Processing very old film, possibly 50 years old

[rdc]

I've been given a roll of film to process which was found in an old box camera. It is a Gevaert Superchrome orthochromatic rollfilm, probably been in the camera since the 50's. First thoughts were to throw it into some D76 for a quarter of an hour, but I'm wondering if there's any more suitable suggestion, bearing in mind age, fogging, fragility and so on. It has no sentimental value so I'm not looking to send it to any specialist processors, just looking for other suggestions on how to tackle processing. Help appreciated!

[Woolliscroft]

Sounds about right. Is it on a safety base or still nitro cellulose? If the latter it might be getting quite fragile, not to mention a potential fire hazard.

[domroberts]

Sounds like a job for us! I know you aren't looking for a specialist processor such as ourselves, but I've had Gevaert Superchrome in before. It does indeed date from the 1950s, possibly slightly earlier.

The trouble is, I formulated my own developer specifically to handle old films, one which simply does the job after seemingly endless testing. However as I make my living from this and the developer is proprietary, I'm sure you can understand my position here! I'm sure we can help though.

D-76 is a classic and the benefit there is you'll be able to find a developing for it if you research hard enough. If in doubt, use 12mins@20C, thats what we always used to start with when playing about with our original clips and test rolls. D-76 is relatively low-contrast and high fog though. DK-50 is lower fog, but troublesome to get hold of and use if you only have the one roll. Microphen pushes the film nicely but will exacerbate the grain and also give high-fog levels. D-19 will improve contrast but also is difficult to buy and use for one roll. Beware for the backing paper may well have stuck to the film base over the years.

So basically just for experiment, any developer will do, at about 12mins@20C, but don't expect great results. A hardening fixer is also recommended. If you want the best chance of getting results, I'm afraid the simple answer is get the specialists in to help

Good luck!

[domroberts]

Oh, one more thing, it is definitely Safety Base, so don't worry. I have it on reasonable authority (although open to suggestions!) that both Kodak and Agfa (and therefore presumably Gevaert) *never* used Nitrate base for *roll* films.

Nitrate was most frequently used for 35mm filmstock before the early 1950s, when it was rapidly phased out. The last example I have seen is bulk Ansco Supreme film, dated 1951. Others have apparently seen examples dating to 1954 but that is very rare. Also, as far as we know, Nitrate was never used for 8mm film stock, but that is another story.

[taxor]

I developed some 30 year old HP3 and various other ancient emulsions in D76 stock solution for 15 mins at 20c. Results were quite good, all things considered, but fog levels were, not unexpectedly, quite high.

[rdc]

Thank you for the comprehensive and helpful replies, that's got me on the right lines. If the film had any personal value, I'd put it in the care of a specialist processor, of course, but it's just something that was in the old box Brownie camera that was given to me. There are only two frames exposed on the film, so out of sheer interest I plan to reload it and shoot the remainder. I'll see if my local photography dealer can get hold of DK-50, because I could use the stock for other processing, but failing that, I'll just try it in a D76 brew as suggested, maybe taking a tail-end clip first.

When unloading the film initially to see what it was, I found that it hadn't quite rolled squarely on the take-up spool and a fraction of a millimetre of film edge was showing, and I noticed that it was coloured a strong purple-pink. I don't know if this is any indicator of deterioration or just a characteristic of the film.

Incidentally, as it's so old, would I be better advised to try dish rather than tank developing? I'm just wondering if the film might be too fragile now to load on to a spiral -- my tanks feed in from the outside of the spiral, so some frictional force is required. Years ago I used to have a spiral which loaded from the centre, which might have been better, but sadly I no longer have it.

Thanks again for the pointers, I'm looking forward to seeing what, if anything, comes out of it.

[domroberts]

A strong pink base colour is typical of orthochromatic roll films, so don't worry. If you'd seen (and it doesn't really matter if you didn't) 'blotchiness' and a more dull yellow/pink colour in patches, that does indicate deterioration.

You should have no problem using a tank to develop it (we use spiral tanks for everything), the only problems will arise if the film has torn at all from being misaligned - although a fraction of a mm should be absolutely fine. Another thing you will notice, is that the coil of the film will be very powerful compared with what you might be used to - 50 years has turned the thing into more of a spring! The point where the film was rolled out in the camera on frame 2 will be flat as a pancake, so you may find loading the film into the spiral difficult. The key is not to panic, try-and-try again if you hit problems, and use a well-ventilated dark area to load the roll. That is, not a cramped dark-box where your hands might get sticky if things go wrong.

As for exposing the rest of the roll, the film will have hugely desensitised so use a tripod and expose about EI10 to 25. That is only a sheer guesstimate on my part though.

Finally good luck! Don't forget to post your experiences on the forum.

[rdc]

Just a brief note by way of update on how it went. I processed the film in D76, stock solution, 20 minutes at 20C. The two frames already exposed gave me nothing discernible at all, however, the test frames I exposed did record images, albeit grainy, low contrast, with some fogging, although the fogging was not as much as I'd expected. Following Dominic's advice, I'd rated the film at ISO 10, and from the bracketing EVs I used, the emulsion's sensitivity was about ISO 4. I'd to stop washing the film after about two minutes, as I noticed it was extremely delicate and was coming away from the base edges where I was holding it, so I feared that a full wash might wash the coating right off.

I did learn one other practical lesson in old film handling. Having respooled and reloaded the film (I'd removed the partly-used roll in order to clean the camera optics), the initial attempt to wind on resulted in the film jamming in the camera, an old Box Brownie. Unloading it again in a changing bag, I found that the tape strip holding the film start to the backing paper had lost its adhesive properties; and during the winding, the strongly coiled film parted company from the backing paper (again echoing Dominic's caveat), and jammed in the camera. Next time, I'll know to check and fix a new tape strip. Actually I learned two lessons. When I first respooled it, I didn't notice that on very old spindles, only one side had the cutout to engage with the film winding key, the other is blank. Guess which way I spooled it first time?

In the event, though it's a shame there were no useable 'found' images on the film, it was a useful exercise and I learned a lot. Next time, I'll know how to proceed with more confidence, and who knows what interesting finds there may be in old 'junk' cameras?

Thanks to those who gave me so much valuable advice.

[taxor]

Maybe you might find this site interesting.http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm

[rdc]

Fascinating web site, many thanks for the link!