white spots on neg

[Lynda]

Hi all, I am a college student and I work in the darkroom. One of the students gets teeny spots or voids, when he processes Ilford film. We use sprint chemistry, I have processed many rolls there with no problem, Ilford included. He has his own plastic tank, it is very clean inside. Any ideas?
Thanks, Lynda

 

[bdial]

Air bells would be a likely cause, is this only occurring with Ilford? Can you post a scan of some of the negs?
What differences, if any, are there between the procedures you use, and his?

 

[blaze-on]

What did your instructor say?

 

[Valerie]

Pinholes. I get them with HP5 and P-Cat HD. The first thing most folks will tell you is to use water instead of stop, after the developer. For me it helped, but did not eliminate them entirely. There are a couple of others here with the same problem. Always with Ilford, it seems. THere are some extensive threads here about it.... search "pinholes"

 

[Lynda]

Our instructor suggested skipping the stop and using water, he will try that with the next roll. The pinholes are really tiny, too small for air bells (I think). He develops with a figure 8 rotation (2) and then taps the bottom of the tank when it's upright and repeats in 30 seconds. The fixer the school has (sprint) has a hardner added, will it hurt to use a water stop? The instructions say not to use a water stop if the hardner is added. We tried w/o hardner and that made no difference. You need a loupe to see the dots on a 6x6 neg, and they don't show until he prints 11x14.
Thanks for advice so far, we are on break, I'll ask him for a scan when he gets back. Lynda

 

[Lynda]

pics -I hope!

I think I have attached the pics of the spots. One is the whole frame, 2 are close ups from the 6x6 neg to show the spots.
Lynda

 

[Simon R Galley]

Dear Lynda,

Please send me the batch number of the film, I will check the QC systems :

Simon ILFORD photo / HARMAN technology Limited

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

White spots on the neg can also be caused by dust on the film in the camera or camera back, so that's another thing to check for.