I developed the roll of 116 Verichrome Pan.

Couple weeks ago I posted a thread asking how to develop a roll of 116 film i found in an old camera (Kodak 2C)from a garage sale, without a tank. I finally did it just now. It's still drying yet.

After reading everyone's comment I decided to do the following. I used a medium size empty butter Tupperware thing-a-mc-git.. Fill it 1/3 way with Straight D76, turn off the lights in the bathroom, and use the seesaw method. That was something else I tell you. Seesawing a roll of 50+ years old film in the D76 for about ~15 minutes, then, wash, then fix. It works, but its a total different experience, and very uncomfortable seeing i am sitting on the floor outside the bath tub.

For the record, before I did it I was concern about the film being all curled out and would not stay in the developer, and won't allow me to "seesaw it". Found out that is not a problem at all. The film stays at the bottom pretty well with the developer pushing down on it and the film sticking to the side of the tub while its wet, of course not the emulsion side.

Now you must wonder what is on the roll?! Sorry to disappoint you, The roll appeared to be heavily fogged. However, i can still tell all six frames are there. But, I cannot make out what I'm looking at. I think over the years it all turned into a random fuzz.

After it's dry I am still going to scan it and see if i can make anything out of it at all. I can post them later if anyone is interested.

Before I go, once again, that seesaw method was truly something else, I can't imagine doing that all day in a lab. It was truly a learning experience.

At least you might have a few images that are printable. For a film that old it is a good result.

Thats pretty much the only usable image that shows up. It is blurry, but at least I can tell what it is.

It's commendable what you did, it's just too bad that the previous photographer sucked.

Actually, it's sort of an 'arty' picture. Print it, hand color it, stick it in a frame and hang it on the wall. Folks will love it.

Nice effort Dehk, sorry more did not come out.

I got lucky with my 116. 5 of 6 photos came out. There were pinholes in the emulsion and it was fogged but scanable (er, printable) and we got to see the pictures. It's fun to see what's been lurking inside that box all these years.

Buje said:

Actually, it's sort of an 'arty' picture. Print it, hand color it, stick it in a frame and hang it on the wall. Folks will love it.

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Great Idea, I might just do that.

Thank You holmburgers,

And yes Bill, always interesting to see whats inside the box all these years, I did 2 rolls of 620 before, One turned out to be fantastic with all frames, the other turned out to be nothing at all. But this is the first time I did anything in a bowl like that. It was fun.

Thanks guys.

The seesaw method was the first thing I did in a darkroom. I think everybody should try it at least once just so you can appreciate what you can do with more "modern" techniques.

glbeas said:

The seesaw method was the first thing I did in a darkroom. I think everybody should try it at least once just so you can appreciate what you can do with more "modern" techniques.

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Agreed.

Kodak 2A with Kodak Verichrome Pan 116

I know absolutely nothing about developing film nor of what this film is. Can somebody walk me through this? I guess the first question is;

Is this B&W?

Then, what's next?

Thank you,
Brian

ShotWellArt said:

I know absolutely nothing about developing film nor of what this film is. Can somebody walk me through this? I guess the first question is;

Is this B&W?

Then, what's next?

Thank you,
Brian

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Yes, it is B&W. Verichrome Pan was Kodak's "gold standard" B&W film of years gone by.

And the 116 roll size doesn't fit properly into modern developing tanks, so he was forced to do it by hand instead.

116 and 616 are just a tad bigger than 620 and 120. The older FR and some other tanks (Old Yankee, old Ansco) will take them, and often turn up cheaply on e-bay.

cmacd123 said:

116 and 616 are just a tad bigger than 620 and 120. The older FR and some other tanks (Old Yankee, old Ansco) will take them, and often turn up cheaply on e-bay.

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That's exactly what I did when I developed a roll of 116 Verichrome Pan recently - bought both an FR special and an Ansco tank on ebay. The Ansco arrived first, so that's what I used. It's a pretty large tank, though, and takes about 750ml to entirely cover the film. The FR tank is smaller so holds a more reasonable amount of solution. I got 4 or 5 good images off the film, but haven't done anything with them yet, as they just looked like shots of some plants. It would have been a different story if there had actually been people in the shots. Anyway, the combined cost of the 2 tanks, including shipping, was about $16. Not too bad.