Dust? Dirt? Or something else?

[TheHulk]

I just finished shooting my first two test rolls on a Bronica ETRS I picked up. The negatives show something obstructing the light from hitting the film plane. What is strange, is that they all happen in the same general area in the top left of the frame...But not on every frame. I have some ideas of what the culprit could be. Maybe you could help me narrow it down.

1. I did notice an excessive amount of grease on the dark slide from pulling it out of the back. When I would pull it out, some would remain on the slide. Tried to clean it best I could, but maybe I didn't get it all?

2. During developing I used a Patterson style tank. Maybe the ball bearings on the plastic reels rubbed off some of the emulsion? (Pretty unlikely but...maybe....)

3. Bad batches of film? I bought the two rolls from the same box. But this seems unlikely too.

I will attach a quick screen shot of a few frames. Please excuse the crappy scan, I scanned it in the sleeve with a less than photo quality scanner. But you can see the mark on the film.

 

[Gary A.]

I'd call that a hunk of grease or dirt floating around the film cassette. Whip out the vacuum and some nylon artist brushes ... roll up your sleeves and start strubbing. There is all kinds of dirt/dust all over the negs/images. Where are you drying the negs?

 

[TheHulk]

Actually the majority of that dust is on the outside of the sleeve, and on my flatbed scanner. I'm using photoflo after processing, and drying in a film dryer. The negs are pretty much spotless dust wise. But there definitely seems to be a lot of dust floating around inside.

 

[tirediron]

The thing in the top corner looks like it could be a bit of light seal which is moving around....

 

[TheHulk]

Just took it in to my local camera shop to determine the issue. The foam bumpers inside of the body are starting to degrade, which is causing some little foam particles to bounce around inside my camera. Awesome! Sounds like it should be a fairly inexpensive repair.

 

[tirediron]

Just took it in to my local camera shop to determine the issue. The foam bumpers inside of the body are starting to degrade, which is causing some little foam particles to bounce around inside my camera. Awesome! Sounds like it should be a fairly inexpensive repair.

Nailed it! You can probably actually do this yourself for even less money. "Foam bumper" (aka "Light seals") replacement kits shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[TheHulk]

Nailed it! You can probably actually do this yourself for even less money. "Foam bumper" (aka "Light seals") replacement kits shouldn't be hard to find.

Luckily a nice customer next to me tipped me off to a friend who does all of his repairs from home, and would do it for about $25. Ill take that deal!