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George Hofmann
21-Sep-2008, 10:01
I'm getting back into LF after a long absence. That seems to be a familiar phrase around here.

I had some FP4 and Agfapan 100 left from my early days 20 years ago. I shot some of the FP4 and was astounded at the garbage I saw on the film. There were what appeared to be scratches, lint shadows, black specks and white specks. It was a mess. So I bought a water filter to get rid of the big chunks in our water line, purchased some distilled water to use in the development stage, purchased new fixer to replace the sedimentary 20 year old stuff and decided to use a water stop bath rather than the usual acid version. Then I processed two sheets of film in my Jobo tank, one of the FP4 and another of the Agfapan. I placed them in the outer ring of the 2509 reel on opposite sides so that they would be treated equally.

The result? Exactly the same problems on the FP4 film, but no problems at all with the Agfapan. The only improvement on the FP4 seems to be no white spots which I think is related to the stop bath change. But my conclusion is that the FP4 is truly defunct and unusable. It appears on close inspection with a loupe that the emulsion may be disintegrating and that the resulting fragments are the source of the debris seen on the film's surface. It's interesting that the Agfapan is still good as both brands are equally out of date.

So the remaining FP4 goes in the trash and I'll happily shoot the rest of the Agfapan. I really like Agfapan anyways, too bad it's not available anymore. When it's used up I guess it's back to FP4, just not out of date! :)

Hector.Navarro
21-Sep-2008, 12:32
thanks for the info George, whenever I jump into 20yrs old FP4, I will be warned :-)

Gene McCluney
21-Sep-2008, 22:20
I wonder, are you using a water pre-wet? I think this is important for sheet film, and particularly so for "old" sheet film. The water seems to open up the "pores" in the emulsion creating a much more even development. I use a 4 minute pre-soak time. It doesn't matter what developer, although some, like HC-110 are known for lowering potential age fog in older films.

Keith Tapscott.
22-Sep-2008, 01:48
I'm getting back into LF after a long absence. That seems to be a familiar phrase around here.

I had some FP4 and Agfapan 100 left from my early days 20 years ago. I shot some of the FP4 and was astounded at the garbage I saw on the film. There were what appeared to be scratches, lint shadows, black specks and white specks. It was a mess.

So the remaining FP4 goes in the trash and I'll happily shoot the rest of the Agfapan. I really like Agfapan anyways, too bad it's not available anymore. When it's used up I guess it's back to FP4, just not out of date! :)At least the Agfapan is giving decent results, but it`s always best to use in date film when optimum quality is required and why the film manufacturers provide use by dates on the film packaging.
Many reports of usuable results of aged films can be read on various photography forums, but they will never be as good as fresh materials, so treat yourself to some new stuff.