Strange Patterns showing up on Negatives

I’ve been having these white marks show up on my negatives for a little now, I don’t believe they’re dust because they’re too organized with a pattern. I was thinking maybe from the developing machine but possibly my camera. I’m using a 645n with the 120 back. There are little diamond shapes on the pressure plate but I’m not sure how they’d get transferred to the negative, especially with the paper behind it. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

 

 

 

looks like they're from the plate on the film back. take your film back and rest it against the negative. if the marks line up- then it's from your film back.

Certainly looks mechanical, too regular to be chemical or random dust.

 

Is the emulsion actually damaged? Looks like it in the negative photo.

 

Look for corresponding damage on the backing paper?

 

Pressure plate? Would have to punch through the backing paper...

 

Film rollers? Never seen anything like that in a 120 rollfilm camera.

 

Manufacturing defect?

I wouldn't rule out a processing fault. I bet most labs get very little call for 120 processing these days, and if their machine's been standing idle for a while, who knows what might happen?

 

My advice would be to try a different processor. Because I've never seen a camera fault produce marks like those.

 

Afterthought: any possibility it could be X-ray damage?

Pressure plate? Would have to punch through the backing paper...

 

thats what im thinking, i have this same exact camera and the patterns on the film look identical.

The fact that you can clearly see the spots on the film surface by reflected light shows that they're some kind of deposit on, or surface damage to, the film. At least they appear to be from the above picture.

 

The film hasn't been tightly inserted in a protective sleeve by the processor has it?

 

If not, then it definitely looks like processing damage, and you should change your lab.

 

A manufacturing fault in the film is also a faint possibility, because I can't see how a camera pressure plate could leave white spots on the surface of a film through the backing paper.

 

Or maybe I can. If the pressure plate is corroded, then it's just distantly possible that the dimples in the plate are shedding a powder onto the backing paper, which then gets transferred to the film as the film is wound onto the take-up spool. But surely the OP would notice a pressure plate that was 'rotting away'?

Edited November 27, 2019 by rodeo_joe|1

I had a similar thing happen to me once by a lab that hadn't cleaned its processing machine on Saturday then let it sit all weekend and mine were the first rolls through on Monday. In my case, the owner of the lab owned up to it and said he'd done the same thing to his own film once (it was a new employee who did mine). There was a residue on the rollers the film went through and it ended up on my film. By the end of the whole cycle, it was fixed and dried on like everything else. The only way I've gotten images out of those two rolls is because I scanned them.

Yours look very similar to mine. While it could be from something else, I'd have a talk with the lab. If they aren't running a lot of film, consider a different lab.