Strange Stuff on Film

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I have just returned from the sunny and warm SE corner of Oregon shooting my new Phillips 4X5. However, I got a few strange images on 3 of my negatives that I have not encountered before. One image is about 1/4 inch across. In the center it is a flattened circle. There are about 20 little legs surrounding it. Looks like an alien sea anemone. The sun was behind me and to the left. The other image (not in the same place on the negative or with the same lens) looks like a small twig about 3/8 in long hovering in the sky. The sun was behind me and to the right. The final image is about 1/16 in diameter and is shaped like and egg. It is darker than the sky where it is found and has a focused bright corona around it. The light was coming directly from my left. I always shade my lens with my hat or whatever is available. All three were shot with Cokin filters on Tri-x. I haven't seen discussion of my first two images here yet. The last sounds like something pretty close to the film. Any suggestions ?

-- Paul Mongillo (pmongillo@thurston.com), November 12, 1999

Answers

The first one sounds like pollen

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), November 12, 1999.

That actually crossed my mind, but where would it have been to be focused ? This was not the classic dust on the negative during exposure deal. These are images.

-- Paul Mongillo (pmongillo@thurston.com), November 12, 1999.

Could it have been a reflection off the back side of the Cokin flter, a kind of bounced flare? The other thought that occurs to me is that it is pinhole in the bellows.

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), November 12, 1999.

I have found that its easy to get reflectiond from the backside of Cokin filters (and others that have a similar type of mount), as Ellis suggested. The one with the 20 little legs sounds a lot like the diffraction spikes you would get from a bright object (or reflection). Oh, those pesky UFOs, always screwing up our LF chromes!

-- Ron Shaw (shaw9@llnl.gov), November 12, 1999.

Yes, should contact the UFOs control departement!

-- Paul Schilliger (pschilliger@vtx.ch), November 12, 1999.


How old was the film? How was it stored? Maybe fungus on the film??? In Georgia it can happen.

-- tom barrett (tjbarrett@mindspring.com), November 12, 1999.

could also be from reticulation(sp). Are all ofyour chemicals the same temp? Have you allowed for your film to become at least room temp?

-- tom barrett (tjbarrett@mindspring.com), November 12, 1999.

Go to www.roswellrods.com.

-- steve (swines@egginc.com), November 15, 1999.

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