How to shoot severely fogged HIE?

Well, the 70mm 2424 that I have appears to have some pretty major base fog, which wasn’t entirely unexpected, but nonetheless is disappointing considering that we were told that it was freezer stored for its entire life. Thankfully, me and my friend did not break the bank buying this film, however, now I am faced with the prospect of trying to figure out how to use it.


I did try and develop it in HC 110 B with 0.4 g/L of potassium bromide, but that did not seem to make any significant difference.


Has anyone ever shot HIE with this amount of fog? And is there a way to reduce it? I understand that anything I try will probably reduce the usable speed drastically, but the key word there is usable, as with this much fog I very much doubt I will get very many usable images as-is.

And as a note, while I would like to try and conserve it as much as possible, I do still have something like 70 feet of the stuff, so I do have a little bit to play with.

Thanks in advance.

Wow...that's some serious fog.
Maybe try some benzotriazole in the developer instead of KBr.
(Flic Film now sells Fog Off, a premixed benzotriazole solution.)
Another thing you might try is serious overexposure and then using Farmer's Reducer/bleaching to remove fb+f density after development.

I've got a boxed 150 foot roll I haven't started yet, but I'm thinking of it. I shot a roll of the 120 spooled by David Romano. I stored the exposed roll for many years, then finally ran it recently in D19, my all time 35mm HIE developer. Some interesting images on that roll, shot with a Kiev 60 and 30mm Arsat Fisheye, with dark red filter mounted in the lens. I was expecting total fogging, but the images are salvageable.

well, I shot off a test roll, bracketed exposures from EI 1.5 to EI 50, using a 720 nm filter because that’s what I have. I’m going to develop this in D76 because it’s easy and adding KBr to HC110 didn’t do much.

I might try and get some BTZ just to see if that might work well at some point.

Nokton48 said:

I've got a boxed 150 foot roll I haven't started yet, but I'm thinking of it. I shot a roll of the 120 spooled by David Romano. I stored the exposed roll for many years, then finally ran it recently in D19, my all time 35mm HIE developer. Some interesting images on that roll, shot with a Kiev 60 and 30mm Arsat Fisheye, with dark red filter mounted in the lens. I was expecting total fogging, but the images are salvageable.

Click to expand...

I would actually like to get some of this in 35 mm, but I also know that the only reason that I have the roll that I have is because it was a stupid good deal, and I’m sure I will not find anything even remotely similar for 35mm. So I’m just gonna be happy with what I have.

Please keep us posted!
I have some vintage 4143 in 4x5 that I'm planning on trying out when the sun decides to come out.

Well, I know that this is an absolutely horrible picture of the film, and it’s really hard to see anything, but there is definitely an image there. Also took a pic with my phone and the IR filter for reference. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to scan these for a while, I bought a 50s 5/2.8 lens and sold my old 55/3.5, which means at the moment I do not have a macro lens. So no scanning.

AnselMortensen said:

Wow...that's some serious fog.
Maybe try some benzotriazole in the developer instead of KBr.
(Flic Film now sells Fog Off, a premixed benzotriazole solution.)
Another thing you might try is serious overexposure and then using Farmer's Reducer/bleaching to remove fb+f density after development.

Click to expand...

I ordered 10g of BZT from B&H, we shall see what happens.

That's.... A lot of fog. I've been experimenting with tmax developer recently since it's both speed increasing and seems pretty good at restraining fog. I've used it with the last few rolls of so-078 I've shot and it's given me good printable negatives at 400 ISO despite the base fog on that film. That being said, this looks a lot more fogged than the 078 is.

thinkbrown said:

That's.... A lot of fog. I've been experimenting with tmax developer recently since it's both speed increasing and seems pretty good at restraining fog. I've used it with the last few rolls of so-078 I've shot and it's given me good printable negatives at 400 ISO despite the base fog on that film. That being said, this looks a lot more fogged than the 078 is.

Click to expand...

Way more fogged yeah.

MCB18 said:

Way more fogged yeah.

Click to expand...

I suspect bzt might help some but exposing until you can print/scan through the fog is probably your best option. I've been facing a similar issue with a roll of DuPont film from the 50s

thinkbrown said:

I suspect bzt might help some but exposing until you can print/scan through the fog is probably your best option. I've been facing a similar issue with a roll of DuPont film from the 50s

Click to expand...

Looking at the film, it seems like it didn’t really loose speed, just got fogged. Some of the shots with low EI are definitely overexposed. The highlights are blown out.

MCB18 said:

Looking at the film, it seems like it didn’t really loose speed, just got fogged. Some of the shots with low EI are definitely overexposed. The highlights are blown out.

Click to expand...

Not an expert, but my understanding is that you don't overexpose because the film has lost speed, but to put your shadows above the base fog density wise.

thinkbrown said:

Not an expert, but my understanding is that you don't overexpose because the film has lost speed, but to put your shadows above the base fog density wise.

Click to expand...

Well, I am no expert either, but I don’t think you’re looking for a super dense blobby mess when you’re over, exposing to overcome fog.

Kodak Info Sheets Here:

I was given the cursed idea of using C41 blix as a reducer for the HIE, now I really wanna try it. I do have an old C41 kit still kicking around here somewhere, and I also have a couple inches of blank film on the end of the roll that I developed, so I could definitely find a clear time. Might give it a shot.