Development time for long-expired film

[Kevin Kehler]

I purchased some 5x7 holders a couple of weeks ago from a gentleman who was clearing out his house, really good price. We got to talking and he mentioned he has some film he wants developed but the lab wants too much since it is all B&W. I offered to develop it for him and he offered to give me some darkroom "stuff" in exchange. Well, "stuff" turned out to be 2 enlargers (both 5x7s, an Omega E-6 and an Omega Super Chromega D), a lot of trays (20+) for paper, a 16x20 easel, some unopened 16x20 Ilford Gallerie Paper (with more to come) and an assortment of tongs, reels and doodads.

Now to the question: I have 4-5 rolls of each of the following films, supposedly refrigerated since 1994. I was going to cut a section of the leaders off and develop to see how long but some ideas would be nice. I normally develop either with Rodinal or D-76/ID-11 but could get some HC-110 if necessary.

Pan F (not the +)
HP5 (not the +)
(these two have been bulk-rolled so they might be plus but not according to the canisters)

Tri-X 400 (One roll says Tri-X Pan 400)
FP4 plus
a mystery film that I will have to develop a leader to see what it is.


What say you, 20% extra time to start to see how much fog there is? I warned the guy that there would be serious fog and he said he would rather have grain and pictures than no grain and no pictures. So I might add some extra agitation? or would stand development be better?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mike c]

What a score,you my not have that much fog to worry about on the slower film.I'd try normal on first one and go from there.Are these 120 or 35mm.If 35mm 36exposer then try a part of a roll.

 

[fschifano]

Go with normal development, and use HC-110 if you can. That developer is pretty good at cutting down on fog. I'm assuming that you'll be developing the 5x7 sheets in trays, and I find it very convenient and good in that application. Development times are short, and that's handy when developing in open trays. For the roll film, HC-110 is fine too, but consider the short development times. If you can get the times under 5 minutes, fine. Shorter than that, use something a bit less active. Dilute D-76 or XTOL would be fine.

 

[Kevin Kehler]

It is all 135-36 exposure rolls. I think dilution might be better suited, something like D-76 at 1:1.

 

[srs5694]

You could also try adding some benzotriazole to the developer to cut down on the fog. I've got some old Soviet color films (20 years past date), and adding 5ml of 1% benzotriazole solution helped a lot. That amount, BTW, is a huge quantity of benzotriazole; chances are you'll need less than that, if you need any at all.

 

[fschifano]

The thing about benzotraizole, or any restrainer for that matter, is that it will effectively reduce the film speed. That's why it can control fog. Parts of the film that are only marginally predisposed to being developed are rendered less sensitive to development. Well that's not always good. It's fine if you've compensated for the loss of speed when you made the exposures, but not so much if you haven't. You just don't know what, if anything, you're throwing away. On the other hand, base fog is not such a bad thing. You can print through it simply by extending enlarging exposures, and you'll never see it on the print. Some loss of shadow detail to a higher base fog level is to be expected, but at least you'll know that you haven't intentionally suppressed it.

 

[5stringdeath]

I just ran a thread about some Tri-X 120 I found from 1993 .. did the first two rolls using Rodinal 1:100 stand development for an hour, they came out fine. I'm going to do the other three using normal development times and inversions.

 

[hidesert]

I have several rolls of plus-x expired 1981 that had been refrigerated for the first ten years only. I exposed it using a 50 ISO value. The first roll I developed in D-76 at the normal time. I had good shadow detail, indicating a correct exposure, but low contrast and grainy. Not really any fog to speak of. The next roll I developed in Microdol-x at plus 20% time. Grain was less, still no fog and better density in the high values but still not as much as I want. The next roll I'll develop at 30% more time.

 

[Kevin Kehler]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for help on this one. All the negatives are done and it is interesting to say the least. I did stand development, 3 rolls at a time (all the reels I have) where I put 25ml of Rodinal in 2L of water (just under 1:100) at 20 degrees (which warmed as it developed due to ambient air temperature) for one hour, with 1 minute "aggressive" agitation for the first minute and for 30 seconds half way through. All of the Ilford films look fine, with plenty of detail and not excessive fog. All of the Kodak films (Tri-X and the mystery film turned out to be Plus-X) all have a lot of fog and are missing highlight detail (even after reducing time by more than 20% at the end). I do think he might have overexposed some the film by 2 or more stops but of course, there were no notes. As well, several rolls had light leaks and 2 rolls were blank!

Again, thanks for everything.