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Old Jessops B+W film development

neilt3

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I've been using mainly digital cameras but as I'm using more medium format film now and starting with large format (5x4) I've decided to set up a permanent dark room .
Planning on using both colour and black and white more in all formats including Sub-min .
I'll be doing all my own developing , including colour which I've not processed myself before .
Recently I've not been impressed by what I've got back from the labs , so time to learn something new .

A lot of the film I use is Ilford , so the information on ways to process it is easily available .
About ten years ago I bought quite a few bulk rolls of 35mm film that were going cheap when Jessops were closing down a lot of their shops about 2006/7 .
Amongst them was some PAN ISO400 , according to this thread ; (there was a url link here which no longer exists) , it would seem that Agfa made the film for them and it is re-badged Agfapan APX 400 .

I've had a look on the "Digitaltruth photo" website that I found out about on here , and it seems that there are two types of this film . On the list , the top half is listed as " new " . No date is given to indicate what film would be "old" or "new" type , but the suggested development is different with some chemicals .

Website link ; http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=APX+400&Developer=&mdc=Search&TempUnits=C

Does anyone here know when they changed over , so I know which part of the list to refer to ?

I ask this as because it is old film that has not been stored in a fridge/freezer I'm not sure what condition it is in . The film was stored in the pantry with the home brewed wine , coldest room of the house and good for storing wine , not sure about film long term !
I've done a some test shots on a roll , the first few at it's rated ISO , then some at + half a stop , +1 , +1.5 and +2 stops . As these are test shots to determine the condition of the film I want to remove all variables so I can use the rest of the roll at it's best .
I'm sure the film will be fine , so want to buy fresh developer that works good with it .Knowing what the film is that I have would be a big help in this regard .

Thanks in advance , Regards , Neil .
 

Anon Ymous

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The development times for Rodinal 1+50 were very different between the two versions. The old one needed 11' at 20°C, while the last version needed 30' (see page 10). So, you can shoot a short roll and develop it in Rodinal 1+50 for 11'. If it is hopelessly underdeveloped, then you have the newer version.
 
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neilt3

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Thank you both for your replies .
It's the Rodinal times that caught my eye as being very different . When I got the roll nearly ten years ago the first roll I developed came out very faint .
But I can't remember if I blamed that on camera , some out of date developer , or if I just messed it up !
Subsequent rolls developed fine with fresh developer but I cant remember how I treated it , so this time I want to remove a few variables with it being possibly 15 + years since it was manufactured .
I will treat the first rolls as the older one and take it from there .

Thanks again .