First try developing 20+ year old exposed film

Some of you might have seen my other thread about developing some old exposed film, for those that haven't, a quick recap.

I found about 25 rolls of old exposed film from my childhood and a few that were my grandfathers, all 110 format bar a few.
No way i could afford to pay someone to develop it all for me in C41 and wanted to have a go myself anyway in B&W after reading it was possible.

I picked out a roll this evening, split it in 2 and did some tests at developing it.
First following advice on here i stand developed in in Rodinal 1:100 at 20c for one hour. Light agitation for 30 secs at the start, then another 30 secs at the half way mark. Then stop, fix and wash.
The results were ok, deffo some images there, a few blank frames and a lot of fog (i think, it's hard to tell) what also caught my eye was it didn't develop evenly and was a line along the bottom, but this could also be a light leak in the camera. The frame numbers developed cleanly though so would seem the film is good.

The second test was with info i read elsewhere, wanted to use D76 but didn't want to mix a whole batch when i only needed a little so went with DDX instead. Mixed to 1:4 at 20c for 7 mins with constant agitation. then stop fix and wash.

The results were much better, the negatives are clearer and look nicer and the band has gone.

I would love to take some scans and get a proper look at them, but love nor money i cant get them to scan! It doesn't help i don't have a frame for 16mm film so trying to balance them in the 35mm one, not easy especially as the film is REALLY curly!
But the scanner isn't having any of it, fiddled with all the settings and it either looks like a really dark negative or a total white out!
Tried it with normal colour negative film and worked perfect so it's deffo the film. The negatives are really dark...
If anyone knows what's going on here, would love to get something useful out of them!
Scanner is a Optifilm 7300 for what it's worth.

Ta muchly

The software is probably totally confused by the mask and the fact that the 110 only fills part of the frame.
Can you put two strips in side by side? Are you telling the software that it is colour film?
Unfortunately, as scanning discussions are off topic for APUG, all I can suggest is trying either its sister site - DPUG.ORG - or other sites that do permit scanning discussions.
Good luck

Can you put the strips on a light table and then take a photo using your iPhone (or equivalent) then invert the photo?
I do this all the time for quick gratification. If you have an iPhone you can also invert the phone's display itself (I have a shortcut on my phone, tripple tap on the home button). Then just launch your camera app and itll shot the negs inverted (as in positive).

Since we aren't allow to talk about scanning I can't suggest you to put it on a flatbed with a piece of glass on top of it.

Good luck!
Ben

MattKing said:

The software is probably totally confused by the mask and the fact that the 110 only fills part of the frame.
Can you put two strips in side by side? Are you telling the software that it is colour film?
Unfortunately, as scanning discussions are off topic for APUG, all I can suggest is trying either its sister site - DPUG.ORG - or other sites that do permit scanning discussions.
Good luck

Click to expand...

Alas i had this thought also and tried 2 side by side but it made no difference. TBH i'm pretty sure i tried every option the scanner has but it didn't make much of a difference. Would seem it just cant penetrate the film.
Will make an adaptor out of card tonight so it's easier, but i don't think it will change the result tbh

On a side not, you're not saying any digital talk is forbidden are you?

bence8810 said:

Can you put the strips on a light table and then take a photo using your iPhone (or equivalent) then invert the photo?
I do this all the time for quick gratification. If you have an iPhone you can also invert the phone's display itself (I have a shortcut on my phone, tripple tap on the home button). Then just launch your camera app and itll shot the negs inverted (as in positive).

Since we aren't allow to talk about scanning I can't suggest you to put it on a flatbed with a piece of glass on top of it.

Good luck!
Ben

Click to expand...

I don't have a light box, but i do have a table lamp and a picture frame i can 'borrow' the glass from... Will try this tonight


This is damn annoying! There are pics all over the internet of colour film processed in B&W and scanned

TattyJJ said:

I don't have a light box, but i do have a table lamp and a picture frame i can 'borrow' the glass from... Will try this tonight

Click to expand...

Just open a blank white page on your computer, like a blank MS Word document, and you will have a homemade light box.

is this a flatbed scanner or a film scanner ?
flatbed: put the film in clear printvue sleeves ( photoshop? amazon? )
and scan through the plastic sleeve with a sheet of paper ontop (fake light source ) .
if it is a film scanner, i've never seen or used one.
if the flatbed doesn't have a lighted lid ( see comment about white sheet of printer paper )
or you might be able to engineer something with a small, thin slide viewer , that is all the film lid is anyways
good luck !
john

It will take more than my laptop screens brightness to light up these negatives....

It's an actual film scanner. I've tried using my flatbed to do negatives before, it wants nothing to do with it.

I will persist

If the negatives are that dense, you need to control fog with extra Potassium Bromide. Take small test clips, and develop them as black&white film like you did before, and add incremental amounts of about 1 g/l Potassium Bromide. Once fog is under control, adjust development time until you get reasonable contrast.

PS: Some scanners can be used as quick&dirty densitometers. It would be interesting to keep track of fog density.

TattyJJ said:

On a side not, you're not saying any digital talk is forbidden are you?

Click to expand...

Basically, yes.
Scanning in particular.
It's a focus decision, not a value decision. Lots of us here use digital in one way or another, but APUG's rules discourage using the forum to discuss it.
APUG's owner is in the process of expanding the entire enterprise in order to make it possible to more easily access resources that are separate from this analogue only site, but for right now, DPUG.ORG is the only related resource that permits (in fact, encourages) film and scanning discussions together. DPUG is a lot quieter though.

This seems a little nonsensical, at least with a specific application like mine.
Surely the chances of someone on a digital oriented forum having scanned colour film processed in B&W is remarkably slimmer than here?
Plus having to sign up at another forum just to ask 1 question seems pointless.

TattyJJ said:

This seems a little nonsensical, at least with a specific application like mine.
Surely the chances of someone on a digital oriented forum having scanned colour film processed in B&W is remarkably slimmer than here?
Plus having to sign up at another forum just to ask 1 question seems pointless.

Click to expand...

This issue has been discussed many times on APUG, and the answer is always the same. APUG is narrowly focused, has been narrowly focused for more than a decade, and the site's owners and (almost all of) its contributing members want it to stay that way.
As it says on the Home page: "APUG.ORG is an international community of like minded individuals devoted to traditional (non-digital) photographic processes. "
That being said, my experience with scanning and digital issues indicates to me that you will end up having way more than one question.

TattyJJ said:

I've tried using my flatbed to do negatives before, it wants nothing to do with it.

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weird ... i've used a flatbed like this to scan film and had no problem whatsoever. this worked on everything from a umax1200U, acer to my curent epson models ..
you can't just push scan, you have to use the driver/ client to adjust the levels of the scanner, before you actually scan the film ..
good luck with your situation !
john

Ok, so for now at least this is about the best i can do. I know it's pretty crappy, but they are proving a nightmare!
This is just a couple of pics from my iPhone (you can see the reflected shadow from it) then used photoshop to invert and adjust to try and get them as clear as possible.
When i look at them with a 12x loupe they do look better, just really dark.

You can clearly see that they were developed differently between the top ones in Rodinal and the bottom ones in DDX

From what I can see here the Rodinal negatives are higher in fog, but also higher in contrast, and there is a nontrivial chance that the DD-X negatives will have just as much fog once they reach the same level of contrast. Whether you proceed with Rodinal or DD-X will depend on more personal than absolute factors:

• DD-X is less sensitive to Potassium Bromide than Rodinal. If you have difficulties weighing small amounts, DD-X may be the easier choice.
• Rodinal 1+100 is substantially cheaper per roll than DD-X.
• Development with Rodinal 1+100 takes a lot longer than DD-X.

Rudeofus said:

From what I can see here the Rodinal negatives are higher in fog, but also higher in contrast, and there is a nontrivial chance that the DD-X negatives will have just as much fog once they reach the same level of contrast. Whether you proceed with Rodinal or DD-X will depend on more personal than absolute factors:

• DD-X is less sensitive to Potassium Bromide than Rodinal. If you have difficulties weighing small amounts, DD-X may be the easier choice.
• Rodinal 1+100 is substantially cheaper per roll than DD-X.
• Development with Rodinal 1+100 takes a lot longer than DD-X.

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This is my thinking also, it's is easier to see what is going on with a eye loupe. The DDX negatives seem much easier to distinguish, i think the fog is just too high on the others.
Plus the Rodinal ones have the band along the bottom, is this possibly bromide drag? Or possibly the developer settling out the water? I read these can be possible issues when stand developing.

I am wondering, now that i have proven the film is still viable, it is worth getting a C41 kit. While there is deffo an image there, the colour layers of the film still being undeveloped are making the film so dark it's pretty much useless.
Unless there is something i can do to help with that without degrading the image?

TattyJJ said:

This is my thinking also, it's is easier to see what is going on with a eye loupe. The DDX negatives seem much easier to distinguish, i think the fog is just too high on the others.

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You will be amazed what 1-2 g/l Potassium Bromide added to developer can do for you in such a situation. That's why I recommended that you take small (i.e. 1-2 frames max, ideally less) test clips and make tests with developer plus 1 g/l increments of Potassium Bromide. I realize that DD-X looks more attractive right now, but trust me that you can control fog with Rodinal + Bromide just as well. It's your call.

TattyJJ said:

Plus the Rodinal ones have the band along the bottom, is this possibly bromide drag? Or possibly the developer settling out the water? I read these can be possible issues when stand developing.

Click to expand...

I am by no means experienced with stand development, but there are many people here in black&white forum who are, and there are many, many postings here about this topic. The little I have garnered from reading so far tells me that even with stand development one should agitate every 5-10 minutes in order to avoid exactly the inhomogeneity you describe here.

TattyJJ said:

I am wondering, now that i have proven the film is still viable, it is worth getting a C41 kit. While there is deffo an image there, the colour layers of the film still being undeveloped are making the film so dark it's pretty much useless.
Unless there is something i can do to help with that without degrading the image?

Click to expand...

For undeveloped film: you can get quite far if you control fog with Potassium Bromide. As far as the film you already developed is concerned: you could try to salvage it with Farmer's reducer, there is a good chance you can get scannable images out of these strips.

I use diafine for aged (expired in 1969) film but that was recently exposed. It works OK but I got somewhat better with HC110 dilution A in cold water with a tiny amount of benzo (some long chemical name) the diafine technique was way easier so I John st stuck with that. Not sure that is useful to you but there it is.

And, please understand my concern, for exposed roll film from the 1930s, 40s and 50s? My mother passed away and my inheritance is a number of 620 and 120 exposed but undeveloped rolls of film, which I have been elected to develop for siblings...I lurk here, but have to ask...

BobBill said:

And, please understand my concern, for exposed roll film from the 1930s, 40s and 50s? My mother passed away and my inheritance is a number of 620 and 120 exposed but undeveloped rolls of film, which I have been elected to develop for siblings...I lurk here, but have to ask...

Click to expand...

Are these films C-41, or regular B&W films? Either way, the procedure should be more or less the same. You may lose one roll to tests&experiments, but the rest will likely yield some form of images.

Sorry BW, thought this was a BW only thread...film rolls are all Kodak BW 120s are Plus and cannot recall 620s but all BW pan stuff. I have not film I dare experiment with...I mean, not in this batch...that is my problem. I stayed away from film lab work due to allergy and now faced with this. Old family stuff, Mom was photog from way back...kind of a lens person...runs in family...optometrists etc., so here I am, between rock and hard spot.

If you can't risk a single roll of film, then you need to turn to a film rescue service and have the work done there. They have the experience to do this properly, but obviously won't share their trade secrets here on APUG.

PS: Unless film development is really routine for you, you shouldn't do critical rolls yourself anyway, even fresh film.

I've found with old exposed film a quick and active developer is better than a weak slow one. Dilute print developer like 130 for instance. add a splash of TAF-1 or Benzotriazole etc..

With the roll i have already, in it's current condition is pretty much useless. Try as i might there is no way i'm getting a useful image from them.
My options, best i can tell, are to either use a special bleach process and then redo it in C41.
Or, find a way to further enhance them. I believe there are ways the film can be bleached to remove, or at least fade the orange base.
On the plus side, so long as the chemicals aren't expensive, there are a couple of blank frames i can use from this roll to try, though i'd be relying on the edge markings to tell how well it's worked and/or striped the image.

The ultimate question is, which is likely to give better results....

I am also VERY reluctant to attempt to develop any of the other films i have in B&W as if they turn out like this again i'm going to get pretty miffed. Unless there is a vast improvement, it's just trashing the film on the most part.

Below is a pic of the negatives compared to a normal strip of colour negatives for comparison.

Why not try one roll in C41 and see what you get? At least it's the process the film was designed for. I expect the rest of the films would behave the same, so you can use the one done in C41 as a gauge to determine if it's worth doing the rest.

Craig said:

Why not try one roll in C41 and see what you get? At least it's the process the film was designed for. I expect the rest of the films would behave the same, so you can use the one done in C41 as a gauge to determine if it's worth doing the rest.

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I think this is my next course of action, and the most likely you give the best results right now. Unless someone know better about developing colour in B&W...