Old Film and Chemistry

I have the following films and chemicals that I got a couple days ago, are they still any good? They have all been in a refrigerator.

Tmax 100 1996 and 1992
Plus X 1987
Ekatchrome 1982
FP4+ 1989
Technical Pan (A packet of Technidol was in the refrigerator as well)
Agfacolor (Not sure what year)
Kodacolor II 1978
Tmax 400 1999
Tmax 3200 1996
Vericolor II

Outside of the refrigerator

Powdered Microdol X
Microdol in a can
Kodak Stop Bath
Slenium Toner
Ilfochrome Kit
Ektachrome Developer

BW films, except tmax3200, should be absolutely OK to use as well as powdered chemistry. Color films are probably shifted, good for experiments.

What he said (if they really have been refrigerated all this time).

How will the Tmax 3200 come out? Also, any suggestions as to what EI to use?

Usual developer is D-76

Tmax3200 would be fogged, probably heavily.

Pix will come out, but it will have a dark base level of density along the entire filmstrip, underneath the images. This will eat up any tones that fell at or below this level.

If it is a low enough level of density, you can still use the film for pretty normal-looking pix, if you expose and develop accordingly.

What I would do is to just pull out about 8 inches of one roll (in total darkness, of course), trim it, and piggyback it on another b/w roll with a similar development time the next time you process film. This will show you how much density an unexposed section of the film will achieve when developed, and thus let you know if the film is worth shooting, and if it is, how to expose when you go to use the film.

Try shooting the TMAX at ISO 100 and pull process a stop or two.

Which Tmax, Tmx Tmy or Tmz?

tiberiustibz said:

Try shooting the TMAX at ISO 100 and pull process a stop or two.

Click to expand...

Assuming you are talking about the T-Max 3200 (which is an ISO 1000 film), the three-stop overexposure you are suggesting might be right on...but it might also be right off.

You can't helpfully suggest a specific EI for the film until you have somehow measured the level of fog (visually or otherwise).

Unless you are going for more grain and less contrast than normal, you don't want to overexpose unnecessarily.

Underdevelopment will just lower the contrast in a situation in which low contrast will already be an issue, due both to fog and to the inherent low contrast of high-speed films.

In short, just do a snip test and see what happens first, before spending your time shooting a whole roll or several rolls with a guessed amount of overexposure.

Sorry, I meant the Tmax 3200 and I'm also assuming it's probably crap. Some people just want a number, so I give a number.

I was going through some old boxes & found some Agfa Colour film in Walgreens package. Well I have been back in Australia for 10 years. So I figure this film was bought in the mid 1990's say 1995. I went out and used it sent it off to Kodak one hour place @ Kmart. I wished I had truck loads of this film now. Damm it had improved with age. This film was never stored in a fridge & was in shipping across the equator. Maybe I was lucky ?

I recently shot some very outdated TMZ. Based exposures on an EI of 800 or 1600 depending upon the quality of the light, and developed it in XTOL as if I'd rated it at 3200. Was there a lot of base fog? You bet. The middle and highlight tones were ok though - not great, but definitely printable. Don't use it in hard light, but it should be relatively ok for soft, low light.

I recently shot some very outdated TMZ. Based exposures on an EI of 800 or 1600 depending upon the quality of the light, and developed it in XTOL as if I'd rated it at 3200. Was there a lot of base fog? You bet. The middle and highlight tones were ok though - not great, but definitely printable. Don't use it in hard light, but it should be relatively ok for soft, low light. The remainder of the B&W films will have developed some base fog, but there's no telling if it will be too much for your purposes. If you process your own films, it's no big deal. I would not pay the price of commercial processing for them. The color films will almost invariably have suffered the same fate along with some color shifts. I do not process color on a regular basis, and would not bother with them. Keep them if you like to collect such things. Otherwise, can 'em.

The selenium toner, and the stop bath will be fine. The Microdol-X in a can should be fine, but the one in the envelope might not be. The color developers are probably no good too. Not worth the trouble to find out from a dollars and cents viewpoint.