Filtration for old vs. new color film

[srs5694]

I recently started making duplicate prints of many old family photos, starting from the mid-1960s. (My sister has the original prints, but I want my own, hence this project.) The negatives are medium format, 126, and 35mm, apparently all Kodacolor, enlarged to 4"x4" or 4"x6" size. In any event, I get fine color out of my prints, but the filtration values are very different than for modern films. For instance, I've used 20/0/10 (yellow/magenta/cyan), 20/0/0, and 40/0/10 for three rolls from 1966 and 1967, shot in full daylight with two cameras (a MF and a 126, unknown models). (I've actually adjusted these values; I needed 100-150 cyan filtration with correspondingly higher magenta and yellow values to get exposure times of over 5s with my enlarger. The same is true for more modern films.) Printed on the same paper with the same paper developer, a contemporary roll of Kodak Max Versatility 800 took 80/30/0 filtration, and a roll of Agfa Vista 200 required 60/30/0 filtration (both for daylight balance, shot without any in-camera filters with modern SLRs). So the modern films require much more yellow and more magenta filtration than the older films.

My question: why the difference? Were films designed for different enlargement filtration requirements 40 years ago, is this a question of fading/color shifts in the negatives over time, or is something else going on? I have no practical reason for wanting an answer, since I'm getting fine color from the old negatives; I'm just curious about it.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have printed over 1000 sheets of proof prints from the 50s to the present and on Endura paper, the color balance varies only slightly by about 10M or 10Y. However, that said, there was a period of time in the mid 60s when Kodak manufactured a CU (color universal) negative film which was balanced half way between daylight and tungsten. These print quite blue with my normal color pack.

I have only printed Kodak and Fuji negatives for the most part. The Agfa generally requires a quite different filter pack.

Just FYI, the controls on the color balance of negative film is as tight as it is on reversal film. The speed relationships have to work out or the colors are not reproduced correctly.

PE

 

[srs5694]

Is there any way to identify the CU film you mention from edge markings? The filtration changes I'm seeing seem at least roughly consistent with it, but I have no idea if that's what the film was. (I was ~1 year old when these photos were taken!)

 

[Photo Engineer]

I checked out several 120 film strips from the period ~1959 - ~1962 that printed this way. None have any edge marking except "Kodak Safety Film" and an ">" marking. Before and after this period, the film all prints pretty much normally with that era being outstanding.

The film box was marked "Kodacolor CU".

Sorry.

PE

 

[srs5694]

It's OK. As I said, I'm mainly just curious, since I've gotten good color from my prints from these negatives. If the odd filtration is required because of fading it's a bad sign but there's not much I could do about it, as a practical matter. Either way it's a question of taking better care of the negatives than my parents and sister did. (I got them in the original photofinisher's paper envelopes, and they'd been through at least one basement flood, so some of them required cleaning.) Sad to say, scanning and digital printing have been helpful in getting scratch-free and dust-free prints from some frames, but that's another matter, and I'm getting reasonably clean small prints from most with my enlarger.