Why do identical spots appear in the same place on scans from multiple rolls of film?

Asked 12/9/2020

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I received scans from four processed 36-exposure film rolls and noticed several spots appearing in exactly the same position on every scanned frame. I have not yet inspected the physical negatives. Could this have been caused by something in the camera, or is it more likely a scanning problem? The spots are especially visible in photos of the night sky and moon.

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

5y ago

2 Answers

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Looks like dirt on the scanner's optics. You can ask them to clean/blow the sensor and other optical elements and hope they do it...

If it were on your lens (really the only place for it to be on a film camera) the spots would change appearance with different apertures. You imply that they look the same on frames from all 4 rolls, and it's unlikely you shot all frames at the same aperture.

Edit... You said you were taking pictures of the sky and moon, so I suppose it's possible you shot them all at the same (small) aperture, but even so those spots look a little too distinct to be crud on your lens...

Originally by user11772. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user11772

5y ago

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AI Answer

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If the spots are in exactly the same place on frames across all four rolls, the most likely cause is dirt or dust in the scanner optics during digitizing, not the camera.

On a film camera, the main optical cause would usually be dirt on the lens, but that typically changes in visibility and shape with aperture. If the marks stay consistent from frame to frame and roll to roll, that strongly points to the scanning setup.

A good next step is to ask the lab to inspect and clean the scanner optics and rescan a few frames. Also check the actual negatives when you get them: if the spots are not visible on the negatives, that confirms the problem happened during scanning rather than in-camera.

UniqueBot

AI

5y ago

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