50 Year Old Kodak Plus X Roll Still Works!

Andre Noble · Apr 21, 2014

I bought a 35mm roll of Kodak Plus X film that expired in the mid 1960's from a camera store in Tijuana w/out air conditioning about 3 years ago. stayed unrefrigerated after i bought it. Box and inner packaging were sealed and intact.

Shot it last week at ASA 25 on Bessa R2A with Zeiss 35 f2 at Westmont College in Santa Barbara. Developed it at The Icon (Los Angeles) lab, "normal process".

some base fog, but usable negatives for sure.

Interesting: canister labelled 20 exposures. Also edge marking "Kodak Safety Film" & "Kodak Plus X Pan Film". Film leader was twice long and twice thin what get today.

My guesstimate of ASA 25 seems perfect. In hindsight I sould have put a yellow filter over lens for darker aesthetic sky, but honestly did not think film would produce much.

BrianShaw · Apr 21, 2014

Wow... that is great longevity!

snapguy · Apr 21, 2014

Amazed

I am amazed, truly amazed. That you went to a camera store when you were in TJ. I haven't been back that way since about the time your film was manufactured, so maybe it is a different place.
Seriously, the fact that the film came out is great for all of us who have old film around someplace and may want to use it one of these days.

Xmas · Apr 22, 2014

Impressive.
They went to short leaders 72 or so.

Jeff Kubach · Apr 22, 2014

It looks great!

Jeff

Roger Cole · Apr 22, 2014

I remember leaders about twice as long as current ones well into the late 70s, maybe early 80s, I'm not sure, and 20 or 36 exposures were the norm for a long, long time. I got out of photography for a few years and got back in to find 24 was the new short length.

Dr Croubie · Apr 22, 2014

Yep, that certainly looks great. Don't suppose you've got any idea what developer the lab used? I've got a stack of PlusX 4x5s to get through one day, not sure what dev to use on it though...

lxdude · Apr 22, 2014

Roger Cole said:
I remember leaders about twice as long as current ones well into the late 70s, maybe early 80s, I'm not sure

I concur.

bdial · Apr 22, 2014

This is very encouraging, I have some 60's or 70's vintage 4x5 plus-x to shoot *someday*.

Dr Croubie said:
Yep, that certainly looks great. Don't suppose you've got any idea what developer the lab used? I've got a stack of PlusX 4x5s to get through one day, not sure what dev to use on it though...

HC-110 seems to produce the least base fog for the popular developers. I see it recommended a lot for old film.
Another option might be to add some restrainer to your favorite brew, but that would require some experimentation.

darkosaric · Apr 22, 2014

bdial said:
HC-110 seems to produce the least base fog for the popular developers. I see it recommended a lot for old film.
Another option might be to add some restrainer to your favorite brew, but that would require some experimentation.

+1
I use HC110 dilution B for very old films. Developing time for dilution B are short - that helps.

cmacd123 · Apr 22, 2014

yes, I alwasy found Plus-x to be rather durable.

The leaders being cut long was standard practice up to the 1970 era. When they went to the short version that datasheets in the box included a diagram showing how to cut the leader if one had a Bottom Loading Leica. (Anyone remember when every roll of film came with a printed data sheet? )

The 20 exposure length was also standard in the 60s and 70s although I recall some folks remembering 18 exposure loads. The long rolls have always been 36. On occasion there have been 12 exposure rolls, and Kodak also made something called commercial film aimed at real-estate agents that was 5 or 6 exposures.

the 20 exposure length was also the longest length for 110 and 126 film, but they also went to to 24 exposures. In may camera selling days I had one customer who had trouble believing me that the NEW 24 exposure size would fit their instamatic camera.

Andre Noble · Apr 23, 2014

Most of the events of my 48 year life took place when this roll was past it expiration date. This roll was out there when MLK and RFK were still alive and man kind had not yet set foot on moon. All those years sitting around somewhere waiting to be used one afternoon in 2014 at a beautiful college campus in coastal California by a person who knew how to expose it, and developed by a pro lab that used the right developer and process time and temp to get most from it.

pentaxuser · Apr 23, 2014

Roger Cole said:
I remember leaders about twice as long as current ones well into the late 70s, maybe early 80s,

I wonder why this was. In the days of manual spooling to frame 1 or being able to start the film exposure where you judged it was safe from where you shut the back you'd have thought that shorter leaders to be more appropriate. In 135 I only have an auto-wind-on system and it seems to waste film by comparison to what you'd need to waste when manually winding on.

pentaxuser

Roger Cole · Apr 24, 2014

pentaxuser said:
I wonder why this was. In the days of manual spooling to frame 1 or being able to start the film exposure where you judged it was safe from where you shut the back you'd have thought that shorter leaders to be more appropriate. In 135 I only have an auto-wind-on system and it seems to waste film by comparison to what you'd need to waste when manually winding on.

pentaxuser

I only have one camera that's auto wind on in 35mm, a little Olympus Stylus zoom. My LX, MX, K1000, Ricoh XR-2 and old Singlex TLS are all manual wind.

Anyway, I think the reason, as someone mentioned above, was for bottom load Leicas and maybe some other bottom load cameras, as the new shorter leaders came with instructions on cutting a longer leader for those.

50 Year Old Kodak Plus X Roll Still Works!

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