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I have been getting some weird reddish dots and blobs in most of my shots with my old Yashica Super FX-3. They seem to appear with any lens and using film rolls with different ISOs (200/400), and also produce a general loss in sharpness and color quality.

Do you think this can be due to a leak somewhere in my camera body? I used to think that leaks would cause a more "rectangular" while halo, rather than these arbitrary patterns. However, this seems to be the only possible cause as I have tested different lenses and used film rolls with different sensitivities.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Do they (seem to) move? Are they the same frame to frame? Does the beginning of the roll appear as the end? Was there much of a time difference between shots? was film left in the camera for any length of time? Was there a weather change? They appear to me more like mold spores than a light leak. \$\endgroup\$
    – Stan
    Jul 26, 2019 at 22:25
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    \$\begingroup\$ Looks like contamination of some sort, either chemical or radioactive, that is touching the film surface. Been to Chernobyl lately? \$\endgroup\$
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Jul 26, 2019 at 22:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ Any kind of light leak would lighten a positive image. The spots on your images all seem to darken it. Also, leaked light usually is diffuse (we used to call it "fog" once upon a time.) whereas the spots on your images are very sharply defined. I presume that you still have the negatives, right? And the spots are on the negs? Do they have any texture to them? (i.e., is something nasty stuck to the surface of the negatives? If so, you might be able to soak them and then gently rub it off.) \$\endgroup\$
    – Solomon Slow
    Jul 27, 2019 at 0:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ Also, have you tried various combinations of, different film, different camera, different lab? Like, if you shoot film from a different source in a different camera, and then you take it to the same lab and you see the same crud, then you know where the problem lies. \$\endgroup\$
    – Solomon Slow
    Jul 27, 2019 at 0:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ How,who or where are you getting the film developed? \$\endgroup\$
    – Alaska Man
    Jul 27, 2019 at 0:06

2 Answers 2

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I checked the negatives, and as suggested by the comments, there is some sort of glue on them which matches the red blobs in the pics. I have checked my camera and everything seems to be perfectly clean. I have been using different rolls of different brands and ISOs, bought on different shops, but always developed in the same lab. It never occurred to me that they could be handling the negatives so badly... but this seems to be the only common factor at this point.

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It's not the camera. It's the film. Purchase a new roll of name-brand film, shoot some interesting things with various settings, and have it processed (and printed) by a commercial lab. I'm pretty sure you'll find that prints from the 'test' roll are fine, or at least do not have the same issues.

There is something screwy with your rolls of film... Perhaps they got wet. Perhaps they are 20 years old. Perhaps something went wrong when you developed them. Perhaps the negatives were stored in a leaky basement. You haven't given us any information besides "I shot these pictures and this is what the prints look like". Or were they scans?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ There isn't enough information in the question to declare so definitively that the film is bad. While I agree it's likely something is wrong with the film, that multiple rolls were affected reduces that likelihood. You have also not explained why you are so certain the camera and lab are not involved. \$\endgroup\$
    – xiota
    Jul 27, 2019 at 13:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ I just edited the question to provide more info. \$\endgroup\$
    – Daniel López
    Jul 27, 2019 at 13:36

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