T-Max 100 in 510 Pyro

I've been having issues with spots on my sheet film negatives following processing.  Originally I thought is was related to a batch of Blazinal developer, a replacement for the original Agfa Rodinal formula.  But, then I had the same issue with other developers.  Then I thought there might be issues with my water supply, but soon ruled this out.  I began to narrow down possibilities... thinking it might be some contamination in my film washer and my developing tanks I cleaned those with an acid cleaning solution.  The problem was diminished, but did not completely go away.  I thought it might be dust that was settling on the film during drying so I vacuumed out my drying cabinet and replaced the intake filter.  I discovered that the spots could be removed by rewashing the film, so any good images affected by this can be salvaged.  Here is a sample of what those spots looked like....

At one point, when I thought my problem was related to a long term buildup of residue on the stainless steel film hangers and plastic developing tanks that I had been using, I switched to some new tanks.  I tried some Mod54 racks that fit into Paterson Super System 4 tanks.  These are daylight tanks, meaning that once the film has been loaded into the rack and placed in the tank, with the lid properly in locked in, the room lights can be turned on.  Processing can take place including filling and draining of chemistry without having to turn off the lights.  A bit of a mixed blessing as the daylight processing wiht the tanks is convenient, but the racks only hold six sheets of film, and are very cumbersome to properly load.

On April 7th, anxious to see some of the film that I had shot on Vancouver Island, and also curious to try out these new tanks, I processed two batches, a total of 12 sheets, of Kodak T-Max 100 4" x 5" film in Jay DeFehr's 510 Pyro formula.  This time around the film came out pretty clean, but in hindsight I realized that I let the film air dry in my cabinet without turning on the heater or the fan.  I believe that the spot problem is mostly related to contamination of my drying cabinet.  I will continue to work for the next few weeks and see if now that the cabinet has been vacuumed out, and the filter changed, if the problem really goes away.

This batch of film included several sheets taken during the recent trip out to Vancouver Island.  It also included couple from the early spring trip down to Crowsnest Pass.  I have scanned and included a few of the stronger images here.