Processing B&W exposed 1976-1978 and kept frozen

I have approximately 60 rolls of film (Pan-X, Plus-X and Tri-X) shot 1976 to 1978 and never processed (long story ...). This film was all frozen after exposure, either immediately or within one month after exposure.

Any special considerations for processing? All were apparently exposed at rated ASA except for five rolls of Tri-X marked "ASA 1200, Acufine."

Any recommendations for developer or developers? Any "recent" developments in processing chemistry?

I still have my Nikor 2 roll developing tank, changing bag, and probably film clips for drying film.

Phil

All those films go very nicely with D-76. If it were me I'd start there, but you can use whatever developer you're comfortable with.
One possible option would be to use HC-110 as it is purported to help reduce fogging. There aren't really any recent developments in B&W processing. It's the same as it ever was.


Because of the age of the film I might add 15% or so to the normal developing times as a starting point. You may not even need that since the film's been frozen. I think there's a very good chance that you'll end up with usable negatives. Old B&W film is more robust than one might think.

For each type of film, I would develop one roll first, and then adjust depending on results.

MattKing said:

For each type of film, I would develop one roll first, and then adjust depending on results.

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Sounds about right. Back in the day (like in the 80s I used diluted single-use FG7. As far as I know, FG7 is no longer available, so I'd be trying out a new developer.

14 Nov 2018

PhilBurton:

You are lucky that the rolls of film were frozen after exposure. The rolls of 120 Verichome Pan that were given to my by a friend were stored in a darkroom/garage since being exposed in 1968 - 1969. I used both D76 (stock) and HC110 (1+31) and had good results. I expected, and found, lots of fog in the rolls I processed. After each processing run I re-evaluated my development time, and adjusting as necessary. Hopefully you will see less fog because the film was frozen.
The thread that I started can be found at https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/50-year-old-latent-images.162329/

Regards,
Darwin

No freezer stops accumulation of cosmic rays, which causes a slowly progressive level of fogging!

Not sure if you can extend time in the developer in order to increase contrast in film fogged by cosmic rays

Pentode said:

All those films go very nicely with D-76. If it were me I'd start there, but you can use whatever developer you're comfortable with.
One possible option would be to use HC-110 as it is purported to help reduce fogging. There aren't really any recent developments in B&W processing. It's the same as it ever was.


Because of the age of the film I might add 15% or so to the normal developing times as a starting point. You may not even need that since the film's been frozen. I think there's a very good chance that you'll end up with usable negatives. Old B&W film is more robust than one might think.

Click to expand...

Because it has been frozen, I would develop one roll in D-76. If it looks and prints ok, then do the rest. I would be surprised if anything other than normal processing works......Regards!

I just did a bit of research and found two folks who had developed film exposed a long, long time ago, and both recommended Kodak HC-110. One of them suggested using HC-110 at dilution A, for a higher energy to get more contrast in the fogged images.

I am open to correction, but my understanding is that freezing film after exposure doesn't really do much good.

I'd go with D76 or ID-11 (essentially the same stuff) and process one roll of each to gauge what, if any, adjustments are needed. I've had good results with films around 40 years after exposure, much more than that and the fog generally gets very bad. However it also depends on the film type...those you have ought to stand up better than cheaper films.

I started working at a local college recently. In the fridge they had about 1000' of bulk PXP dating from the 1970's and 80's. I made it a mission to find a way to make that film usable and think for our film this seems to have worked pretty well.
To lower the base fog, use a little potassium bromide. I took one teaspoon and dissolved in on gallon of water (we didn't have a scale!) We've labelled this "special sauce" in our darkroom ;-)

We have the students use HC-110 dilution B but instead of water we mix half "special sauce" so.... 1(hc-110):15 (special sauce);15 (water). Then we added a bit of extra time over the original suggested time: 7.5 minutes @20c/68f

This seems to give us a reasonable balance between base fog and box speed. We have the students expose at ISO 100 and the results are pretty good. It's kind of funny to think that the film was likely made about the same time their parents were born ;-) !

It's worth noting that we're using an old bottle of my HC-110 that is the US made maple syrup thickness stuff. I bought a bottle of the new more viscus German made developer and hope to test this soon for our old films and for general use in the lab. Also, if you don't have 1000' of bulk film to test with you might consider doing clip tests.