Processing a mystery film

I was given an old camera (late 1920s) for my birthday yesterday. It takes sheet film in what looks like 6x9 format and comes with about half a dozen film holders. I opened one of the film holders and found that it had film in it, so I shut it immediately. I want to process the film in case it has been exposed, but I don't have any idea what brand of film it is, or how old it is. I have Ilford Microphen and Kodak T-max developer at my disposal.

Any recommendations on how to process this film so I am most likely to get reasonable results from this mystery film?

dj_judas21 said:

I opened one of the film holders and found that it had film in it, so I shut it immediately. I want to process the film in case it has been exposed, but I don't have any idea what brand of film it is

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Well opening that film holder would have killed that sheet of film so closing it immediately won't help it you already exposed it to light.

I would remove the sheet of film from the holder you started to open and see if there are any notch codes on the film you can use to identify the type of film.

Light Guru said:

Well opening that film holder would have killed that sheet of film so closing it immediately won't help it you already exposed it to light.

I would remove the sheet of film from the holder you started to open and see if there are any notch codes on the film you can use to identify the type of film.

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That's a good idea, except I put the film holders away and I don't know which it was I opened. Fail.

In the past I have developed old film that was accidentally exposed, and with the film speed decrease over time it has hardly fogged at all. Maybe I was just lucky. In this case I only removed the dark slide about an inch so maybe there will still be half a picture.

I'd just look at the instruction sheet for either developer and see what the average time is for normal contrast is at a given temp. You may end up a little thin or thick but still probably usable.

Check this out:

http://foundfilm.livejournal.com/16982.html

In the end I decided to process the film in Microphen for 4 minutes at 24C (I don't usually use such a high temperature but that's just how hot it is in my darkroom today). Turns out all the sheets of film were unexposed anyway! They all had lots of age-fog. There were no markings to signify the brand of the film. The edges weren't perfectly square so I'd guess these 6x9 sheets were cut by hand from a roll of 120 film.

Use a compensating developer like 510-PYRO or OBSIDIAN AQUA because the development time is the same for every film. You can develop multiple films each with different ISO ratings all together in the same tank with such developers.

Here's how I use them: http://freepdfhosting.com/a1e73b320a.pdf

RR

PS Never mind... Just seen your last post!

Regular Rod said:

Use a compensating developer like 510-PYRO or OBSIDIAN AQUA because the development time is the same for every film. You can develop multiple films each with different ISO ratings all together in the same tank with such developers.

Here's how I use them: http://freepdfhosting.com/a1e73b320a.pdf

RR

PS Never mind... Just seen your last post!

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Thanks. I've heard about pyro and other compensating developers but never had the chance to use them. I've usually read about them being used to rescue high-contrast negatives etc, but I didn't realise the development time was always the same. Good to know!