Supra III Paper Shelf Life

[desertrat]

I have a box of Kodak Supra III paper that I bought from Freestyle, maybe as much as 5 or 6 years ago. My memory isn't too clear on this. It is still sealed, and I put it in the refrigerator as soon as I got it home. It has been refrigerated ever since. Any chance the paper might still be good?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Supra III paper loses red speed with keeping and will gradually need more and more red filtration and it will become slower.

PE

 

[Neal]

Dear DesertRat,

If I were you, I'd give it a try. I've used some pretty old paper and gotten pleasing prints, although with some odd filtration.

Neal Wydra

 

[desertrat]

Print Results

I made some prints with the paper, and looks like it's still OK. Used Freestyle's Arista liquid 2-liter RA4 kit. The negatives were Fuji Reala 100, 120 roll film, 6X6 size. The print borders didn't show any yellow or darkening, and the colors looked good. Filtration was the box suggested value of 45Y + 45M. I used the RA4 chemistry in trays at room temperature. Sure beats tinkering with the Dev-Tec processor trying to get it working properly, then cleaning out and drying the drum after each print.

These photos were informal portraits taken of some friends and their daughter. My friend and his wife helped process the prints, and they (she) judged the color balance and cropping. They had a great time in the darkroom, and will send the prints to their relatives back east. Images attached with their permission.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I'm not sure if it's the scan or the print, but I think I see a little too much cyan (maybe 3 to 5 CC). Otherwise it's looking pretty good.

 

[desertrat]

I'm not sure if it's the scan or the print, but I think I see a little too much cyan (maybe 3 to 5 CC). Otherwise it's looking pretty good.

I also felt the balance wasn't quite perfect, but wasn't sure which filter to change. I have a set of the color viewing filters, and I know they made it here from California, but they're still buried in a box somewhere. When I get some more chemistry I'll try again. If I subtract 5Y and 5M, will that reduce the cyan in the print?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Looks like low contrast to me. They both look 'milky'.

The print on the left looks reddish to me, but the one on the right is ok.

I use 2 minutes at 68 deg F or 20 deg C. I use Kodak RA-RT developer replenisher with no starter.

PE

 

[desertrat]

Looks like low contrast to me. They both look 'milky'.

The print on the left looks reddish to me, but the one on the right is ok.

I use 2 minutes at 68 deg F or 20 deg C. I use Kodak RA-RT developer replenisher with no starter.

PE

Would low contrast and milky be due to the age of the paper? These were shot in the late afternoon, in heavy shade. Aperture was around f5.6 IIRC. I started with 2 minutes development and slowly progressed to 3 minutes as more prints were made and the developer got darker.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The Arista kit is not developer replenisher. That may make the difference.

The paper does not go down in contrast with age in my experience. I have made prints on Supra III that was 10 years old, and the only difference was about 20 red to correct for the cyan speed loss.

PE

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

If I subtract 5Y and 5M, will that reduce the cyan in the print?

Yes it will, but as PE mentioned, the first shot looks kind of reddish, so I'm kind of confused as to which direction to correct it. If you remove cyan, it will be more red, and vice-versa.

At any rate, it's clear they are low contrast, at least from the subject lighting.

 

[desertrat]

The Arista kit is not developer replenisher. That may make the difference.

The paper does not go down in contrast with age in my experience. I have made prints on Supra III that was 10 years old, and the only difference was about 20 red to correct for the cyan speed loss.

PE

I forgot to mention that the film I used was refrigerated since I bought it, and expired in 2002. I noticed a slight amount of base fog in the negatives, which could be due to age or the somewhat unorthodox way I processed the film. I had bought a Unicolor dry powder C-41 kit from Freestyle, and was searching this forum for tips before mixing it up. I found your posts about the poor performance of C-41 blix, and started looking for an alternative with chems I had on hand, as I didn't want to order and wait for more chems to arrive at the time. Here's what I ended up with:

1. Develop with developer from Unicolor kit, 3:15
2. PE's clearing stop bath with Acetic Acid and Sodium Sulfite, 2:00
3. Rinse, 2:00
4. Bleach with Ferricyanide/Bromide bleach, 6:30
5. Rinse, 2:00
6. Fix with Arista Premium Oderless Fixer, with 1/4 tsp Sodium Hydroxide added to raise PH to between 6 and 7, with universal PH test strips. 4:00
7. Rinse in several changes of water, 10:00
8. Stabilize

I guess I should be lucky I got any images at all with all the improvising I did. I plan to buy real C-41 fix in the future.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The film may have lost some contrast or become foggy. IDK. I can't tell. It looks like you did everything right.

PE