Old, Old Film

Hello-
I have some old black and white film from the 50s and I would like to shoot it but I was wondering what the chances are of anything possably coming out of it. I have no idea how it was stored. It is some 127 film that only says Black and White and Made in Belgum. It is 127

Thanks

Ektagraphic said:

I have some old black and white film from the 50s and I would like to shoot it but I was wondering what the chances are of anything possably coming out of it. I have no idea how it was stored. It is some 127 film that only says Black and White and Made in Belgum. It is 127

Click to expand...

IIRC, Made in Belgium always means Gevaert. I found a thread at photo.net that shows a roll of what I believe is Gevaert Dandi Pan:
http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00BuCi

I have a bunch of the same stuff in 120, but it was stored badly and is basically unusable---heavy fog and the numbers from the backing paper have printed through onto the film. Your luck may be better, and I've heard that it was quite a good film. Do you have enough to shoot a scratch roll, just to see what if anything you get?

-NT

I had a similar batch to play with last year. See the image I've posted in my gallery of the hand sculpture and the backstory description. You very well might be able to get printable negatives. Post something if you do!

try Ing. Koblic's MPB - developer specially made for old films (he developed it after WW2 due to absolute lack of fresh films in the Czech Republic)
Metol - 4 g
Sodium sulfite (anh.) - 16 g
Disodium phosphate (.12H2O) - 4 g
Borax (sodium tetraborate) - 8 g
water to make - 1000 ml (pH around 8.5)

developing time suggested for the first film is around 8-15 min at 18°C
used developer can't be stored
amount of Disodium phosphate can be altered up to 70 g/l - it acts as a restrainer of a fog&haze and other negative effects of longly stored film
film's speed will be slightly better than D-76 and negatives will be very sharp, fine grained, gelatine layer is very clear.

for Delta 400 or Tri-X 400 - 8.5 min at 18°C works as a good starting point and the negatives have as good tonality as souped in DD-X but are super-sharp (can be seen even on 5x enargements as a huge difference).

btw - it can be diluted 1+1 with approximately doubling the development times.

I only have one roll that came with a camera I bought a while ago. I will shoot it and will let you all know how it came out. If it worked, I will post scans. Thanks

Since you can't do any testing, I would think a divided developer like Barry Thornton's two bath or Diafine would be best.

Venchka said:

Since you can't do any testing, I would think a divided developer like Barry Thornton's two bath or Diafine would be best.

Click to expand...

I think Diafine might be a bad choice because of its tendency to boost speed---it seems like anything that draws out more shadow detail might also aggravate the inevitable fogging. Is there a roughly speed-maintaining two-bath developer with good antifoggant properties, a sort of "split HC-110"? If so, it seems like that would be a great choice for this kind of situation.

-NT

Barry's

ntenny said:

I think Diafine might be a bad choice because of its tendency to boost speed---it seems like anything that draws out more shadow detail might also aggravate the inevitable fogging. Is there a roughly speed-maintaining two-bath developer with good antifoggant properties, a sort of "split HC-110"? If so, it seems like that would be a great choice for this kind of situation.

Click to expand...

...and I'm pretty sure you'd be correct if my observations hold true. I use an enlarging meter in the darkroom. Using two unexposed pieces of fresh film, one developed in Diafine and one developed in XTOL, shows that the piece developed in Diafine will always require more exposure to print with the same density. The difference is often small, but it is there and it is measurable and varies from film to film. Based on those observations, it is completely logical to assume that any age fog, certain to be present in film that old, will be amplified.

I shot some HP4 a while back. It was circa 1960s... it had been stored in a loft, too, so had seen some big temperature fluctuations!

The result were... well, it was ok, but had a very high base fog and probablyless than half of it's rated speed.

Any idea how fast your film is? Slow films seem to last much better, whatever they do to fast films to make them fast also makes them fog much quicker over time. I tried a 1920s Wellington glass plate a few years ago and it was squeaky clean, fog free and looked as fresh as it did when new, probably... but it was only about 1/2 ASA!

Still, my HP4 gave me some printable pics, so good luck and let us know what happens.

I had a roll of Kodachrome 25 that I shot in 1980 and forgot about. It sat in a box in a very hot garage till I found it in 1998. Not expecting anything good I had it developed and to my surprise the slides were beautiful.
The point being film can survive very harsh treatment and still give you printable results. Of course films vary so heed what the others here have said and give it a go. I'm still using a box of Plus-X 4x5 that expired in 1989 with good results.
Please let us know how things turn out.