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Spots on my Negatives!

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(LATEST TEST UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF POST)

I developed a roll of Rollei Retro 400s and found some strange goings on that I have never seen before in all the years I’ve been developing my own films. Before I show the images I will explain the process.

When I loaded the film onto the reel, the reel was still slightly wet from the previous wash. I’ve loaded onto wet reels before in the past without any problems.

I had clean hands, as I had just finished washing the previous film.

I used my XTOL replenished stock, which other than slightly dirty looking has no floating bits.

During development I did 5 inversions every minute and gave the tank a tap as normal.

Here are the images in order they were taken.

1. No problem
2. Long streak. This looks like a trapped bubble sliding down
4. No problem
5. Spots over to the right.
6. Another streak, possibly air bubble again sliding
6. No problem
7. No problem
8. No Problem
9. No Problem
10. No problem
11. Definitely an air bubble!
12. Lots of splash looking spots
13. Slight spot middle left
14. More splash looking spots
15. No problem

So I can’t figure this out. Any ideas?

UPDATE

I decided to do further tests to see if I can replicate the issue but on 35mm instead. I figured that when I washed the film that I was developing before I added two drops of washing up liquid for a rinse aid. I do this sometimes. I then hung the film to dry but forgot to rinse the reel and loaded the above film onto it wet and proceeded to develop.

So I replicated this using 7 frames of 35mm film. I loaded the film onto the reel which still was wet and had residue on from the washing up liquid.

After developing and washing I found one frame with a mark. Not as dark as the others but still an unwanted mark.

NOVATEK CAMERA

I then proceeded to shoot this scene in strips of 7 and develop separately making sure this time my reel and tank were totally rinsed and clean, however, still loading with a wet reel. These negatives came out with no spots at all.

So I can only assume all my problems were caused by not washing the rinse aid from my reel before loading a new film thus causing soap bubbles in the tank whilst developing. It’s only a theory and time will tell if I ever see the same again.

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