Question about vintage film from a newbie.

[Nick Danger]

Greetings. I was referred to this site by someone at another forum for my question.
I found an old roll of exposed 35mm film today in my travels. A 36 exposure roll of bulk loaded Dupont Superior 2. The box was stamped, "Develop before Aug. 1946.
From what I have been able to determine thus far, it is a black and white print film that was fairly common until maybe 1960 or so.
My questions are,... What process was,(or still is) used to develop this type of film, and is there a reputable lab I can find online to send it to to be developed?
I'm assuming the film was shot sometime between 1944 and 1945, so for all I know it may contain never before seen pictures from D-day or something.
Well, probably not, but I still want to know what if anything is on the film.
Thanks in advance for any info.

 

[bobwysiwyg]

Check this thread..

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[Nick Danger]

Thanks for the tip.

 

[srs5694]

A quick Google on '"Dupont Superior 2" film' (the quotes around "Dupont Superior 2" are necessary) turns up a handful of hits, a couple of which verify that this was B&W negative film. As such, it could be processed by anybody with a darkroom and B&W chemicals -- there is no one standard B&W process (the way C-41 is the standard color negative process these days), but most any film can be processed in just about any B&W developer, with varying results. The tricks would be finding the right development time and developing it in a way that would bring out the best in the image (clear image, not too much base fog). I have little experience with this, so I won't offer advice on those scores.

If you're not set up for B&W processing yourself, you could try Rocky Mountain Film Lab, which specializes in this sort of thing. They're a bit pricey, though -- according to their price list, it'd set you back $42.50 (including shipping). For that price, you might just be able to do it yourself (buying equipment and minimal chemicals) -- although if you've never done film processing before, the chances of your ruining the film because of inexperience would be high.

I'd offer to do it for you myself, just out of curiosity, but as I say, I'm not all that familiar with processing old films, so I'd be afraid of messing it up.

 

[Nick Danger]

Great info, thanks. I will look into this one on the off chance that there is something interesting on the roll. Old film like this is intriguing because of the time capsule aspect of it, so I don't care if it's just pictures of aunt Mabel and uncle Jim.
But I will keep my fingers crossed that it is in fact pics from the Roswell crash,..