Kodak Kodalith MP ortho film 2557, know anything?

[Ethan]

Hey everyone,

I was in a local used camera store today, and happened across two boxes of 8x10 Kodak Kodalith MP ortho film 2557. The owner of the store had no clue what to do with it, and since it expired in 1980, offered them to me free of charge. I didn't have my 8x10 camera with me at the time, but the previous owner of the film had cut some of it down to 4x5, so I decided to do some experimenting. I had never used this type of film, and was intrigued by being able to handle it with the safelight on. I did three test exposures, and got some very weird results, so I decided to ask on here if anyone knows anything about this film.

Here are the weird results I got, if you know anything about this film, or why this happens, it would be great to hear about it. I asked the great all knowing god- Google, about it, but couldn't find anything on this variant. It seems the 2556 variant was more common, but there wasn't a whole lot about that film either. Some sources indicated Kodak had a special developer for these films, but as I didn't have that, I used standard black and white chemicals, which could be the cause of some of these results.

When processed as I do normal film, things were the weirdest. On the back of the film, the edges turned a coppery color, and the whole thing acquired a metallic sheen. The back also got covered in marks where it was touched, when using tongs, and also when using gloves. The weirdest part though, is that when held up to a light it looks like a normal negative, but put it on a white background (no backlight), and suddenly the image is a positive (what?!?!?).


(metallic sheen)


(looks like negative with backlight)


(backlight off and it becomes a positive)

I also discovered that when developed without a water pre-wash, it works more like normal film, looks like a negative both with and without backlight, but still gets covered in marks. This is cool, but also really confuses me. All the chemicals are mixed with the same water as the pre-wash, how can simply dunking it in the same H20 as the chemicals use for a few seconds have such a large impact on how the film develops?


(looks more normal when not pre-washed)

Do any of you have experience with this film, or know anything more about it? I'll definitely be doing some more testing, as this stuff is very weird, and that makes me very intrigued.