Developing times for 60 year old film.

[StoneNYC]

Stone—

Yay! That curl was about what I saw on my Verichrome Pan roll. The neg scan I attempted was absolutely terrible since I don't have a transparency scanner; I didn't feel good about posting it at all. If I could get a couple of pieces of AN glass, though, I could run them through the enlarger.

So when are you going to take the plunge and get yourself an enlarger and stuff? My Beseler 23c setup doesn't take up much room, though with 116 negs you'll probably need something that handles 4x5s…

Congrats!

Thanks.

When I don't live in my parents house and have my own house...Or live in one, I actually have a house which I rent to my dad, crazy situation... So...not for a while... And by then they may not make print paper anymore...


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hgernhardt]

And by then they may not make print paper anymore...

But by the time the majors have stopped making print paper, a new set of enterprising aficionados of the silver halide medium will have begun to make a cottage industry of designer emulsions. The trend will, of course, be to roll your own from raw components, but for those who will be “just starting” in the hobby, there'll be a wide range of starter kits—quite possibly including camera, film, and processing mailer—made available.

As time moves on and technology changes, certain small shops will gain an almost cult following. Favorite emulsions, papers, and chemistry will be touted across the new mass media. Before long, a few leaders in the foray will emerge.

The Great Yellow Father will rise once more.

 

[StoneNYC]

But by the time the majors have stopped making print paper, a new set of enterprising aficionados of the silver halide medium will have begun to make a cottage industry of designer emulsions. The trend will, of course, be to roll your own from raw components, but for those who will be “just starting” in the hobby, there'll be a wide range of starter kits—quite possibly including camera, film, and processing mailer—made available.

As time moves on and technology changes, certain small shops will gain an almost cult following. Favorite emulsions, papers, and chemistry will be touted across the new mass media. Before long, a few leaders in the foray will emerge.

The Great Yellow Father will rise once more.

I think you are dreaming... Lol


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[zsas]

Great job Stone! Your resurrction of a 60 hear old roll a film is inspiration! Happy New Year!

 

[StoneNYC]

Great job Stone! Your resurrction of a 60 hear old roll a film is inspiration! Happy New Year!

Thanks! I wish I had something more interesting to photograph, I also can't figure out if the light image is due to over exposure or over processing... Or both, I don't think I under exposed... But I don't have a lot to play with here.

Side note, I took a snippet outside and lot a match too it, it went up super fast, so I THINK it's Nitrite film, so I put it in a ziplock bag and stuck it in my Freezer. Does anyone know for sure?

Any suggestions and advice would be good, I would prefer NOT to throw it out...


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hgernhardt]

More on the Verichrome Pan roll

So I finally made a contact sheet of the roll of Verichrome Pan I shot and developed. As I'd mentioned earlier, the film expired in 1965 and was unexposed. I exposed it using EI 125 as my reference in a Kodak Tourister. A 3 minute (or so) presoak at 64ºF preceded development in Ilfosol 3 1:9 for 6 minutes at 64ºF, stop bath for a minute, and fix for 6 minutes at the same temperature. The print was made with the negative strips in a file sheet, on Fomaspeed Variant 311 using a Beseler m20 filter under the enlarger lens for 8.5 seconds. I'm guessing that gave me about a grade 2.5.


Fifty Year Old Film by hgernhardt, on Flickr

I don't recall the exposure info for the first frame.

The second, seventh, and eighth frames were shot in a darkened room with the shutter open and the iris set at f/11 or f/16. I held a Vivitar 283 in hand and fired it manually.

The third, fourth, and sixth frames were exposed for 1/100s at f/32 in sunny sixteen daylight.

The fifth image was exposed for three seconds at something like f/5.6 or f/8. The light was provided by three LED lamps providing something like 60W tungsten equivalent.

The curl on these negatives is still significant. I've taken advice from another poster in this thread and rolled the sheet into a tube such that the strips are emulsion side out. Hopefully by tomorrow or the next day they'll be flat enough for me to work with them in my flimsy card stock negative holders.

 

[removed account4]

cool stuff stone !

you can make a contact print
in the sun with regular old photo paper and glass ( to keep your film flat )
( or a contact printing frame works great )
printing times vary depending on the intensity of the sun and blue rays ..
maybe 40mins, maybe a few hours, it depends ...
but you can scan the prints and not have to worry about negative scans
or having a "real darkroom" ... the image will turn grey or vanish eventually ...
but while they are on the photo paper they will have funky tone that might
look nice with your old emulsions

have fun !
john

 

[StoneNYC]

cool stuff stone !

you can make a contact print
in the sun with regular old photo paper and glass ( to keep your film flat )
( or a contact printing frame works great )
printing times vary depending on the intensity of the sun and blue rays ..
maybe 40mins, maybe a few hours, it depends ...
but you can scan the prints and not have to worry about negative scans
or having a "real darkroom" ... the image will turn grey or vanish eventually ...
but while they are on the photo paper they will have funky tone that might
look nice with your old emulsions

have fun !
john

Thanks John,

I am shocked that you were able to get such images from such short shutter time frames. As I said mine were mostly around 30 second exposures, and the EI I used was 3.... I might have pulled that back to EI 6 and been ok, but basically 3 was good-ish.

Oh photography....


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cepwin]

My goodness...it's amazing you were able to pull those images out of film that old.

 

[werra]

Old film can amaze at times for sure. My adventures with the 40's stock:



1949 expired 5x7 Kodak Super-XX, exposed and developed 2010

and



1944 expired 5x7 Gevaert Ultra Panchro

Super-XX is basically fine, just ruined a bit by interleaving paper, which probably got some moisture at some point in time.

 

[StoneNYC]

Old film can amaze at times for sure. My adventures with the 40's stock:



1949 expired 5x7 Kodak Super-XX, exposed and developed 2010

and



1944 expired 5x7 Gevaert Ultra Panchro

Super-XX is basically fine, just ruined a bit by interleaving paper, which probably got some moisture at some point in time.

Wow those are fantastic, especially the super-xx it's too bad shoot the paper splotches because the buildings look great! I like the crispness of it.

The Gaevert is sort of foggy like it was a soft focus shot, and obviously one side was exposed to light over the years. Thanks.

Were either of those Nitrite based emulsions? I am REALLY curious about any knowledge on this...


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DWThomas]

Just a note that there was Verichrome, an ortho film, before there was Verichrome Pan and I don't recall when the transition occurred, but I think it was about 1950 +/- 5 years. I also don't know if there was significant difference in how they responded to processing. But it might be someone's experience with a roll from the 60s might be different from one from the 40s or early 50s due to other factors than age. (Just sayin!)

But it's pretty impressive the stuff works at all, definitely a cool experiment. A couple of years back I discovered, in an old camera here, a roll of Verichrome Pan that had exposures on it (learned to be from 1981 after seeing the content) which I was able to recover to a surprising level of viability with HC110.

 

[StoneNYC]

Just a note that there was Verichrome, an ortho film, before there was Verichrome Pan and I don't recall when the transition occurred, but I think it was about 1950 +/- 5 years. I also don't know if there was significant difference in how they responded to processing. But it might be someone's experience with a roll from the 60s might be different from one from the 40s or early 50s due to other factors than age. (Just sayin!)

But it's pretty impressive the stuff works at all, definitely a cool experiment. A couple of years back I discovered, in an old camera here, a roll of Verichrome Pan that had exposures on it (learned to be from 1981 after seeing the content) which I was able to recover to a surprising level of viability with HC110.

You are correct my film is Verichrome the second poster is using Verichrome Pan. I'm only aware because I have a bunch of Verichrome from different time periods.

I chose the worst roll to start with, this one had the box ripped open and the wax paper bag the film was in had been torn etc.

I have another 1947 & 1948 Verichrome in 616 and a 1951 Verichrome in 116 and a 1966 Verichrome Pan (Safety Film) in 116.

Seems the name Pan was added when it changed to Panchromatic from Ortho but I really want to know about the base, if its a Nitrite Base film... There is some foggy detail in between where they may have switched away from Nitrite but not quite used current Safety film, I just wish PE would cue in here and give more info, I wish you could "tag" people in posts here haha.

Either way the Ilfsol 3 worked even if badly(partly due to user error and age of course, I THINK I over exposed). Maybe I will buy some ID-11 and try that but I hate to experiment with new developer that I've never used before....

*Edit* it should be noted that the dates listed are the USE BY date... I don't know how long film was given from date of actual production but I assume 2 years?

~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[StoneNYC]

Since it seems the edges are the bad part, I've considered cutting down the edges and re-rolling in 120 spools to use in a normal camera too, but the idea of cutting such a PITA curly film just seems like a nightmare to me haha.


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MattKing]

Seems the name Pan was added when it changed to Panchromatic from Ortho but I really want to know about the base, if its a Nitrite Base film... There is some foggy detail in between where they may have switched away from Nitrite but not quite used current Safety film, I just wish PE would cue in here and give more info, I wish you could "tag" people in posts here haha.

If the base is Nitrite, it can be used to "save your bacon"

I think you mean Nitrate.

As I understand it, if the film is Safety Film, and is of that vintage, it will say Safety Film in the rebate.

EDIT: this photo-net thread might be informative for you Stone: http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00Tiud

 

[StoneNYC]

If the base is Nitrite, it can be used to "save your bacon"

I think you mean Nitrate.

As I understand it, if the film is Safety Film, and is of that vintage, it will say Safety Film in the rebate.

EDIT: this photo-net thread might be informative for you Stone: http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00Tiud

Yes I wasn't too sure I was pronouncing it right.

According to the link its certainly NON-Pan so it's orthochromatic which is cool, I don't however have a pan setup which is unfortunate, it would be fun to develop by inspection.

I wonder why they got rid of Ortho in favor of Pan when you can't be as perfect with the development. Obviously pan was sensitive to red and Ortho wasn't, so I guess red flowers wouldn't show up? Lol

Fun times, thanks for the info.


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[werra]

The Gaevert is sort of foggy like it was a soft focus shot, and obviously one side was exposed to light over the years. Thanks.

Were either of those Nitrite based emulsions? I am REALLY curious about any knowledge on this...

Gevaert is foggy because of stand development in Rodinal plus possibly an overexposure. Never do the stand dev with aged film, it digs up any base fog you possibly have.
This one side was not exposed to light, it was ruined by me by squeezing the 5x7 sheet into 2-reel jobo tank for stand development.

Both are safety films, not Nitrite.

 

[StoneNYC]

Gevaert is foggy because of stand development in Rodinal plus possibly an overexposure. Never do the stand dev with aged film, it digs up any base fog you possibly have.
This one side was not exposed to light, it was ruined by me by squeezing the 5x7 sheet into 2-reel jobo tank for stand development.

Both are safety films, not Nitrite.

Cool, thanks! I don't do stand development in general but good to know about the base fog.

I wonder if that's why Ilfsol 3 worked ok, because its such a faster developer there isn't time for the fog to be pulled out....

Hmmm...

Well thanks this was fun. Haha


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[werra]

I wonder if that's why Ilfsol 3 worked ok, because its such a faster developer there isn't time for the fog to be pulled out....

Yes, my conclusion so far is to expose generously and use some aggressive developer with the films with known high fog. Paper developer works the best for me (Orwo N113 for 2-2:30 minutes), with 120 and up formats. It gives more grain but much more usable negative tonally. With 135 the grain will be too excessive.

 

[StoneNYC]

OK just finished processing 5 rolls of 120 and among them were 2 images I had forgotten about, the "comparison" shots of the Verichrome images which I took on TriX400.