White dots

Bormental · Jun 1, 2020

Ever since I started shooting medium format a few months ago, I started seeing tiny blurry white dots / specks on my negatives, but only with Fomapan 100, and only in 120 format. The samples are below. What are these?

Here's what I am ruling out:

Developer is well-mixed several days ahead of time. In fact, I am seeing this with D76 and Xtol.
35mm rolls developed from the same bottle are perfectly fine, including Foma 100 rolls.
This happened with 3 Foma 100 rolls already. Some negs are worse than others.
My agitation is Ilford's standard: 4 inversions in the beginning, then 4 inversions every minute.
I am using "System 4" Paterson tank, i.e. the one which fits two 35mm reels or one 120 reel.

Thank you!

Full photo, as you can see they're tiny enough not to be noticeable at web sizes:

Zoomed in 100% (you have to click on it)

MattKing · Jun 1, 2020

This looks like dust to me.
Every scan I've ever done has at least some dust on it.

Bormental · Jun 1, 2020

My other negs are always 100% dust-free. I mean literally zero specks per roll, for both 120 and 35mm, I almost never touch up. Dust is the reason I switched to developing at home, because my local lab isn't very clean.

Is it possible that the Foma 100 emulsion is drastically stickier than others?

I will do an experiment next weekend: will soak this roll again, then photo-flo, and scan again to see if the specks appear in a different location (or if there are more of them).

Any other ideas?

MattKing · Jun 1, 2020

Bormental said:
Is it possible that the Foma 100 emulsion is drastically stickier than others?

Or more likely to build static.
The Foma may also interact with your scanner differently.
Try scanning the negatives again, with the negatives facing the other direction - still the same side up, just turned around.
If the white spots move in the image, then they are a product of the scanning process.

Bormental · Jun 1, 2020

That's a good tip, except I use dSLR for scanning (another reason I never see dust). I think re-washing the negs will be a good test for dust, just time consuming...

John Bragg · Jun 1, 2020

Bormental said:
That's a good tip, except I use dSLR for scanning (another reason I never see dust). I think re-washing the negs will be a good test for dust, just time consuming...

Have you got any silver precipitate in your fixer or is it fresh solution in clean bottle ? A lesson I learned the hard way with similar spots appearing on my film (Tri-X).

Bormental · Jun 1, 2020

John, thank you for replying.

Usually, I would use one 1L bottle of fixer for 10 films or one month, whatever comes first. Then I discard it and move on to a fresh bottle. The first two rolls were #9 and #10 rolls of a bottle. The 3rd roll is the first roll with a freshly mixed bottle, and a different brand too.

I would **love** for this problem to be dust. Dust is easy to fix. What bothers me is that the dots are somewhat blurry and suspiciously uniform only varying in "intensity". Dist is usually sharper and irregular. Another thing I'm hoping for is defective film, all these rolls were ordered at the same time. If it's not one of those two things I'll be begging for this thread to provide answers, I am not ready to drop Foma 100, it's absolutely gorgeous in 120!

FishyFish · Jun 18, 2020

I've had this exact same problem recently. It's only affected a couple of rolls of Fomapan 100. Everything else has been dust free (well, within the usual levels anyway ).

Mine was devved in fresh Ilfotec DD-X and batches of stop and fix that have seen ten films each (although an earlier roll of Fomapan 100 with the same problem would have used this same batch of stop and fix when it was fresher). I've developed a roll of HP5+ at the weekend with the same chems and that is fine.

I'm starting to think it's a problem with the film. Mine is batch 021056 3 with an expiry of 04 2022.

Here's a quick screen grab from Lightroom showing the issue. This is a 1:3 enlargement. The spots are fairly uniform in size and non of them are irregular in the way that normal dust spots often are.

Bormental · Jun 18, 2020

I am leaning towards the same conclusion. I sent my image to B&H and they issued me a refund. I have processed a roll of Arista EDU Ultra 100 (same film) and I also managed to find a few specks on it, but in a far smaller numbers and only on a couple of negatives, so I am leaning towards manufacturing defect (or unfavorable storing conditions)

Bormental · Aug 1, 2020

Update: according to Fomapan customer support response in another thread, these white dots are undissolved pieces of anti-halation layer. The solution is to pre-wash film for 20-30 minutes. I did that and I haven't seen any white dots 4 rolls in a row. Problem solved.

This perfectly explains why I never had these issues with their 35mm film, because the anti-halation layer is different for 35mm.

P.S. This also addresses the annoying problem of Foma coloring blue my fixer and Xtol-R

Donald Qualls · Aug 2, 2020

Seriously? Twenty to thirty minutes?! Every other film manufacturer on Earth makes antihalation that washes out cleanly and does it in 1-2 minutes (or decolors in alkaline or at least high-sulfite developers).

Still, easy enough to deal with, but it would have been helpful if they'd put that in their instruction sheet.

However, I see that they claim it was only one batch number so afffected. Perhaps the dots in the other thread are different from yours?

pentaxuser · Aug 2, 2020

Yes I do hope for Foma's sake that a 20-30 min pre-wash to rid a film of any spots of anti-halation dye is confined to one batch. Seriously tho' I think it must be

pentaxuser

Bormental · Aug 2, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
However, I see that they claim it was only one batch number so afffected. Perhaps the dots in the other thread are different from yours?

The severity of those dots has been varying for me. Foma 100 vs 400, DD-X vs Xtol, distilled water vs tap, etc. But they never truly went away until I tried the pre-wash. 20 minutes do not bother me, I usually develop films in two baches/tanks, i.e. I fill it with water and it sits while I'm developing the first tank (which is usually the ISO 100 tank)

albireo · Aug 3, 2020

I am the person who got in touch with Foma and got the reply mentioned by Bormental in this thread.

Yes, the workaround mentioned by the Foma rep was relative to a particular (faulty) stock.

Therefore no need to add in the instruction sheet.

Donald Qualls said:
Seriously? Twenty to thirty minutes?! Every other film manufacturer on Earth makes antihalation that washes out cleanly and does it in 1-2 minutes (or decolors in alkaline or at least high-sulfite developers).

Still, easy enough to deal with, but it would have been helpful if they'd put that in their instruction sheet.

However, I see that they claim it was only one batch number so afffected. Perhaps the dots in the other thread are different from yours?

Donald Qualls · Aug 3, 2020

And yet, @Bormental has been getting this on Foma film and seeing it improve with a very long prewash.

Time for a batch number check?

Bormental · Aug 3, 2020

Donald, I see no contradiction here. Foma's AHU is not as advanced as other films, and I wouldn't expect there to be black/white situation of good/bad batch. Most likely the "bad" batch's AHU was somewhat more difficult to dissolve than the regular batch. Moreover, the severity of white specs problem also varies, it's not a clear present/absent phenomena.

This, combined with other factors like development temperature and method of agitation and purity of water, produces a spectrum of results. I think my case was probably on the worse side of that spectrum:

Paterson, not a JOBO
4 inversions every minute (without 30-second continuous agitation in the beginning)
20C temperature
Non-diluted developers (full-strength D76 or DD-X), i.e. shorter development times

I am willing to bet that if we take 25 volunteers and ask them for a full scan sample of their Foma 100/400 medium format negs, we'll find some white dots in them.

MattKing · Aug 3, 2020

Bormental said:
Foma's AHU is not as advanced as other films, and I wouldn't expect there to be black/white situation of good/bad batch.

FOMA is almost 100 years old. While it may not be quite at the level of Kodak or Fuji, and doesn't have the niche presence of Ilford, its products are quite advanced.

Bormental · Aug 3, 2020

Matt, generalizing is not helpful. "Advanced" only makes sense in relation to something like "industry average". On 3 dimensions (emulsion hardness, box speed accuracy and AHU quality) Foma is behind everything else I have tried. Still a good value, IMO, that's why I keep buying it especially for flat light situations.

Huss · Aug 4, 2020

I just got white dots like that on Eastman Kodak 5234. Never saw it on other emulsions. I think it is damaged.

albireo · Aug 4, 2020

Bormental said:
Matt, generalizing is not helpful. "Advanced" only makes sense in relation to something like "industry average". On 3 dimensions (emulsion hardness, box speed accuracy and AHU quality) Foma is behind everything else I have tried. Still a good value, IMO, that's why I keep buying it especially for flat light situations.

You're missing out if you're not using it for complex light situations, where I find for instance Foma 400 really shines.

Feel free to check out Flickr, where you'll find a number of very active Foma-related groups ('Fomapan 100', 'Foma film', 'Fomapan Medium format' come to mind) with a few members in particular truly showing off what the stuff can do in the right hands (via scans, sadly - no prints - but still).

Donald Qualls · Aug 5, 2020

FWIW, I don't recall ever seeing the white (in the print) specks in Foma films, and I've shot a goodly quantity of them -- from 2004 until 2007. I've always, however, shot it under the Arista .EDU Ultra rebrand, which might well lag a year or more behind current Foma production. Tempting to think this might be a recent change in Foma's process, perhaps addressing the "soft emulsion" complaints and hardening the AHU layer more than needed.

Bormental · Aug 5, 2020

@Donald Qualls do you pre-soak? what's your agitation routine? even though it's solved for me, I am still a bit puzzled why people like me, who consistently experienced the issue, are in the minority.

Donald Qualls · Aug 6, 2020

I've been presoaking everything since I started doing so as part of tempering for C-41, but it's nothing like 20 minutes. For Foma 120 films, because of the strong blue dye, I soak for a couple minutes (usually while I measure out the chemicals), then after pouring out the presoak I rinse 2-3 times until the water runs clear. I don't think I've ever gone past about five minutes.

Except for high dilution developers specifically with the plan of increasing true speed via compensation (i.e. Rodinal 1:50 or 1:100, HC-110 1+119), I give normal agitation -- continuous first minute, then five inversions every minute. I invert smoothly, and turn the tank approximately a quarter rotation between inversions. For high dilution (times typically run 15+ minutes) I give continuous agitation first 30 seconds, then three gentle inversions every third minute. With Foma 400 in Rodinal, this minimal agitation, carried to normal contrast, is good for about a half stop improvement in the toe.

In neither case have I seen white dots that show in the prints I've made with this film, nor in 1200 ppi scans.

Bormental · Aug 6, 2020

Makes sense. Let's solve it once and for all. Foma may just be the film one has to pre-soak, I'll do that for 2 minutes next time and see what happens.

Donald Qualls · Aug 6, 2020

I'll keep my eyes open.

If that doesn't clear things up, as it were, I'd be willing to swap you a roll of mine for a roll of yours -- or at least shoot a roll of my fresh 120 to be sure it's not just that I haven't shot any 2020 dated film.

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