10 year old film usability

[tundra]

I recently found 20-year old HP5+ to be significantly fogged and not worth using ; it had been in a freezer for about 17 of the 20 years and in a room-temperature cupboard for 3 .

Try it in D-23 1:1 or Pyrocat-HD.

[Mark J]

I developed it in PMK. How would your suggestions cure serious base fog ?

[paulbarden]

I developed it in PMK. How would your suggestions cure serious base fog ?

It won't. Faster films don't age well, and if they have severe age base fog, then there's very little you can do to "cure" it. You can experiment with adding benzotriazole, but it only fixes fogging to a degree. It won't fix a severely age-fogged film. Nothing will.

[Mark J]

Yes, I bought some new film !

[Vaughn]

I developed it in PMK. How would your suggestions cure serious base fog ?

I do not suggest staining developers for out-dated films with base fog* -- especially for alt processes requiring UV. light. The base fog gets stained and adds printing density on top of the fog -- lengths one's print exposures. The stain itself blocks UV.

*edit to add...significant base fog...which becomes a significant issue when experimenting with old films. For example, I have some 8x10 Kodak Copy Film that I use for its unique characteristics in low contrast situations. Even for its slow speed, the fog is sever enough to go with non-staining developer -- my printing times under UV are already long!

I have negatives with base fog (non-staining developer) that cleaned up nicely with a minimum bleaching. Carefully done, it can give a snap to the negative. Redevelop if one goes too far (haven't tried that with film).

[xkaes]

Even new film has fog. There's no escaping it. Just like the density of the base, you add time to the exposure. Fog in film is not the destroyer that some make it out to be.

Fog in paper emulsion is another story.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Send me the Efke 25. I know what to do with it.

[paulbarden]

Fog in film is not the destroyer that some make it out to be.

Surely you recognize the fact that after a certain point, severe age-induced fog makes a film unusable.

[tundra]

I developed it in PMK. How would your suggestions cure serious base fog ?

It may not. But fog - up to a point - mostly just reduces contrast somewhat and can be printed through and corrected with VC or digital techniques. Severely fogged films cannot be rescued.

I find that D-23 1:1 produces much cleaner negatives than Pyrocat-HD when used side-by-side as semistand developers for very old film. The cost is that the grain will be more visible with the D-23. But in both cases, the long standing, low agitation methods sees to calm the visible fog down somewhat.

PMK is a very active developer with a high aerial oxidation rate. It cannot be highly diluted and left to stand for an hour. Or, at least, I don't think it can, I've never tried it.

[tundra]

Surely you recognize the fact that after a certain point, severe age-induced fog makes a film unusable.

Of course, "at a certain point". But, within reason, all fog does is reduce contrast and require somewhat more exposure under and enlarger. Here are a couple shots of SuperXX that went out of date in 1961 - over 60 years ago - seminstand processed in D-23 and Pyrocat respectively. They look just fine to me (note that SuperXX was a fairly grainy film so the grain has nothing to do with the age):

https://ozzie.tundraware.com/SuperXX/