Tmax 400 "rogue grain"

[Photo Engineer]

These may be minute air bubbles on the film. Did you prewet it before development?

PE

 

[BAC1967]

These may be minute air bubbles on the film. Did you prewet it before development?

PE

I always pre-wet before development. You would think using beer as a developer would cause problems with bubbles but the Sodium Carbonate makes the beer go flat. Gentle agitation also helps. I also give it some good taps to knock bubbles off during the pre-wetting process.

 

[Ian Grant]

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.

Iron particles in water that get lodged on the film surface will cause this, not during development but during fixing where they react to bleach the silver image. Iron in various forms is used in water treatment.

I have seen this but with prints not negatives.

Ian

 

[trendland]

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.
Dead Link Removed

Hey Dory Breaux Do you mean this smal dark particles?
Thats no grain effect at all !
I also hope your tap water quality isn't such worst - I woudn't drin it .....
Let's guess from we're this particles are from?
Have you used your drum to a couple of years not so often? Or is it an old second hand drum?
These mechanical particles should have a home base I can't say if the home of this scratch particles is the emulsion.
But if it is so - it also may be an issue of failued manufacturing.
with regards

 

[trendland]

Iron particles in water that get lodged on the film surface will cause this, not during development but during fixing where they react to bleach the silver image. Iron in various forms is used in water treatment.

I have seen this but with prints not negatives.

Ian

The "Iron water quality " was mentioned some times in regard with Kodak Xtol.I checked this before - but OP is using DDX. A complete different sort of developer from its chemical characteristics. You mentioned such effect only with papers. But in any way - normal water (with less amounds of minerals) should solve that problem - or this should show an other reason from failured in developing. (if the water can't be responcible for after changing).
with regards
PS : Remember one of my first posts a couple of month ago - Ian ? Heading : Old lenses with coating technology from 50th. I made a marvelous shot last week at night. May be I have to make a scan and show. (Hope it is sharp .....exposure time 40 sec.)

 

[Photo Engineer]

I always pre-wet before development. You would think using beer as a developer would cause problems with bubbles but the Sodium Carbonate makes the beer go flat. Gentle agitation also helps. I also give it some good taps to knock bubbles off during the pre-wetting process.

Sodium Carbonate + Carbon Dioxide = flat beer all the time.

 

[Ian Grant]

The "Iron water quality " was mentioned some times in regard with Kodak Xtol.I checked this before - but OP is using DDX. A complete different sort of developer from its chemical characteristics. You mentioned such effect only with papers. But in any way - normal water (with less amounds of minerals) should solve that problem - or this should show an other reason from failured in developing. (if the water can't be responcible for after changing).
with regards
PS : Remember one of my first posts a couple of month ago - Ian ? Heading : Old lenses with coating technology from 50th. I made a marvelous shot last week at night. May be I have to make a scan and show. (Hope it is sharp .....exposure time 40 sec.)

Read what I actually wrote !!!!

I said the issue could be iron particles and with the fixer stage.

Ian

 

[removed account4]

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

frank booth ( dennis hopper ) would not apprecaite you developing your film in that
(FB)"what kind of beer do you like drinking, neighbor?"
(NEIGHBOR) "heineken"
(FB) "BLEEP heineken, pabst blue ribbon !!"

thanks for the insights about PBR though i hope you've published your recipe !

 

[trendland]

Read what I actually wrote !!!!

I said the issue could be iron particles and with the fixer stage.

Ian

Yes I know - You mentioned it in regard of
the fixage. The example with Xtol ( I remembered just some trouble in the past) this was caused from iron in the water.
So we have - iron from old water pipes (mostly they ar made of lead).
We may see brownish water from households after inspection of pipes - this also may be iron oxide.
And we may have iron solved with other minerals in table water (in quite less amounds)
In any way : the OP is on the right side to
to avoid this possible reason.
May be this is the reason - possible manufacturing problems can't be solved with this method.
We will see ....what method to avoid problems the OP will find out.....
with regards

 

[BAC1967]

frank booth ( dennis hopper ) would not apprecaite you developing your film in that
(FB)"what kind of beer do you like drinking, neighbor?"
(NEIGHBOR) "heineken"
(FB) "BLEEP heineken, pabst blue ribbon !!"

thanks for the insights about PBR though i hope you've published your recipe !

I posted it here:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/film-ferrania-p30.146259/page-14#post-2010377

 

[removed account4]

fantastic , thanks !!

john

 

[DoryBreaux]

Well the XTOL showed up today, need to run to the store after work and pick up some distilled water and some more bottles; I forgot that 5L takes up a lot of space... Will report back when I have the chance to run some TMY thru XTOL and DDX back to back with distilled water (I plan on using distilled for each step). If this fixes the issue I'm buying a water filter.

 

[mshchem]

Well the XTOL showed up today, need to run to the store after work and pick up some distilled water and some more bottles; I forgot that 5L takes up a lot of space... Will report back when I have the chance to run some TMY thru XTOL and DDX back to back with distilled water (I plan on using distilled for each step). If this fixes the issue I'm buying a water filter.

I've used XTOL for years with TMY/ TMY2. All my tap water is filtered before it goes to mixing valve. I have an RO system, I use RO (pretty much deionized) water for all solutions. I have always used Kodak Rapid fix w/ hardener. Never scanned always wet chemistry enlarging or contact printing. I would suggest a good contact print of the negatives. Damn scanners are VooDoo to me.
I've never had a problem, never have had a problem with ink transfer from backing paper either.
Transfer your XTOL into FULL soda bottles. If you keep the stock in a FULL bottle I have had it last for years, (not recommended).
Good luck, Mike

 

[DoryBreaux]

Six months later and I'm still fighting these tiny little black specs. It isnt just TMY2, its everything. I've been using only distilled water, and it comes out in everything, sometimes to the point where its unusable. Temp control is spot on, timing is spot on, using fresh chemicals every time. I'm at a loss. I'm going to try a different fixer because that's the only chemical I haven't swapped out for something different. I'd hate to give up on my analog adventure because of something this ridiculous.

 

[Hekoru]

Not sure if you have tried it, but I had some problems with white stuff stuck to the negative, and it turned out to be fixer. Looks like it develops some particulate with time. Passing the fixer through a filter first fixed all my issues.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Not sure if you have tried it, but I had some problems with white stuff stuck to the negative, and it turned out to be fixer. Looks like it develops some particulate with time. Passing the fixer through a filter first fixed all my issues.

I had the same exact problem. I first blamed it on the Foma film I was using, but later discovered it was a precipitate in the fixer. My fixer is now filtered through a gold coffee filter with a paper filter inside the gold filter. Problem solved. JohnW