be some difference between the two. (...)

Alan

Alan,
For your consideration, Fomadon P is an equivalent to D76 and it comes in 2 bags.
It is available from Silverprint here in the UK: http://shop.silverprint.co.uk/Fomadon-P-Film-Developer-1L/product/54501/V70020/
Also at Process Supplies, although it isn't on their website: http://www.processuk.net/
It is about £2.90 in the 1L version.

sdotkling · May 21, 2015

Under a loupe, see if the spots are perfectly round. If they are, it's bubbles in the developing solution. If the spots are angular, I'm guessing it's undissolved grains of developer in the solution.

Richard S. (rich815) · May 21, 2015

Where on the strip are these? I get this sometimes on the last few frames, as in the bottom ones when hanging to dry, when using D-76.

horacekenneth · May 22, 2015

(there was a url link here which no longer exists) : I doubt it's undissolved grains of developer since I'd been using this same batch for several weeks successfully. Unless it was something that started to form in the developer because of how old/overused it was (this is what I suspect right now). Bubbles is not something I considered. That would be a whole lot of very small bubbles. I will make sure to tap good and hard going forward.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists): It's on both rolls, top and bottom, evenly spread as best as I can tell, but they show up more in the highlights I believe than the shadows. I don't know whether one is more extreme than another since I only scanned one roll and gave up but looking at the second strip the spots are definitely present.

Ron (Netherlands) · Sep 7, 2023

had the same experience with - too - old developer (in my case HC110 )- this type of developer comes in fluid actually a type of syrup. If it gets too old, the syrup seems to lump and can stick to the negative during development causing speckles.

Small white specks on negatives, don't think it's dust, what is it?.

horacekenneth

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