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film scan black dot spot

I got my roll from studio and my last frame had a certain black spot in the left upper corner.Any idea what it can be ? The rest of them were fine.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Did you receive the negatives as well? Is there a clear(ish) spot in the corresponding location on the film? \$\endgroup\$
    – Zeiss Ikon
    May 7, 2021 at 17:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ I.m going next week to get the negatives. I know that I forgot to focus this shot. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex Necula
    May 7, 2021 at 18:20

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You will need to inspect the negative to see if the spot appears there also. If not, it is some artifact of printing/scanning, the problem is fixable, and you should ask the lab to redo it.

If yes, it could be a number of things. I'll hazard a guess: given the blurry edges, it's an out-of-focus insect that happened to sit on the lens / fly by when you took the photo. But it could also be a development error, for example an air bubble that prevented the developing solution from reaching that area in the negative properly.

By the way, I'd be more worried about the slight vertical banding seen in the image. Unless this is a processing/scanning artifact, it could indicate that something is wrong with your camera's shutter.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks. I'll check the negatives. Also this was the only frame where the vertical line appeared and i supposed it was a developing error. I'll check with the lab to be sure bout it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alex Necula
    May 8, 2021 at 12:13
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    \$\begingroup\$ Definitely looks like the out-of-focus spot you'd expect from a bug on the front of the lens. Air bubbles or other development fluid artifacts almost never spread out so perfectly Gaussian-blur–like. There's almost always a point where the fluid stops, and the drying leaves a (at least partial) rim ring. Also, agreed, the banding is concerning \$\endgroup\$
    – scottbb ♦
    May 8, 2021 at 20:12
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I once was shooting outside with multiple camera bodies. After setting one down to use another, I picked the one on the ground back up and began to use it again. Glancing at the rear LCD screen I noticed a really bad dust goober on an image I had just taken. I checked the frames immediately previous and saw the same thing. The odd thing was that the dust spot was moving around the frame from shot to shot. "Ok," I thought, "The air from the mirror movement is blowing this really large dust ball around a bit."

I was preparing to remove the lens and do an 'emergency' field cleaning of my sensor by using a blower bulb, which is something I avoid doing unless absolutely necessary, when I noticed the half completed spider's web spanning the front of the lens hood. Then I found the spider who was weaving it. That's pretty much what your example looks like. Dust on the front of a lens usually isn't visible in image because it's so small and so out of focus. But an insect that is much larger than a grain of dust, even though it is extremely defocused, can show up as a very blurry spot.

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