Shooting a Roll of 1958 Super XX

[braxus]

I have a 120 roll of Super XX from 1958. I'm wanting to try and shoot on it for fun. Im not expecting it to turn out to be honest, based on a previous roll I did years ago. But I'd like to try. Should I shoot it at ISO 25? And when developing in Xtol, what time would one do for it? Should I do it at 1:1? Im expecting it to be extremely fogged, but some others have had luck with film of this age. Who knows. Maybe the pictures will have some artistic look to it. Any suggestions?

 

[braxus]

"It depends on the age of the film for 2 reasons. One is the 'version' of Super XX you have and the other is just the age of the film emulsion itself.

I've used 9.5 min in D76 for Super XX sheet film from the 70s and 80s. I think much longer would be quite foggy. I rated it at 100 and 200 and got quite usable results. The 100, IMO was better.

Ron Mowrey"

 

[Bill Burk]

I found this old film has so much fog that the effective speed is very low, like EI 2 - 4

This was from 35mm, so you can get an idea what to expect.

Daniel Keating does some “cold” developing experiments where he gets less fog, but not better speed.

 

[Bill Burk]

Here’s my thread with the data. I used 9 minutes D-76 stock with some Benzotriazole

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/should-i-get-a-really-old-roll-of-film.178338/

 

[Alan9940]

No experience with old Super XX, but I have had good luck with a bit of benzo added to Rodinal.

 

[braxus]

I loaded up this roll in my Yashica A camera. It was the only camera I could put the reel into, as the metal reel didn't have the slots on both sides that my other cameras use. Only a slot on one side and hole in the other side. So it went into my TLR. It was really crunchy loading it in. The paper was damaged and really stiff. When I got to frame number 1, it just seemed really stiff. I have both Xtol and Rodinal. I haven't decided as which one I will use, as the Xtol is mixed up, but the Rodinal (new version) is still sealed in my bottle. In the film box there was a print out from Kodak on films, chemical mixes and times. It even showed how to make D-76 from scratch with a recipe. I might scan that up to show you guys here. I will probably shoot this roll as 12 ISO speed. Im not sure what times I will develop the film at, but it wanted 15 minutes in D-76 according to the sheet. Im expecting this film to not turn out, being completely fogged, but Im going to shoot the roll anyway just to see. I'm making a video of this process.

 

[braxus]

Well I shot the roll between 6 and 12 ISO. I basically just shot it wide open at the slowest shutter speed the Yashica A could do. Its an dull overcast day here today. I was outside shooting. Winding was very stiff throughout the roll. When I got home and loaded it into the developing tank, I noticed the backing paper was stuck to the film through most of it. Tried to take off as much paper as I could, but some of it is really glued on there. So I did the only thing I could do and prewashed the film, to hopefully loosen the paper. But I wont be able to take out the paper before developing it, so its going to have to stay in there, and hope for the best. After fixing, I'll just open it all up, take out the paper, and fix some more. Then wash. So far the roll seems like a loss, but Im still hopeful I can get something off of it.

 

[braxus]

Well I fixed the film, pulled it out after 6 minutes and pulled off all the stuck paper. I could actually see images on this roll. So I put it back in the fix with the paper off and did another 6 minutes. Now its washing in the sink. I had to dump my fixer because of paper bits floating around it. I'll mix up some more to fill the bottle back up. There is fog on this film, and the negs are really dense. But I think I can actually get some images off this roll after scanning it.

I ended up developing it in Xtol straight for 14 minutes, fixed for 12.

 

[braxus]

Here's two pics of the negs drying.

 

[BrianShaw]

I'm surprised that you got that much. Good work!

 

[pentaxuser]

Well there certainly looks to be images there and scanning might well be able to produce a fully recognisable picture with some manipulation as might an extended exposure under an enlarger. Not bad for nearly 64 year old film

pentaxuser

 

[braxus]

The negs dried with an extreme curl to them, so I have them in a sleeve between two heavy books to hopefully straighten them out.

 

[braxus]

So the film flattened out just enough for me to scan these up. The images were so dense, I really had to crank down the brightness and contrast. Then in Photoshop, I had to crank the brightness down more and bring back up the contrast. Im quite pleased with the results of all this. Its really quite a beautiful looking film, being the defects from age, etc. Take a look. I also included the paper sheet that was in the box with info.

 

[MattKing]

Excellent work! Better than my 1940s vintage 616 film.
I know I'm late to mention this, but the ASA standard was changed after that film was made. A 100 ASA film that was to be developed before 1958 would be a 200 ISO film today - just due to the redefined standard.

 

[braxus]

Well I had around 12-15 years newer film then what you had Matt. I still have some Super XX in 4x5 I really should use up, as it too was fogged when I shot it over 15 years ago. That was dated in the 1970s. Ron Mowrey gave me this film in the early 2000s, bless his heart.

Im making a video on this whole process. I'll post the link when I have it uploaded.

 

[Paul Howell]

Great problem solving, images are remarkable for such old film.

 

[braxus]

Braxus Photography Fun: Using July 1958 Expired Kodak Super XX Film - YouTube

Video is up. I got a copyright claim on one of the songs used in it. It was from a royalty free site, so Im disputing it. Still learning this digital camera for video, so its not perfect.

The images I got are far from perfect, and depending on which monitor you see the images, they can look good or somewhat flat. My tv shows them as flat.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Braxus Photography Fun: Using July 1958 Expired Kodak Super XX Film - YouTube

Video is up. I got a copyright claim on one of the songs used in it. It was from a royalty free site, so Im disputing it. Still learning this digital camera for video, so its not perfect.

The images I got are far from perfect, and depending on which monitor you see the images, they can look good or somewhat flat. My tv shows them as flat.

I look forward to watching it. As far as tunes go, just choose something from the youtube studio library. There are thousands of tunes.

 

[Donald Qualls]

As far as tunes go, just choose something from the youtube studio library.

By report from content creators, this still doesn't always prevent takedowns and strikes.

 

[madNbad]

Thanks for the link. Good job with the video, just the fact the images are as good as they are from a sixty three year old roll of film make it worth viewing.

 

[braxus]

I used Bensound's "Adventure" in the last part of my video, and Youtube claimed it used the same melody as "Happy Days - bhzimmy". I listened that the Happy Days song and it doesn't sound anything like the other. Why they make it difficult to use music I don't know.

 

[Donald Qualls]

If the question starts with "why" the answer is probably money.

In this case, money taken out of YouTube/Google's pockets under current copyright laws that make the streaming host responsible for copyright violations unless they take "reasonable" measures to prevent/halt such. Also "guilty until proven innocent" interpretations of those laws.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Just whistle some random nonsense and use that then

 

[braxus]

I could really piss off Youtube and put in the song- "Don't Worry- Be Happy".

 

[Donald Qualls]

I could really piss off Youtube

I don't see there's much to gain there...