First roll developed, whats the problem here?

[jesse_pafundi]

<p>I just had my first roll of Kodak Portra 400 developed and have some weird blotchiness going on in every frame. I'm sure it's the camera but wanted to see if anyone could tell what exactly is going on here. I shot this with an old Minolta 7000 Maxxum with a 35-70mm lens. The camera hadn't been used in at least 8 years. Kind of bummed about the roll because I really enjoy the Portra film and had some good shots. This is just a whatever shot but am hoping someone can identify the issue. Thanks in advance!</p>

<p><img src="http://i54.tinypic.com/2ik9q1g.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667" /></p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Looks like a dirty negative to me.</p>

[greg_miller10]

<p>Your film is dirty. It is possible that the film was underexposed and your lab is increasing contrast of the image they are presenting you which in turn also makes blemishes much more noticeable but more likely the environment just isn't clean at your lab. You should be able to clean or rewash your negative to get rid of this. </p>

[cricketprints]

<p>Looks like dirty squeegee rollers in the film stab. See if it comes off with film cleaner, otherwise scan it on a better film scanner with Digital Ice software which could clean up some of the spots.</p>

[jesse_pafundi]

<p>Thanks guys. Whats the best way to go about cleaning the negatives? Any chance their scanner is dirty?</p>

[cricketprints]

<p>It looks like the film, not the scanner. I'd say its not just dust, its more like grease spots that are caused by dirty stab. You will need film cleaner & a cotton glove. The lab needs to clean their squeegee rollers & dump their stab. Feel free to give them my contact info if they don't know how to fix it. Every roll they send through will have the problem until they clean it.</p>

[greg_miller10]

<p>If the dust is in the identical place on all of the frames it is on the sensor in the scanner. Not likely though. I'd take it back to the lab and have them clean it up for you. It will call their attention to the problem and let them know it is not acceptable. There is a chance though that they have significantly upped the contrast of the pictures if your negative was underexposed which reveals a lot more dust. If this is the case they are doing some work above and beyond the call of duty and this amount of dust wouldn't be completely unusual on a freshly process negative. In my own lab where we develop only vintage film we are often dealing with very low contrast negatives that needs huge increases in contrast. Even though our lab has positive air pressure and all air into the lab is hepa filtered, we still get dust marks like this on freshly processed film.<br>

You can clean it yourself but you will need film cleaner or 99% alcohol from your drug store (don't use rubbing alcohol). If the dust is on the emulsion side of the film wiping it with a Kimwipe or the like and film cleaner or alcohol might not release the dirt and could possibly make the problem worse. If it is emulsion dust then a proper rewash would be best. You need distilled water, the appropriate final rinse and a clean place to hang it to dry. Not using distilled water will likely leave other problems unless you squeegee the film before drying. </p>

[mukul_dube]

<p>I'm just as sure that no camera can do this.</p>

[jesse_pafundi]

<p>Im pretty sure this isnt the result of under exposed film. I made it a point to do zero adjustments on the shots. I wanted it as is. I'll bring it back and have them clean it and see if that fixes the issue.</p>

[jesse_pafundi]

<p>Oh, and Greg, it is in the same place on every frame.</p>

[lachaine]

<p>It can't be the camera. Film cameras don't actually do anything other than hold the film, and let you choose an aperture and a shutter speed. They are just a box with a hole in it.</p>

<p>I've had this problem myself years ago, and it was worse with a high-resolution film scanner than it was with a cheap flatbed.</p>

<p>Extremely small specks of dust or particles from water residue which are invisible to the naked eye often remain (and perhaps also on parts of the scanner). These would not show on an actual photographic print, but they are easily picked up and magnified by sharp scanning. That, combined with grain aliasing because it's an ISO 400 film is probably at the root of your problem. Counter-intuitively, scanning with quality scanners is often too sharp, and you want to lessen that... and scan without any sharpening being done by the scanner. Otherwise, you're sharpening grain and grain aliasing.</p>

<p>You can wash that film until your hands bleed and it probably won't make much difference. You can try turning off the things the scanner does automatically (like auto-sharpening, auto-contrast and whatever), scan as a TIFF file (preferably a 48-bit one), and then work on the image as you would when using a camera raw file. On the other hand, if you prefer not to go thru that long and laborious process, you could try just despeckling the scans in a good image editing program. It can be done automatically to some degree, or you can do it manually with a despeckling, healing or cloning tool for each spot.</p>

<p>Ok for medium or large format, but I wouldn't use ISO 400 film in a 35mm camera if I intended to scan it, myself... except maybe if I was having the scanning done very expensively by a "lab" that specializes in high-end scanning.</p>