found roll of kodak vericolor in camera

[wildbill]

I just received a kodak six-16 brownie special as a gift. It was inbetweeny exposures on a roll of kodak vericolor when i opened the camera. I was in a dim room and closed it quickly. I've advanced it to #4 in the exposure window and now i'm wondering what speed this film is and what the speed and aperture the camera have. I'd like to expose the rest of the roll and see what i get. Anyone know the specs?

 

[Donald Qualls]

The only Vericolor I have experience with was Vericolor II, which was ISO 80. If the camera was between frame 3 and 4 when you opened it, most likely #3 is toast (even in a dim room), but #1 and #2 may be salvageable. #4 is most likely also fogged, but #5 and later may be okay. You can expect some loss of speed from aging of the film, probably one to two stops, which might make it difficult to get adequate exposures.

Bad news is, I think original Vericolor was a C-22 process film (Vericolor II was C-41), which means you won't be able to get it processed at a reasonable cost, except by souping it in B&W chemicals to develop the silver image (and doing so commonly loses about one additional stop of speed). If you're interested in the found images that might be on the first two frames, by all means finish the roll and try to find someone who can process 70 mm film (116 is 70 mm wide, about 3/8 inch wider than 120).

Do try to save the backing paper and spools, at least, as you can obtain 70 mm unperforated film and reload the paper to use modern film in your six-16 Brownie Special. There are also a number of articles on the web about adapting 116 cameras to use 120 film.

 

[srs5694]

Check with Rocky Mountain Film Laboratory or do a Web search on "C22 prrocessing" to get information on processing old film like this. (I've not used Rocky Mountain Film Laboratory, but I've heard of them before.) I don't know if there are any C22 developer formulas available on the Web for doing it yourself, but you've only some time to lose by doing a Web search if you're interested in that.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Another option is to process the Vericolor in B&W chemicstry first, to find if there are any images worth saving; if there are, treatment with rehalogenating bleach (E-6, C-41, or the bleaches used in bleach-redevelop toning kits; not B&W reversal bleach or Farmer's Reducer), in daylight, will render the film developable through the correct C-22 chemistry (assuming in fact original Vericolor was C-22). This is both much faster (to initial evaluation) and much cheaper (in case of nothing worth bothering) than sending the film to Rocky Mountain Labs.

Generally, it seems to work well for C-22 and C-41 films to develop as if pushing Tri-X to EI 800 or a little higher, though I can't claim to know what if any effect this push will have on the final dye image if the film is in fact reprocessed to recover the color (since the bleached image is 100% exposed, all the image you initially develop will redevelop in the color developer -- and there's no easy way to tell if it's enough, or too much).