shooting with old film

[Alex Thorne]

Hi,

I just got a large format camera that came with three packets of film that is dated 1978. The film is Kodak color Ektachrome 50 & 64, and Kodak Super XX pan.

This is my first LF and I wanted to use the film for practice. I'm sure the color is going to be way off, but I was thinking I could convert the image to B&W in Photo Shop and get a usable image.

Any recommendations on how I should shoot this stuff? Any exposure compensation needed?

Also, I don’t believe the film was stored in a freezer.

Thanks

 

[Photo Engineer]

It depends on how the films were kept.

However, the Super XX should be pretty good. I used ISO 100 - 200 and 7 - 9 minutes in D76 and got good images. I sent some of this to two APUG members and they found it satisfactory as well.

The color is probably going to be rather poor. If it is E4 Ektachrome, you will have trouble getting it processed.

PE

 

[Uhner]

Alex, instead of using Super XX as a training film I would buy a pack of cheap, contemporary film and use that instead. If the SXX is in good shape I would use it in processes that modern films are ill suited for. If I remember correctly SXX is one of the last thick emulsion films.

 

[srs5694]

If the Ektachrome is E4, you might do better to just treat it as a B&W film. As PE says, getting it processed as E4 will be tricky, and probably far more expensive than fresh E6 film plus processing. Or maybe a collector on eBay will pay dearly for old E4 film, and you could use the proceeds to buy new stuff....

 

[Alex Thorne]

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[ssloansjca]

Ektachrome 64 is E6. If it was Ektachrome-X, that would be E4. My favorite used to be Ektachrome Professional, E3. I used to process it myself and it required you to do a re-exposure step where you held the film up to a light bulb in the middle of the process. Those were the days!