Kodak Plus - X Negative dated 1967 PNX 417

Hello I am new here and have a question about some expired Kodak Plus - X Negative from 1967. The number on the box says PNX 417 if that helps locate the information of this film easier for my question. My question is does anyone have the Reciprocity Failure chart for this film? I'd like to shoot it at night and can't find any exposure times for this film online. Any help would be appreciated thank you.

Welcome aboard @Film Explorer.

Film Explorer said:

Kodak Plus - X Negative from 1967

Click to expand...

Film Explorer said:

I'd like to shoot it at night

Click to expand...

That's probably the most unfortunate choice imaginable.

This film will be very heavily fogged by now, even if you don't give any exposure whatsoever. Using it for night photography will allow you to capture at best a few black dots on the negative here and there, representing any light sources that may be in the field of view.

If you want to use this film and obtain a recognizable image, I'd suggest exposing it in broad daylight and rate it at something like EI25 so that there's at least a chance of getting an image to rise above the high level of fog.

Whatever reciprocity data you may find for the film is virtually irrelevant given its age. The question how much exposure you'll need to give, boils down to a simple "a heck of a lot, give or take a cartload". That's about as exact as you're going to realistically get.

koraks said:

Welcome aboard @Film Explorer.





That's probably the most unfortunate choice imaginable.

This film will be very heavily fogged by now, even if you don't give any exposure whatsoever. Using it for night photography will allow you to capture at best a few black dots on the negative here and there, representing any light sources that may be in the field of view.

If you want to use this film and obtain a recognizable image, I'd suggest exposing it in broad daylight and rate it at something like EI25 so that there's at least a chance of getting an image to rise above the high level of fog.

Whatever reciprocity data you may find for the film is virtually irrelevant given its age. The question how much exposure you'll need to give, boils down to a simple "a heck of a lot, give or take a cartload". That's about as exact as you're going to realistically get.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your response. I am aware of fogging and over exposing the film for a better image. As for night photography I know the outcome will not be good but with the fogging I'm hoping for a dreary look with this film. Why does expired film cause black dots on the film? Also this being a ASA 80 film and it being from 1967 wouldn't I expose it at a slower speed say ISO 6 or slower? I will bracket from it's box speed and see my results at EI 25 Thanks.

Film Explorer said:

Why does expired film cause black dots on the film?

Click to expand...

Welcome to Photrio.

Old film that will have gained fog and lost both speed and contrast in the last 55+ years will be unlikely to image much detail in the night-time shadows, and will be more likely to show just responses to the highlights - which will show on the negative as small areas of black.
You would need to first determine how the film responds to normal levels of illumination before you investigate how it responds to extremely low levels of illumination - which is what is involved in trying to estimates the effect of reciprocity failure.

Film Explorer said:

a dreary look with this film

Click to expand...

It won't be so much dreary, as basically just solid *nothing*.

Film Explorer said:

Why does expired film cause black dots on the film?

Click to expand...

I was referring to the bright highlights that often dominate night scenes. If the film has high fog and lost much of its sensitivity, effectively resulting in severe underexposure, only the actual light sources tend to register. Since it's negative film, they will end up as black dots on your negatives. If you invert the image, you'll end up with a black frame with a few white dots. This is generally experienced as a disappointment.

Film Explorer said:

Also this being a ASA 80 film and it being from 1967 wouldn't I expose it at a slower speed say ISO 6 or slower?

Click to expand...

Yeah, go slower if you feel it's needed. With very old film like this, there's little distance between the extremely high level of fog and the shoulder of the curve.

In all honesty, film like this is best kept as a display object sitting on a shelf. For a dreary look, there are numerous ways to achieve it with modern materials that are easily available and allow for repeated experimentation until you get what you want.

If it is a 120 film you will encounter some heavy backing paper mottling issue.





Agfa Isopan IF, Exp. 1972

Sanug said:

If it is a 120 film you will encounter some heavy backing paper mottling issue.

Click to expand...

A few years ago, I came into a few rolls of Super-XX in 120 that expired in the late 1950s. One of boxes was pretty beat up, so I decided I'd open and shoot it(then leave the rest for display). I figured that I had at least a passing chance of getting useable images, although was expecting heavy fog, mottling, and all the other common ills of old film.

I shot it in a camera that it realistically could have been shot in new-my Hassy 500C from 1960(the only one I had then) but in retrospect that was probably the worst camera I could have chosen. I should have used a Rolleiflex or Pentax 67 or pretty much anything other than an SLR with that sort of film path(and Hassys are notoriously for the film path, even though that general film path design is common in SLRs and in things like Graflex roll film backs). It was not a totally blind or random choice, though-I knew I'd be fighting severe curl, and the my hope was that a trip through that camera might tame the curl at least a bit.

3 shots in, I'm advancing the film gingerly and when I hit a rough spot, push the wind crank a little more, and find myself with almost no resistance. I proceeded to shoot an additional shot, upon which advance essentially locked up completely.

This was not the standard Hasselblad jam(body cocked, lens uncocked, etc). I had to fight the dark slide back in to remove the back, and long story short I found that the film had decided to disintegrate while being advanced through the camera. Actualy getting the partially shot roll out involved a bit of disassembly of the magazine, and it took some effort with a rocket blower to get all the film shards out of the way-just thank goodness it was acetate film so that I didn't have to worry about dealing with nitrate shards all over the place too.

The backing paper held up through all of this, and in fact it's still sitting on the shelf with the rest of the undisturbed rolls, albeit wound nearly as tight of its own accord as a factory roll!

Aside from the fact that I gave up on any attempt of getting this film out in the dark, the initial splitting was the prompt for the film to basically splinter into pieces and I'm not sure, all said and done, if I had any single piece big enough to make up a full 6x6 frame. I actually didn't know that acetate base would disintegrate like that, but apparently this did.

Thus ended my experiments with it...it's a shame too as Super-XX is one of those films that seems to get a lot of attention for its keeping abilitities, and I'd hoped that this might yield something useable. Granted even if it had surived running through a camera that tortured it a bit less, I'm sure it would have been a fun fight onto the spiral for development. I'd already considered pulling out some of those Kodak film aprons that I'd never used just for this, but of course didn't get that far.

Uh, too bad. Stiff acetate base is an issue with old films. I encountered it with Orwo NP15-135, Exp. 1993. The transportation in my Praktica was impossible with the last 10 frames, and the perforation broke due to the enhanced force. When I unloaded the canister in the darkroom, it was very difficult to get the film out of it completely. The base had become very stiff and curled, especially at the end.

Ben Hutcherson said:

I actually didn't know that acetate base would disintegrate like that, but apparently this did.

Click to expand...

There are multiple ways in which acetate film may disintegrate. Sounds like in your case, the plasticizer(s) dissipated out of the film, leaving it brittle. The other main mechanism of acetate film disintegration is molecular breakdown of the long acetate molecules themselves, which break down into acetic acid - a.k.a. vinegar syndrome.

There is also the possibility the tape lost its adhesion and crumbled, leaving the leading edge of the film loose, so it got all messed up as the film was advanced. Any 120 film older than 40 years is worth checking before loading.

Don_ih said:

There is also the possibility the tape lost its adhesion and crumbled, leaving the leading edge of the film loose, so it got all messed up as the film was advanced. Any 120 film older than 40 years is worth checking before loading.

Click to expand...

With the Super-XX I had disintegrate in-camera, one of the largest areas actually intact was where the film was taped to the backing paper. Not disagreeing that that can happen-I've seen it on films newer than this(I gave up on some 80s-expired Tri-X I was given and thought it would make good camera testing fodder-it worked great for that but about every other roll detached from the backing paper) but at least on the Super-XX where I had issues the tape was good, just not the film itself.

All in the fun of doing this.

There use to be a guy who posted on Pnet-maybe here too-who went out of his way to buy cameras with partial rolls in them. He'd usually finish the rolls(if there were any shots left), develop them, scan them, and create quite the entertaining narrative to go along with the film. Gene M was what I think he went by.

In any case, he was obviously quite practiced at handling and developing film this old, and usually coaxed surprisingly useable images(even with defects like mottling) out of them. I seem to recall that he used HC-110, but didn't add Benzotriazole or otherwise do anything special. I do seem to remember him losing at least parts of some rolls from them falling apart while loading on a reel.

There again, that's the sort of thing that can make one want to use a developing option that requires minimal manipulation of the film during loading. Even though I have a few of the Kodak aprons, I've never used them. This almost seems like an ideal use, although as I understand it they fell out of fashion since they don't allow for chemistry to move as efficiently as a conventional real and can give inconsistent results(both roll to roll and within one roll). Still, though, I'd take inconsistent over film that fell apart while loading...