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Tmax 400 "rogue grain"

DoryBreaux

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Hello all,

I just had some DDX developed 120 TMAX400 negs under a loupe and noticed something looked a little off about the grain. I scanned them, and sure enough, there are what appear to be rogue, almost over developed grains throughout the entire image. I went back to look at some 400 I had developed about a month ago, also with DDX, and noticed the same issue. What interests me most is that tmax100 in 135 shows no issues whatsoever. Same developer, same water, same equipment. The issue is not uniform across all frames, some are worse, some it barely shows up.
Anyone else have this issue? Any thoughts on whats causing it? I've got some XTOL on the way from BH, so I'll be trying that soon.

Here is a crop of one of the worst offenders.
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MattKing

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That doesn't look like grain, it looks like some contaminant.
What is your source for water?
 
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DoryBreaux

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MattKing said:
That doesn't look like grain, it looks like some contaminant.
What is your source for water?
Click to expand...
The tap in my kitchen. That was my initial thought, but then would it now show up across the entire roll? I have some frames that are completely void of these spots. Also I get nothing on Delta 100 or Tmax 100. Its bewildering to me. I will be using distilled water with the XTOL.
 

MattKing

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By source, I mean municipal water, well water, or???

EDIT: I would guess that this isn't coming from the developer, but rather something later in the process.
 

BAC1967

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I've had the same spots on my film in the past and I usually attribute it to the fix getting contaminated. Even thought the fix still tests good with Hypo Check I notice that it seems to correlate with a lot of sediment/silver in the bottom of the fix. I use Photographers' Formulary TF-5 Archival fix, it usually lasts a long time so maybe that allows it to build up excessive contaminants before it's used up.
 
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DoryBreaux

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MattKing said:
By source, I mean municipal water, well water, or???

EDIT: I would guess that this isn't coming from the developer, but rather something later in the process.
Click to expand...
Municipal.

Interesting... I wonder if washing between stop and fix could help?
Thanks for the replies so far. I'm still stumped as to why it would only happen on certain parts of one specific film.
 

TheFlyingCamera

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As to why it might occur on only certain spots in the film, it could be your agitation technique circulates the developer/fixer differently in certain parts of the tank. If it is water-supply related, then you might want to consider getting some kind of water filtration for your city water (if nothing else, a Brita pitcher, or if you have a dedicated darkroom, then get an in-line water filtration system). I have city water supplying my darkroom, but I have a Leedal temperature control valve with a water filter after. I've never had the problem you're showing with my film. Another possible issue is contamination in your developer tank - you should periodically thoroughly clean the tank and reels, especially if they're plastic.
 
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DoryBreaux

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I've been wondering about filtration... would a decent inline filter be the same as or at least close to distilled? I googled it and couldn't find a definitive answer.
 

Rudeofus

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I would be quite surprised, if this happened during later steps of B&W processing. If you can't see particles on your film surface, then there's a good chance that, whatever happened, must have happened during developer step. If you suspect, that this may be the case, and that it is caused by the water you use to prerinse your film and to mix your developer, then the easiest solution would be to skip the prerinse and to mix your developer either from bottled drinking water, or from deionized water. While neither would be economical for the whole procedure, they won't add much cost if used only for the development step.

If that doesn't help, then at least we can exclude a very likely source of trouble (rust particles in developer).
 

Down Under

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How old was the film? Were you by chance using expired TMax?

I have (frozen) a large collection of old films. Now and then something like this occurs in one roll, however, usually with the entire roll and not "localised" as you say your spots were.

Still, this could be another possibility. I am learning to my peril that it is always best to use fresh film.

As for the humungus stash of 1980s Panatomic-X in both 35mm and 120 rolls in my freezer, well...
 

Photo Engineer

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This could be caused by Iron salts in the water. They cause minute specks of fog. OTOH, it could be a manufacturing defect called "pepper grain" from its appearance.

I cannot tell which it is until we either see more of this or the problem only happens in this isolated instance.

PE
 
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DoryBreaux

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Well for me its happened with three rolls of tmax400 that I believe are from different batches, all fresh film.
 

Rudeofus

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Photo Engineer said:
This could be caused by Iron salts in the water. They cause minute specks of fog. OTOH, it could be a manufacturing defect called "pepper grain" from its appearance
Click to expand...
Assuming, that DoryBreaux posted a positive image, I would not interpret his issue as "fog caused by iron/copper/whatever", but as "no development due to iron/copper/whatever". A bottle of deionized water is probably the most available and by far the cheapest to implement measure to test this.
 

Photo Engineer

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You are correct Rudi. I thought about this long after the post and realized the ambiguity.

My answer is based on the above being a negative image. If it is a positive, then I have no idea what is going on.

PE
 
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DoryBreaux

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It is a positive, sorry for not clarifying when posted.
Like I said, I think my next step in solving this is using filtered/distilled water.
I'm still bewildered as to why it is only happening with TMY in 120 and not other films.
 

MattKing

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How old is the film and how was it stored?
 

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is your scanner platten ( glass ) dirty ? how much contrast and post processing is done on your images ?
or do the prints as you look at them show these spots ?

i get grain fog and spots in my tmy film but it is because i am using a vit c and carbonate and coffee developer
which sometimes does that when the film is over exposed and extended development, and my scanner glass is dirty.
 

BAC1967

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That may be my problem, I’ve noticed that it appears in the sky most often which would be overexposed if I was metering for a darker object. I develop in caffenol and Beerenol most of the time. What causes this?
 

Doremus Scudder

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Let's see... DoryBreaux posted a positive image. That means the black spots in the image are clear areas on the negative. Ruling out scanner problems for now, I would tend to think that a) there was crud on the film at the time of exposure or b) there may be pinholes in the emulsion caused by a too-strong stop. Certainly this is not film grain. And the chances of it being a film-quality issue are exceedingly low.

Best,

Doremus
 

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BAC1967 said:
That may be my problem, I’ve noticed that it appears in the sky most often which would be overexposed if I was metering for a darker object. I develop in caffenol and Beerenol most of the time. What causes this?
Click to expand...

no clue what causes it
i figured it was just one of the perils of using
a non-commerical-kitchen sink- developer
( or it had to do with sodium carbonate )
im admittedly clueless and ignorance IS bliss :

beerenol?! cheap gut rot coffee i can see making developer out of
but what kind of beer is terrible enough to make developer out of ?
could it be "meister brau: an award worthy beer"
or that delightful carling's black lable, whose deposit on the bottles and case cost more than the beer

john
 

BAC1967

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I prefer Pabst Blue Ribbon for developing, a good Porter for drinking.
 
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