Is this a processing error?

[EstherC]

I am hoping to rule out it's a dust spec on my lens.

A lens dust speck won't produce a visible spot on the image.

Thank you for the reassurance~

 

[EstherC]

Just try to hold the strip of negatives by the edges (along where the sprocket holes are) so you don't touch the emulsion if you take them out of the clear plastic sleeve (you might not need to, depends on if you can see it or not). If you hold it up towards a window or a lamp and look thru it you should be able to see if there's a dust spot. That actually can happen to the film in the drying process; doing darkroom work I'd usually dust the negatives using a Beseler dust gun before putting them in the enlarger (which is not as impressive as it sounds, it's a squirt can but you need to use the right kind of compressed squirty stuff and it's not a good idea to blow on them ).
Or it could have happened when it was scanned... The lab should be able to dust the negs if needed (don't try it yourself if you don't have the necessary materials or know how to use them) and/or rescan.

If everything else turned out OK it could just be a fluke bit of dust; if you try the lab again and aren't happy with the results you could consider doing your own developing or doing mail order, or some of both. I've done B&W darkroom but send out film - most places have options of just getting film processed, and scanned, or prints made, etc.

Nice picture by the way.

Thanks a lot for the various ideas and nice comment. I took a closer look at the negative without a magnifier and couldn't see anything. I am taking it back to the lab and hopefully "the boss" can figure it out and/or fix it. I thought the technician who did the developing will know what the problem is but he said "I don't know much about it, I just did what I was told how to do it." Huh??

 

[EstherC]

Nothing new. For film development you don't need a darkroom (common misconception ), I do it in the laundry room. As chemicals go you don't need my arsenal, for starters 2 sq.ft. is enough. By not doing it yourself you will gain only frustration, problem with the labs is that all film specialists are gone. Send your film to me and I will develop it in instant coffee and it will be better, than most of the labs today.

Really? You don't need a darkroom? Then how do you make sure the film don't get destroyed? Sorry if I sound so stupid. I just started taking pictures on film and I have a lot to learn still. Didn't know why people are developing their b&w film till now so never thought I need to look into it. Maybe I should. but aren't those chemicals pretty toxic? (Sorry if this is a misconception also...)

 

[timor]

Esther, do you see it ? You just started film photography and right away you encountered a problem for which you need some creative solution. Film photography is full of such a situations, every day there will be decisions to be made, many of them final, not much is given as a preprogrammed solution. This is a curse or a blessing, people hate it because of that or draw a lot of satisfaction from understanding and controlling the process. And the process is a magical one, no kidding, we go to the Mars but still don't know, why silver halides form the image in process of development. (Former discussion: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/film-discussion-q/327149-chemistry-film-photography.html ). At the end every one film photographer is an unique individual with own methods in work. Common labs, even in the best times of film photography, could never really satisfy a discriminating photographer and I can't imagine you are not such.
For the moment of putting film into the dev tank you need a darkened space like lightproof closet, washroom of storage room for 5 min. or less, rest of the process you do with light, doesn't matter where, preferably close to some sink.
Chemicals are not toxic, when swallowed may cause discomfort but won't kill you. Metol, one of the ingredients of developer is known to cause sometimes allergy.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Hi, this is my second roll of B&W film taken on Ilford HP5. I don't know how to develop so I send it to a local lab to process and print. One of the prints shows a faint light gray circle located where the blue sky is (approx. center of the picture, right above the roof). It's on the scanned image they make too. I don't see the same spot on any other photos of the roll but there are only a couple others with the sky as background. The rest are mostly buildings and people which may make it difficult to see the spot. This was the only b&w film i took on the trip. I also shot four rolls of color film, with the same lens and camera, and I didn't see anything unusual on the prints.

I want to rule out this is something to do with my camera or my lens. Can someone please tell me if this looks like a processing error? Any comments on this are greatly appreciated.

The faint lines in the sky and that dark spot are all scanner related.

 

[gsgary]

Nothing new. For film development you don't need a darkroom (common misconception ), I do it in the laundry room. As chemicals go you don't need my arsenal, for starters 2 sq.ft. is enough. By not doing it yourself you will gain only frustration, problem with the labs is that all film specialists are gone. Send your film to me and I will develop it in instant coffee and it will be better, than most of the labs today.

Really? You don't need a darkroom? Then how do you make sure the film don't get destroyed? Sorry if I sound so stupid. I just started taking pictures on film and I have a lot to learn still. Didn't know why people are developing their b&w film till now so never thought I need to look into it. Maybe I should. but aren't those chemicals pretty toxic? (Sorry if this is a misconception also...)

Calumet Changing Room

 

[gsgary]

Esther, do you see it ? You just started film photography and right away you encountered a problem for which you need some creative solution. Film photography is full of such a situations, every day there will be decisions to be made, many of them final, not much is given as a preprogrammed solution. This is a curse or a blessing, people hate it because of that or draw a lot of satisfaction from understanding and controlling the process. And the process is a magical one, no kidding, we go to the Mars but still don't know, why silver halides form the image in process of development. (Former discussion: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/film-discussion-q/327149-chemistry-film-photography.html ). At the end every one film photographer is an unique individual with own methods in work. Common labs, even in the best times of film photography, could never really satisfy a discriminating photographer and I can't imagine you are not such.
For the moment of putting film into the dev tank you need a darkened space like lightproof closet, washroom of storage room for 5 min. or less, rest of the process you do with light, doesn't matter where, preferably close to some sink.
Chemicals are not toxic, when swallowed may cause discomfort but won't kill you. Metol, one of the ingredients of developer is known to cause sometimes allergy.

There is nothing like inhaling Rodinal, stop bath and fixer

 

[timor]

There is nothing like inhaling Rodinal, stop bath and fixer

I forgot about the stop bath, don't use it, use citric acid instead. Or white vinegar.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Apparently machines used now are more automatic than what they used to use, in the past the technicians had to adjust settings when they sent a roll through; now it seems like they aren't needing to check it going thru so maybe when it was scanned the tech just didn't notice the spot.

I like the smell of fixer... However, apparently some people may have skin sensitivity to it so you might want to use rubber gloves and/or tongs handling film chemistry (at least making prints, I use tongs). I don't think the chemistry is supposed to be particularly toxic but if you have children you'd have to determine if it's safe for you to keep it in the house til the kids are older.

I haven't seen the changing 'room', that's intriguing; there are changing bags too and yes the film has to be in complete darkness. (Taking a college workshop was fun passing along the can opener to open the film cartridge - like what, the university couldn't go to the dollar store and buy some more can openers?? LOL) It does take a certain amount of equipment which can be found second hand fairly cheap for the most part (enlargers seem to still be fairly expensive).

You might want to take some time and figure out what's going to work best for you. I love being in a darkroom and doing my own prints and had been using a shared darkroom at a local university but the building's under construction; with that and a job change I started sending film out. I've lately been doing lumen prints and ferrotyping those; the reality is I can't do everything myself so do a combination of sending out and doing it myself.

I think it might depend on where you live, there were plenty of options locally til a couple of store owners retired and went out of business; now there are two in-state camera store chains that send out film to their main location. So I started sending out to The Darkroom in San Francisco; Blue Moon in Oregon is supposed to be good; Dwayne's in Kansas has a good reputation, and there are others. The Darkroom's flat rate is $10 and costs go from there depending on what you have done - most will develop and scan (which works for me because I'll never catch up on scanning older film images as it is!)

 

[EstherC]

Esther, do you see it ? You just started film photography and right away you encountered a problem for which you need some creative solution. Film photography is full of such a situations, every day there will be decisions to be made, many of them final, not much is given as a preprogrammed solution. This is a curse or a blessing, people hate it because of that or draw a lot of satisfaction from understanding and controlling the process. And the process is a magical one, no kidding, we go to the Mars but still don't know, why silver halides form the image in process of development. (Former discussion: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/film-discussion-q/327149-chemistry-film-photography.html ). At the end every one film photographer is an unique individual with own methods in work. Common labs, even in the best times of film photography, could never really satisfy a discriminating photographer and I can't imagine you are not such.
For the moment of putting film into the dev tank you need a darkened space like lightproof closet, washroom of storage room for 5 min. or less, rest of the process you do with light, doesn't matter where, preferably close to some sink.
Chemicals are not toxic, when swallowed may cause discomfort but won't kill you. Metol, one of the ingredients of developer is known to cause sometimes allergy.

I think I would never be able to understand why one wants to be in a darkroom, handling all the chemicals, doing developing and printing IF I didn't start shooting b&w film myself. Thank you for clarify some of my misconception. Maybe doing it myself is not as difficult as I thought.

 

[EstherC]

Calumet Changing Room

Thank you for the suggestion. How do you know what you are doing it without seeing it though? By "feeling" it?

 

[EstherC]

There is nothing like inhaling Rodinal, stop bath and fixer

I forgot about the stop bath, don't use it, use citric acid instead. Or white vinegar.

Appreciate the natural alternative!

 

[EstherC]

Apparently machines used now are more automatic than what they used to use, in the past the technicians had to adjust settings when they sent a roll through; now it seems like they aren't needing to check it going thru so maybe when it was scanned the tech just didn't notice the spot.

I like the smell of fixer... However, apparently some people may have skin sensitivity to it so you might want to use rubber gloves and/or tongs handling film chemistry (at least making prints, I use tongs). I don't think the chemistry is supposed to be particularly toxic but if you have children you'd have to determine if it's safe for you to keep it in the house til the kids are older.

I haven't seen the changing 'room', that's intriguing; there are changing bags too and yes the film has to be in complete darkness. (Taking a college workshop was fun passing along the can opener to open the film cartridge - like what, the university couldn't go to the dollar store and buy some more can openers?? LOL) It does take a certain amount of equipment which can be found second hand fairly cheap for the most part (enlargers seem to still be fairly expensive).

You might want to take some time and figure out what's going to work best for you. I love being in a darkroom and doing my own prints and had been using a shared darkroom at a local university but the building's under construction; with that and a job change I started sending film out. I've lately been doing lumen prints and ferrotyping those; the reality is I can't do everything myself so do a combination of sending out and doing it myself.

I think it might depend on where you live, there were plenty of options locally til a couple of store owners retired and went out of business; now there are two in-state camera store chains that send out film to their main location. So I started sending out to The Darkroom in San Francisco; Blue Moon in Oregon is supposed to be good; Dwayne's in Kansas has a good reputation, and there are others. The Darkroom's flat rate is $10 and costs go from there depending on what you have done - most will develop and scan (which works for me because I'll never catch up on scanning older film images as it is!)

I really appreciate you taking time to offer ideas. Do most people develop the film and let the lab do the printing or do people also enlarge/scan and print themselves? What do you do? From the conversation from this thread, it sounds like labs these days print from digitally scanned files anyways? Or are there labs still do the old fashion way of printing (not sure how it works, but the way they do it before there is computer and scanner)? Do most of you develop film yourself and use a good quality scanner to scan the images to your computer and print (or send out to print)? Or do some people also print without involving the computer/printer? It sounds like you (or used to) make your own prints also. Do you do that only for black and white or do you do it for color prints also? Is there any difference in terms of the whole process between color photos vs. b&w? Is what we have been talking about here (the processing) only applies to b&w? I hope I am not asking way too many questions at one time.

 

[EstherC]

(Former discussion: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/film-discussion-q/327149-chemistry-film-photography.html )

In your last post you mentioned about developing my film in instant coffee for me. I thought you were joking! After I read above-mentioned thread, I just realize you were not joking.

 

[timor]

(Former discussion: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/film-discussion-q/327149-chemistry-film-photography.html )

In your last post you mentioned about developing my film in instant coffee for me. I thought you were joking! After I read above-mentioned thread, I just realize you were not joking.

Caffenol has its popularity: Caffenol
There is a million ways to develop film but only a several right for you, only you can discover them. That is a journey totally different from digital, the question is, if it will be rewarding for you.