A pile of old film

I received a box the other day with lots of old sheet film in it. I know that many (most) photographers don't waste time on questionable film stored in a basement room for over 25 years , but wasting time is what I seem to do best (now there's a goal in life, huh?) and I just had to try it all. We're talking FP3, HP4, Super Panchro Press type B, Ektapan, and Royal Pan. None had a date on them after 1965, some had no dates. The last note left by the photographer (about a piece of gear he was selling) was 1988. He died some time ago and his widow just had the sauna he had used as his darkroom cleaned out. I rated all of it at 1/2 its box speed and ran them all through a dose of Diafine. I was mainly looking for the amount of fog I'd get on each one.

No surprise in that all of them were underexposed, but there was relatively little fog on any of them, even the HP4. The Ektapan looked very good indeed and came closest to being properly exposed at asa 50. With more light, and a different developer, I think I can use most of this stuff. There is a box of TriX as well, but I wrote that one off without even trying it...maybe I'll check that out as well.

Amazing. It doesn't mean anything, but hey, wasted time that gets you a positive surprise is OK by me; I'm a simple soul.

I just cleaned out a long-dead photographer's darkroom ... I'll be shooting lantern plates from the 1940s (probably in pinhole cams) for the next few months

Odd people, aren't we...those who could be using good, reliable material in making their art but instead insist on testing and tempting fate with every shot? It's low risk, of course, since this stuff is not my livelihood, but there is still the very real possibility of having nothing to show for a day's work. Still, the unknowable is where the real joy of surprise is to be found.

Well, it ain't either/or is it?

One thing I know from looking at and elarning about non-photographic art and artists is that many artists experiment all the time with their materials. Rothko for instance spent huge amounts of time developing his methods to create those extraordinary pieces - they are assemblies, not merely layers of paint. Sometimes the experiments work, sometimes not.

I've got plenty of nice fresh film sitting about as well, and I'll shoot some of that too

Interesting. I recently traded 20 rolls of really nice Fuji Reala in 120. In return I got about 20 rolls of really fine black and white film, and along with it some 120 roll freebies.
Kodak Tri-X that expired the same year my brother was born, 1976.
Kodak TMax 400 that must have been the very first generation of it.
Kodak Vericolor from 1980.
Some obscure Fortepan 100 film that I couldn't tell the age of.

The old Kodak stuff was actually surprisingly good, except the Vericolor. Both Tri-X and TMY exposed at EI 50 and development cut a bit short yielded fully printable negatives. Those exposed at 200 and developed normally have way too much base fog to be a good idea. It seems that old film is best used on things with lots of texture. Big open skies are not ideal.