Old film development

Old film development

This is not a photograph of mine. My father took it in 1964, seven years before I was born, but instead of developing it he left the exposed roll in a drawer in his darkroom. When he died a few years ago I found this roll and several others, and continuing the family tradition I just developed two of the rolls and left the rest wrapped in plastic in my freezer until yesterday when I finally gathered enough courage to try to develop one more of them...

The film is Kodak Verichrome Pan and based on my previous tries with the same film I developed it in Calbe R09 1+50 for 10 minutes, agitation every thirty seconds. There is, hardly surprisingly, a great deal of fog on the negatives but I'm actually quite pleased how well they came out.

Now I have some questions. Should I try another developer in order to suppress the fog on the remaining films, or is there some additive I can use?

Most of the films are Verichrome Pan but I also have one roll each of Panchroma 21, Perutz 21, Agfapan 100 and Tri-X (with green backing paper). Does anyone remember any starting points for these films? They are probably made in the late sixties or early seventies. Any data would be helpful in order to extrapolate new developing times.

Thanks

Claes
Location
Bolmstad, Sweden
Equipment Used
Rolleiflex Automat
Exposure
N/A
Film & Developer
Verichrome Pan, R09 1+50
Paper & Developer
Scan
you appear to be doing a great job with these treasures.... your dad appears to have a great eye... very nice image of kids and dog .....
I only wish I had some fresh verichrome pan! ....


Miles
 
I can feel your sense of joy, and can also imagine the joy this picture is going to bring some people when they see it and recognize the faces after all these years. This is an absolutely joyous scene, and the body language on these kids is terrific. Your dad a great sense and eye.
 
What a wonderful tradition, the idea of leaving your offspring with a window into your life that they might otherwise have never known of, and been able to experience even vicariously. And as some as some of the other members pointed out, a very nice image.

George
 
I pulled out my old Photo Lab Index (1979 edition) just to check what was listed in it. Verichrome Pan is there as well as Tri-X of course. The others are not. I'm assuming that the developers and developing times listed are those recommended by the manufacturers. If you are interested in what the book recommends for developing for those two films, let me know and I can try to scan it and send it to you. By the way, my book identifies four types of Tri-X - Tri-X Pan, Tri-X Ortho, Tri-X Pan Professional, and Tri-X Professional 4164. Do you know if your Tri-X is any of those 4 types?

Dan
 
Thanks for the kind comments. I think I will try to develop the next roll in HC-110 and se how it effects the fog and overall tonality.

All best

Claes
 
I had a similar experience. I was given an Agfa Isolette about 5 years ago by a friend whose brother had owned the camera and had died. There was still film in the camera. I took a couple of frames to finish it and sent it to a processor so it got standard treatment in a modern developer, probably ID11.

I didn't expect to get any decent prints as the deceased's brother suspected the film had been in the camera for quite a few years.

The prints were pretty good so the negs were OK and from their content the brother established that the film had been in the camera for over 35 years!

The film like yours was Verichrome Pan. OK two films doesn't prove Verichrome Pan's durability but could it just be coincidence?

I hope there are many memories still to be uncovered.

pentaxuser
 
I regularly get really old forgotten film to develop, in fact I had to develop a roll of 116 Verichrome a couple of months ago. Over the years I've experimented with the addition of potassium bromide to regular developer but it never helped that much, and I'm always scared to death of inhibiting the development too much. I've finally settled on Xtol 1+1, 20 deg C for 10 minutes and print through the fog - for all of them. I suspect that the aging of the film would make the original development recommendations obsolete now. So far it's been mostly successes. By the way the 116 - every frame printable;and that film must have been over 70 years old I suspect.
 

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