Duffay Pan, any idea how old?

[steven_e007]

There was a thread on here a few weeks back asking for advice on developing very old film.

I was bold enough to make some suggestions, having done this a few times in the past. The thread seems to have scrolled into oblivion now and I can't find it...

Anyway, I had an old film myself which was inside an ancient box camera someone gave me about a year ago.

I developed it yeaterday and followed my own advice . (Used a developer which wasn't too caustic, a water only stop followed by a weak acid stop to avoid stressing the gelatine, took the film out and inspected it before fixing etc.)

I was pleased to see that it all worked and that the film had quite good images and remarkably not that much base fog, considering. The images are a bit thin, probably due to the latent image trying to escape , but are denser at the top of the frame than the bottom (or the right than the left, in the one landscape shot), so the simple shutter was probably not working too well! I'm quite sure they will be printable, though.

The pictures were just bland posed shots of someones Auntie Ethel and Uncle Bert at the seaside, but might be of interest to the person who gave me the camera.

What is of interst to me is: How old is the film?

All I know is that it is a "Dufay Pan".

No speed or any other information is given at all. It is a 120 roll film with a red paper back. That's it!

I've tried googling for 'Dufay', but didn't come up with much.

Anyone any guestimates of the vintage of Dufay Pan?

Steve

 

[Ian Grant]

Well Dufay colour was being producedaround 1948, and they almost certainly manufactured film before the war as well. So your B&W film was probably made late 1930's to very early 50's.

By 1948 the company was called Dufay-Chrome Ltd, and they were based in Ellestree, Hertfordshire.

Their colour film was a combined screen process, which would have used a B&W panchromatic emulsion. I have an illustration in D.A. Spencer's Colour Photography in Practice, from a 10x8 Transparency.

Ian

 

[Mark Antony]

In my days of a lab worker I saw quite a bit of Dufaycolour (already processed). I think it was an additive process like Autochrome and dates from the 1930's
here is a 1938 'review' with processing instructions.
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles21/color-photography-10.shtml

 

[Helen B]

'Dufay Pan' roll film is mentioned in the 1953 edition of Jacobson's Developing. It, and Dufay Ortho, are in film group B - the films requiring 'normal' development time.

The 1966 BJ Annual does not list any Dufay film, B&W or colour.

Best,
Helen

 

[Fanshaw]

Dufay colour film

What is of interst to me is: How old is the film?

All I know is that it is a "Dufay Pan".

No speed or any other information is given at all. It is a 120 roll film with a red paper back. That's it!

I've tried googling for 'Dufay', but didn't come up with much.

Anyone any guestimates of the vintage of Dufay Pan?

Steve

I remember using this film when I was at school in the late 1950s. It wasn't generally available then. I think I bought some old stock because it was cheap and I could process it myself. The results weren't wonderful!
Fanshaw

 

[steven_e007]

I remember using this film when I was at school in the late 1950s. It wasn't generally available then. I think I bought some old stock because it was cheap and I could process it myself. The results weren't wonderful!
Fanshaw

Well, maybe you didn't appreciate some of it's finer points, like longevity!

If the film went out of production 50 years ago, then this film has retained a latent image for maybe 50 years

Obviously you processed it too soon!


Anyway, thanks to everyone for the dating information.

The pictures really aren't very good at all (it was a very cheap nasty box camera and nothing is sharp, even by good box camera standards!), but it was an interesting exercise in developing old films and good to see that a latent image can sit around for half a century if neccesary.

Steve

 

[Troy]

I think this is really interesting and not just from a tchnical point of view. That image goes to the heart of what analog photography has always meant to me. It's a way of remembering. It's seeing the past float up out of the developer in the darkroom, looking right at me. Those people in your picture are literally ghosts. Maybe only the camera and the old film remember them. That Duffay has been holding on to the family all these years. You released them like a genie in a bottle.

It literally gives me goose bumps thinking about it. Cool. Really cool.

 

[Brac]

The first roll of colour film I ever used was a 620 roll of Dufaycolour. My local chemist who was also my Sunday school teacher let me have it cheap because it was outdated. That was about 1956. The results were reasonably OK. The film gave very dense transparencies because of the additive process it used. I understand Ilford had a hand in manufacturing it and it seemed to have disappeared from the market around the mid-1950's. I have heard of the Dufay B&W films but never used them. They are mentioned in old photographic books up to the early 1950's so presumably disappeared around them. I think Dufey-Chromex must have gone out of business then.