70 Year Old Film

[winterclock]

I have shot some 1947 Ansco triple S EI 80 Ilfosol 6 1/2 minutes, good tonality some fogging but easily printed through. The emulsion had shrunk so the film bows slightly in the holders leaving unfocused areas. When developing try to stay to the cooler end of the chemicals temperature range, higher temperatures will cause frilling and uneven development. I only shoot as a hobby and none of this is critical to me, but i like the effects and aberrations found in the combination of old films and lenses. The only way to find what you have is to put it in some holders and shoot!

[sapata]

I have:

Kodak Trix-X 1944
Ansco Super Pan 1952
Ansco Super Plenachrome 1945
Kodal Ortho Portrait 1940

If you're thinking of getting rid of them, I'd buy them depending on the price...

[Pawlowski6132]

I have no idea what these are worth (to you). How 'bout an interesting trade?

[Scratched Glass]

I developed some film from the 30's in 1997, it was faded and fogged. I would not recommend using it, unless you have a specific look in mind. If they are unopened boxes they would be worth more unopened. You might be able to trade someone for new film.

[rguinter]

But not actually shoot at 3 and not actually use 15ml of anti-fog and not actually use Xtol, since the developer doesn't matter since "whatever" developer is an equally good choice, and then develop for some time that's not actually 16 minutes?

Dude. Like, seriously.

Roger:

You may agree but to me I find it amazing that the (almost useless and very irritating) word "like" is now like... working it's way... like... into like... written communications also... like...

What an example of the seriously deteriorated American verbal (and now written) communications.

My humble opinion.

Bob G.

[Sevo]

There really is no point in exposing it today - you can get similar effects in a far better controllable fashion from modern film. Developing historically exposed film can obviously be of considerable interest, but it is not easy - wherever I had high success rates, I had fair amounts of films or plates to work upon, so that there were still enough left after using some on experiments.

Some films benefit considerably from two-stage developers or stand development, but the bulk does best in something fairly normal like off-the-shelf HC-110 or D-76 with added anti-fogging. When testing for development times, bear in mind that you usually can/must overdevelop to a fairly considerable degree. On one hand, fogging reduces contrast, on the other, the film will be underexposed due to some of the latent image lost over the course of time - sometimes both factors will zero out with the right degree of overdevelopment, but more often you'll have to tackle some remaining flaws in the post.

[E. von Hoegh]

This is an interesting thread. I have a fair amount of 20 +- year old film, frozen for 17 or 18 of those years. It sounds as though it might be pretty useable, maybe more than useable. Except for the E-6, of course.

[toolbox]

This is an interesting thread. I have a fair amount of 20 +- year old film, frozen for 17 or 18 of those years. It sounds as though it might be pretty useable, maybe more than useable. Except for the E-6, of course.

20 years is nothing . I shoot stuff from the 90s all the time, and so far its worked great. I have no idea how it was stored...probably in a basement or garage. I don't even bother adjusting from box speed. I've only had one total failure, a roll of Ilford Delta 400 that fogged so bad it was unusable. It's always a crap shoot, so I wouldn't use it for anything critical...but for just having fun with my old folding cameras I love it. I've been developing it in either Barry's 2 bath, or DD-76, so maybe that helps too...I don't know.

[Douglas Henderson]

Well, just to ask, I have film dating to the early 1980's (4x5 Ilford FP4 and HP5) and mid 1990's (5x7 T-max 100, 400 and Plus-x--100 sheet boxes). All has been stored in the fridge.

I've gotten what seem to be perfectly good results using cold-stored T-max 100 120 roll film dating back to the 1990's. I'm wondering if the 5x7 film ought to still be OK--especially the unopend, slower film, 25 sheet packets in the 100 sheet boxes?

[Robbie Bedell]

I just exposed and processed some TMAX 100 4x5 that expired in 1994 and was not cold stored. It is beautiful...But I have done very old Plus-X and it was dead in it's contrast.