All black negatives from developed roll

Brownie_Holiday · Nov 30, 2020

I found several old (35 years +/-) rolls of 35mm film in the back of a dresser drawer and sent one out for processing. It came back today, and it's all black. No frames or dividers, no markings along the edge, just black. It is not opaque, you can see through it if held to the light.

I would think this was due to light getting to the film, but not sure how light would've gotten inside the cannister in the back of a dresser drawer. The film was old and improperly stored, because it was simply forgotten. I had a lot of luck getting about 30 rolls of the same vintage developed last year, but it had all been kept in the refrigerator and in a baggie. I'm not sure, but it seems if it were simply age and improper storage there'd be something on the film. Maybe nothing salvageable, but even colored blobs or fogging would make sense.

Would like to ask your thoughts. Is it worth trying to get the rest developed or not? Is it possible the lab screwed up and let light get to it? I've sent an email to The Darkroom in CA to see what they think as well, but not sure they'll want to commit. They're the place that developed my other old film.

If I thought this was just an anomaly I wouldn't worry too much about proceeding, but don't want to keep wasting $ if the odds are against me.

Thanks.

foc · Nov 30, 2020

Was it black & white or colour film?
It sounds like your film was exposed to light as in the film was removed from the cassette and then rewound. It could also be that the camera back was opened (but normally you can get some images where the film was wound tightly around the take up spool.
Of course without seeing the negatives, it is just a guess.
The film being 35 +/- years old, anything could have happened in that time period.
I doubt the lab messed up.

BradS · Nov 30, 2020

Poorly stored 35 year old film ?

why waste your time and money?

pentaxuser · Nov 30, 2020

Based on what you have told us which in terms of possible causes rules out nothing from the list of usual suspects for black film in what is a very old film, we can all enjoy speculating and will come up with the usual list of suspects but I cannot see how we will be able to get even close to what the cause or causes were

pentaxuser

AgX · Nov 30, 2020

foc said:
Was it black & white or colour film?
It sounds like your film was exposed to light as in the film was removed from the cassette and then rewound. It could also be that the camera back was opened (but normally you can get some images where the film was wound tightly around the take up spool.

To me it looks as in both you are describing the same procedure. Anyway, spooled film is self-shading, thus it needs quite an exposure to completely fog throughout.

Brownie_Holiday · Nov 30, 2020

The Darkroom replied, they said to send them a couple of rolls. They do have a good track record of saving old film. One customer said they saved 50 year old film stored in a closet. They also agree that there should be at least something on the film, even if there weren't any salvageable images. I still have one of their envelopes from the last round, I'll give it shot. They offer a guarantee, if the roll comes back with nothing on it they provide a credit for your next roll.

The film was color, standard Kodak gold. I'm not looking for specifics nor would I expect anyone to diagnose this from afar. The question is simply this:

Is it normal for old poorly stored film to develop completely empty, with not even a hint of an image?

If this isn't a standard characteristic for old film, then I'm more inclined to think of this as an anomaly.

MattKing · Nov 30, 2020

Brownie_Holiday said:
Is it normal for old poorly stored film to develop completely empty, with not even a hint of an image?

You said that the film was black. That is an image, even if not a usable one.
Unless it was slide film.

Agulliver · Dec 1, 2020

If the film was completely black with no edge markings, it is probably totally fogged. That could be due to light or just due to age.

What was the brand of film? Film speed? C41, E6 or something else?
Oh I see Kodak Gold.....this isn't exactly "normal" or typical but it's not unheard of. 35+ years for C41 film is quite a lot, though I have got images from 40+ year old C41 film.

Donald Qualls · Dec 1, 2020

Makes one wonder if the "found" roll wasn't someone's sacrificial practice roll -- used for practice or demonstration loading a camera, showing the advance, or for practice/demonstration loading into a developing reel, or just showing how the film is wound up inside that little metal can.

removed account4 · Dec 1, 2020

does farmer's reducer work on color film ? might be worth getting some ( or whatever kind of reducing agent works with color film ) and some rubber gloves and seeing if you bleach back your film ( and re-fix and re-wash ) so you can find images hiding in the night.

Brownie_Holiday · Dec 1, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Makes one wonder if the "found" roll wasn't someone's sacrificial practice roll -- used for practice or demonstration loading a camera, showing the advance, or for practice/demonstration loading into a developing reel, or just showing how the film is wound up inside that little metal can.

Nah, it was 'found' along with the others in the back of my T shirt drawer. Recent significant (healthy) weight loss created the need to purge all clothing. They've been bouncing around back there for years. My wife had seen them when cleaning drawers and doing the wash, etc., but I had forgotten they were there. Also found a Kodak disposable that I am almost certain was purchased on a trip to visit my wife's grandfather. It would've been around 1994 or so.

DeletedAcct1 · Dec 1, 2020

Brownie_Holiday said:
I found several old (35 years +/-) rolls of 35mm film in the back of a dresser drawer and sent one out for processing. It came back today, and it's all black. No frames or dividers, no markings along the edge, just black. It is not opaque, you can see through it if held to the light.

What the heck did you expect from a 35 yo expired color film?

Brownie_Holiday · Dec 1, 2020

Alessandro Serrao said:
What the heck did you expect from a 35 yo expired color film?

Well, since the last 35 effing rolls I had developed came out, I expected the same thing. Why are you even bothering to post?

Same camera, same era. Exposed then stored. Developed last year, taken about 1988 or so. Only difference was the storage. This was in the refrigerator.

march 15 by telecast, on Flickr

Sirius Glass · Dec 1, 2020

Brownie_Holiday said:
Well, since the last 35 effing rolls I had developed came out, I expected the same thing. Why are you even bothering to post?

Same camera, same era. Exposed then stored. Developed last year, taken about 1988 or so. Only difference was the storage. This was in the refrigerator.

march 15 by telecast, on Flickr

And that makes all the difference.

Brownie_Holiday · Dec 1, 2020

Sirius Glass said:
And that makes all the difference.

We're going to find out how much. I'm sending two rolls to the Darkroom tomorrow. If anyone can recover it, they can. At least if they don't turn out I'll only lose $6 for shipping.

Donald Qualls · Dec 2, 2020

I've recently been processing film I've had stored at room temperature (after exposure) for up to thirteen years, and all of it was fine -- except for a roll of Fuji Superia 800 that came out of a disposable. That was one I'd given to my then-girlfriend for a trip, and wasn't quite finished -- and despite the same storage, it was badly fogged and only had a few recognizable images even via scanning.

There are a lot of variables in storing exposed color films, and we usually can't narrow down why one very old roll looks good and the next doesn't. All we can do is treasure those images from the past that we find when one does work out well, and wish for the (always far better) ones that were lost to the fog.

AgX · Dec 2, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Makes one wonder if the "found" roll wasn't someone's sacrificial practice roll -- used for practice or demonstration loading a camera, showing the advance, or for practice/demonstration loading into a developing reel, or just showing how the film is wound up inside that little metal can.

Good point. I found several of such rolls at a late school-darkroom, seemingly used to train reel loading and cassette re-loading. (Most of them marked "for training" but not all.)

Actually I myself got such at my workshop (used at my cameras I am repairing). Bad if these would land in the storage of my fresh films... I better go and mark those workshop fims.

DeletedAcct1 · Dec 2, 2020

Brownie_Holiday said:
Well, since the last 35 effing rolls I had developed came out, I expected the same thing. Why are you even bothering to post?

Same camera, same era. Exposed then stored. Developed last year, taken about 1988 or so. Only difference was the storage. This was in the refrigerator.

march 15 by telecast, on Flickr

Sure, after having digitally retouched it...

Brownie_Holiday · Dec 3, 2020

Alessandro Serrao said:
Sure, after having digitally retouched it...

It was a 4MP scan from the developer. The point is the film has images on it, it's not blank. Try to keep up.

Brownie_Holiday · Dec 3, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
I've recently been processing film I've had stored at room temperature (after exposure) for up to thirteen years, and all of it was fine -- except for a roll of Fuji Superia 800 that came out of a disposable. That was one I'd given to my then-girlfriend for a trip, and wasn't quite finished -- and despite the same storage, it was badly fogged and only had a few recognizable images even via scanning.

There are a lot of variables in storing exposed color films, and we usually can't narrow down why one very old roll looks good and the next doesn't. All we can do is treasure those images from the past that we find when one does work out well, and wish for the (always far better) ones that were lost to the fog.

That's what I'm hoping for. If I can salvage even a handful from these rolls it'll be worth it. It's likely some of the people that were photographed are no longer with us. I sent two off yesterday, should know in about a week. As long as something turns out I'll keep trying. On the other hand, if they end up like the last roll I'll probably quit. Some of this is Kodak, some Fuji, some Agfa, even a roll of Polaroid.

YoIaMoNwater · Dec 4, 2020

Yea I think it has to do with light leaks and improper storage condition. Last year I found a 14 year old roll in the basement from a Fuji disposable camera and developed it. The result seems like the same as yours. The whole film was dark/purple and very grainy. Playing around in SilverFast8 gave some reasonable images.

Deleted member 88956 · Dec 4, 2020

All I will say that there is absolutely no way there would be nothing on a film even from 100 years ago, even if half-ass exposed in a camera. This just looks like totally messed up handling at some point in it's life, between production until development.

But some comments are so frikn' out of line, some people don't start threads because of this, as no mater what the topic, it always has a chance of ending up in a toilet.

Donald Qualls · Dec 4, 2020

Witold said:
All I will say that there is absolutely no way there would be nothing on a film even from 100 years ago, even if half-ass exposed in a camera.

The oldest film I've processed was a roll of nitrate base 120 -- Japanese made, I think. I'm pretty sure it was from the early 1950s. I managed to pull two images out of the fog by scanning; there is no way I could have printed anything viewable. Seems very likely that another decade or two of room temperature storage might have sunk those remaining images as well.

That's the limit on recovering images from old, exposed but not developed film: when age fog overtakes the image density, the image is gone. It's that simple. No amount of fog reducing chemicals in the developer can save you from the fact that the spurious latent image specks from thermal effects and random background radiation have reached the same population density as those created by even the highlight areas of the image intentionally exposed on the film all those decades ago. Fortunately, with most films, a correctly exposed latent image will (with progressive loss of shadow detail) last for twenty, thirty, forty, even fifty years and still allow those ghosts from the past to be brought up -- and in the rare case of films stored at reduce temperature, that period is extended by whatever factor the rate of fogging is decreased.

DeletedAcct1 · Dec 4, 2020

Witold said:
All I will say that there is absolutely no way there would be nothing on a film even from 100 years ago, even if half-ass exposed in a camera. This just looks like totally messed up handling at some point in it's life, between production until development.

But some comments are so frikn' out of line, some people don't start threads because of this, as no mater what the topic, it always has a chance of ending up in a toilet.

Yeah, like your?
100 years?
Are you serious? C'mon.

Deleted member 88956 · Dec 4, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
The oldest film I've processed was a roll of nitrate base 120 -- Japanese made, I think. I'm pretty sure it was from the early 1950s. I managed to pull two images out of the fog by scanning; there is no way I could have printed anything viewable. Seems very likely that another decade or two of room temperature storage might have sunk those remaining images as well.

That's the limit on recovering images from old, exposed but not developed film: when age fog overtakes the image density, the image is gone. It's that simple. No amount of fog reducing chemicals in the developer can save you from the fact that the spurious latent image specks from thermal effects and random background radiation have reached the same population density as those created by even the highlight areas of the image intentionally exposed on the film all those decades ago. Fortunately, with most films, a correctly exposed latent image will (with progressive loss of shadow detail) last for twenty, thirty, forty, even fifty years and still allow those ghosts from the past to be brought up -- and in the rare case of films stored at reduce temperature, that period is extended by whatever factor the rate of fogging is decreased.

My understanding is/was that OP had blank black film, and that is all I was referring to. Printing good enough is another matter.

All black negatives from developed roll

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