Long-expired TMZ... in 120

[dangeresque]

I picked up a roll of 120 film purporting to be Kodak 5054, aka TMZ, for a buck on the auction site earlier this week. I guess it was from an experimental production run as I've never seen this before and AFAIK it's never been sold commercially in anything other than 35mm. Expiration is 3/94.

I haven't received it yet, but when it does arrive, I do plan on shooting it (saving the box and backing paper, of course). It'll probably be Holga food as I can't imagine my negatives would be printable at anything higher than maybe EI 200.

I understand that any high-speed film which has been stored for that long, even in deep freeze, is going to be fogged to hell and back, tricky to develop and difficult to print. But I have a lot of free time. My question is how to determine a starting point exposure index.

I have a friend who works in a local drugstore minilab with access to a densitometer. Should I snip off maybe 2cm from the end of the unexposed roll in a changing bag, do a clip test (development would be in HC-110) and ask him to evaluate Dmin... or am I thinking too much about this?

 

[removed account4]

i have recently shot and developed tmz (2 rolls / 35mm ) of the same vintage.
i have never used hc110 ..
but if it doesn't have a lot of kbr in it ... expect fog ..
i exposed all mine about half speed ( 800 ) and souped it in caffenol C with about 300cc of
ansco 130 added after it was mixed ...great stuff

have fun

john

 

[2F/2F]

I wouldn't hold out much hope for "normal" pictures. You can probably get something there, though you should shoot things that you want to print low in contrast with tons of grain and very little detail. I've tried Delta 3200 much fresher than that and results were horrible (for what I wanted, anyhow). It'll be a sad day when that film goes away, as it is so darned great, but just does not keep well.

 

[ic-racer]

Some observations:
I have been recently using up some HP5 72 exposure film I got in 1984. My sensitometric tests lead me to believe that the fog eats up the toe such that the speed decreases quite a bit. The last roll I developed a week ago had a base & fog density of 0.62 and the 0.1 point was around EI 100 to 125. My 21 step wedge won't reach out to the shoulder, but I'd bet the latitude is diminished. Mid range gamma does not seem to be much different from fresh film under the same processing conditions.

I can't post any graphs because I just upgraded my Mac and none of my software (DeltaGraph, etc) works, so $$ software upgrade time....

 

[mhcfires]

I used fresh TMZ, used #25 red filter, exposed at ISO 400. Developed in HC-110 Dilution B for 11 minutes at 68ºF. It had much more grain than Delta 3200.

 

[dangeresque]

Thanks all. I will report back with results once completed.