Shooting vintage ortho film from shiny side???

G'day all.

I have recently bought off Ebay a vintage roll of Kodak Verichrome 116 B&W orthochromatic film that expired in 1934 which I intend on shooting and home developing. However there is one problem the film is stuck to the backing paper from the emulsion side and as I unroll the film in the changing bag a layer of the backing paper tears off onto the emulsion making it impossible for me to shoot the film the conventional way. The only way I can think of for using this film is to re-roll it onto another 116 backing paper and shoot from the shiny side and in developing hope that the paper comes off. Question is though can early orthochromatic roll films be shot from the shiny side or is there a light blocking layer behind the emulsion preventing this from being possible? If it is possible would I need to increase the exposure time to make it sensitive enough from the other side?

And then of course to develop it I will have to somehow remove the paper so I am guessing by wetting the film and manually removing it under a red safe light seeing this is orthochromatic film. On the other hand prior to exposing can I clean the paper off the emulsion side using water and under the safe light and then let it dry in darkness and then re-roll it onto a 116 backing paper for use?

For those wondering how I make such vintage film like this work, I increase the exposure time to compensate for age sensitivity loss and have shot 3 rolls of 1932 expired AGFA Isochrom 116 film with exposure times from 5 sec to 30 sec at f-11 or f-16 (depending on weather) and a roll of 1939 expired Kodak Verichrome 620 at f-11 1 sec exposure and have gotten great results.

Anyhow if anyone can help me on this I'd most appreciate it. If it can't be done I guess this film with be a display piece.

This is the normal failure mode of roll film, keep cartons on shelf as mementos, there is normally dye in the film base to prevent your experiment.

I'd just try it and see: Shoot from the back as it is, or try the washing. The latter might even remove some or all of any anti-halation dye, Or it might not.
assuming you didn't pay a ton of money or this isn't the last roll in the world and "should" be in a museum, what have you got to lose?

pdeeh said:

I'd just try it and see: Shoot from the back as it is, or try the washing. The latter might even remove some or all of any anti-halation dye, Or it might not.
assuming you didn't pay a ton of money or this isn't the last roll in the world and "should" be in a museum, what have you got to lose?

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You have to develop the backing paper as well as film and if you are unlucky the emulsion will separate from the film and stay with backing paper, you will need to print as paper negative?

in which case it's a wasted roll of very old film and nothing is lost. I doubt the OP is going to shoot a wedding on it ... sounds like he enjoys experimenting and having fun.

Thanks for the info and suggestions. What I will try first is to cut a small section off and stick it to some backing paper inside my Kodak Hawkeye 116 camera, take a lengthy exposure, do a standard develop and see what happens, if failure cut off another small section and try a different approach and so on. The film in question can be seen here http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/351081305132 .

Got some great news about that film, I have managed to get the paper off and got it to work great!!! As the film is orthochromatic I decided to make myself a red LED safe light and so I can examine the film and unrolling it, the first 4 exposures were stuck to the paper but the last 4 weren't. So I first cut the good part of the film off and did my 4 shots on it and developed and got excellent results. Then under safe light the film with stuck backing paper I soaked it in a bucket of water for a few minutes then peeled the paper off which came off no worries, only some remnants remained which I later discovered but that was okay. So I hung the film up to dry in darkness then re-rolled it onto the paper under safe light and shot it the next day, developed and got excellent results with only a little bit of splotching from some of the paper remnants stuck to the film. Anyways I have scanned and uploaded the film to Flickr so those who want to see the results here's the link https://www.flickr.com/photos/51853869@N08/sets/72157647869667791/ . Using f-16 aperture and 10 sec exposure in sunny weather I got nice pictures!

Excellent.
May I ask what developer(s) you use with this very old stuff?
I've just acquired a couple of dozen very old rolls of 120, dry stored and undeteriorated (not sticky or smelly and separates from backing paper perfectly well) but on nitrate stock eek and have shot a few - although by the sounds of your experience I've rated it too fast(around 32) for any results. It's waiting to be developed.

pdeeh said:

Excellent.
May I ask what developer(s) you use with this very old stuff?
I've just acquired a couple of dozen very old rolls of 120, dry stored and undeteriorated (not sticky or smelly and separates from backing paper perfectly well) but on nitrate stock eek and have shot a few - although by the sounds of your experience I've rated it too fast(around 32) for any results. It's waiting to be developed.

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I develop all of my B&W film from the oldest to the newest in Caffenol C (coffee, vitamin C, washing soda) using the Delta formula http://www.caffenol.org/recipes/ , I developed this film for 10 min at 20 deg C. One of my Flickr contacts who has also shot film of that age uses D-76 for his, here's his results for a 1917 Kodak Non Curling https://www.flickr.com/photos/56296811@N05/11578651916 and 1930 Kodak Verichrome https://www.flickr.com/photos/56296811@N05/9986194345/ . 32 ISO I would say is way too high so you will probably get rather faded pictures with lots of fog and aged deterioration artifacts, here's what I got for my 1939 Kodak Verichrome 620 when I shot one exposure at 1/50 sec at f-11 https://www.flickr.com/photos/51853869@N08/14745055430/ . After shooting some 1930s 116 films and a couple of 1913 expired Kodak Premo sheets https://www.flickr.com/photos/51853869@N08/sets/72157647424096839/ exposing around 10-15 sec at f-16 in sunny weather I find I get consistent good decent results so I suppose sensitivity loss in film hits a plateau point after so many decades.

typicalaussiebloke said:

... Then under safe light the film with stuck backing paper I soaked it in a bucket of water for a few minutes then peeled the paper off which came off no worries, only some remnants remained which I later discovered but that was okay. So I hung the film up to dry in darkness then re-rolled it....

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This is what I was going to suggest... worst thing would be losing the antihalation layer, but so what? Glad to hear it worked, that's fun!

typicalaussiebloke said:

I develop ... [SNIP].

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Thanks - a very comprehensive reply!
My biggest problem is getting in on the reels, the curl is so extreme.
I might try and make an apron.

Just for completeness, on the question of EI, I shot a test roll today, making 8 exposures, the first metered for EI32 (incident) and doubling the exposure for each subsequent frame.
Very foggy and mottled as expected but all exposures produced something tolerable.

I am wondering if this batch of film has been slit down from something else and rerolled with re-used backing paper: there aren't any edge markings for one thing, and the width of the rolls aren't quite wide enough to roll easily onto a Paterson reel. Mind you it'll still be at least 50 years old I think, if not more.

hmmm.

Anyway, I'll stop hijacking your thread now and start my own if I have any further issues to discuss

But thanks again for the information you gave, and links.