slides back from lab - with some liquid on them

[chris_markiewicz]

hello. yesterday i got 2 rolls of slides back from the lab - every

slide has a bunch (anywhere from 3 to 30) of liquid drops on it. i

took them back to the lab (i have to stop using this lab - the people

are getting lazy) - they tried to clean one with pec-12, but i think

it just smeared the stuff. so this morning i decided to try to clean

one myself. i took some water on a q-tip, dabbed the spots on the

negative, then dabbed the water with a soft cloth. seems to work very

well. i check the newly cleaned slides with a loupe and they seem

fine. (note that if i just dab a spot with a q-tip, it seems to smear

it...so i guess the stuff is water-soluble, but maybe it's

concentrated a bit and it only comes off cleanly when i dilute it with

water.)

 

i've checked threads on this forum and they say that in some

situations, i should re-do the final e-6 processing steps (cleaning

and rinsing). which makes sense, although i'm not sure why my

<expletive> lab didn't recommend that.

 

so my question is - what's my best move? i'm guessing that water

isn't it (or i should at least be using distilled water)? should i

take them back to the lab and have them unmount and clean them properly?

 

your comments are greatly appreciated.

chris

[gary_watson]

Take your E6 business elsewhere and let these slobs die of starvation.

[andre_noble4]

What fine lab was that?

[chris_markiewicz]

some small lab outside of harrisburg, pa. nice enough people, but they're getting old and i think they're just waiting for retirement. and yeah, that was the last time i'm using them for processing...

 

update - i very carefully cleaned a few more with distilled water and everything looks good.

[erik_dahlbeck]

It ordinary film after all. You can rinse B&W negs, why not E6? ;-)

[r.j._phil]

The spots are probably final rinse, or stabilizer. I had a terrible time with them about 5 years ago (running my own E6)and was told that 35mm does not have a "gelatin pelloid" coating on the base side. Apparently the 120 and large format films have this, to enhance sheeting off of the final rinse. I switched to distilled water for the final rinse mix and all was well. I do mix fresh final rimse frequently though.