What are the brown and orangish speckles/dirt on B&W 8mm Film

[Philip Hamilton]

I am seeing this on some B&W 8mm digests and headline movies - it comes and goes - not on the entire reel. Is this something that can be cleaned off or is it damage to the emulsion? thanks in advance.

[Paul Suchy]

I had a 16mm print with the same issue; it doesn't clean off, so it's probably the emulsion rotting.

[Brian Fretwell]

Or insufficient fixing when the print was made, I believe.

[Philip Hamilton]

Thanks! I think.... haha well yeah I was looking around and did see somethng about the fixer not be cleaned off and then it reacts with the emulsion over time. I get it. And I was afraid of that.....appreciate the input.

[Douglas Meltzer]

The dreaded orange spots......here's an earlier thread about those nasties.

[Mike Newell]

The one print I had this problem on was Laurel and Hardy Chickens Come home new LPP print from Derann. They appeared after a year or so of owning They were not there when purchased. I put it down to a print fault or reaction to a film cleaner. Never appeared on other prints and was impossible to remove.

[Brian Fretwell]

I believe, from what Ged has said on Facebook, that some B&W prints on colour stock that were made by Buck labs who used a process to ensure they were not tinted when new suffered problems like this later. Maybe this was one of those prints.

[Joseph Banfield]

I have two Super 8 Blackhawk prints with that same problem. Both are printed on Black and white stock and are "The Immigrant" and "Double whoopee" . Apparently even Blackhawk's film labs took some short cuts during processing too from time to time.

[Maurice Leakey]

When, years ago, I developed prints from my roll film camera negatives, it was necessary for the final section to be a very long time wash under running water, this was to get rid of all the fixer, otherwise the prints would go brown after a time.


Maurice

[Mike Newell]

I believe, from what Ged has said on Facebook, that some B&W prints on colour stock that were made by Buck labs who used a process to ensure they were not tinted when new suffered problems like this later. Maybe this was one of those prints.

Brian, I would say that is the likely cause. Shame because it was a good print but as time progressed more spots developed and I eventually binned it. There were also issues with stripe not adhering to the later Derann prints. White box specials out there somewhere.

[Chip Gelmini]

When I worked 35mm theaters at times we would get prints like this. A technician suggested if the bulb was too hot - the marks could be burning of the frames while the film was moving through the machine.

Likewise if the intermittent seized up and the picture stopped, would it totally burn out.................

I'm not sure if it would be possible to burn while in motion using the smaller film types.

[Philip Hamilton]

Here is a great example of this - I can't seem to find a good technical discussion on the web about what this is called etc -

I have noticed this on the CASTLE films I have been purchasing - not all but more than it should be. This is a scan of of Castle's DRACULA 8mm film with orange action throughout ----

https://youtu.be/-j6Mw8pQs0Y