Developing very old film advice please

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Ok so after successfully developing my first medium format B&W film, my dad has asked if I'll develop some of his dad's MF film. The problem is, I don't know what it is. Speed, type etc. All I know is its B&W and was free in the 70's when you had one processed and printed. It has a dark red paper.

Is there any chance of images being on there and intact after over 33 years? How long would I develop it for? Will I be able to use the ilfosol 3 I used for my own film?

Any advice very gratefully received! :)
 
gazmorton2000 said:
Ok so after successfully developing my first medium format B&W film, my dad has asked if I'll develop some of his dad's MF film. The problem is, I don't know what it is. Speed, type etc. All I know is its B&W and was free in the 70's when you had one processed and printed. It has a dark red paper.

Is there any chance of images being on there and intact after over 33 years? How long would I develop it for? Will I be able to use the ilfosol 3 I used for my own film?

Any advice very gratefully received! :)
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I was in the same situation a couple of weeks ago. In the end I decided to get it done professionally, but I'm sure someone will be able to tell you what time to dev it for. I just wanted to say that there can most definitely be images on there - the ones on mine survived for 42 years.
 
I would stand process for an hour in 1:100 rodinal. I did this with a early 1970's colour film (C24 if I remember rightly). It did work and whilst the images were not great they could be made out and people recognised etc.
 
^^^WHS^^^ stand developing is the way to go, I only have experience of stand dev'ing in Rodinal but I'm sure somebody much geekier than me will be along soon with other recommendations.
 
Thank you for the advice. I think I am going to give it a go today. I will do one roll and see how things DEVELOP! (HA!) and then adjust if you folks can suggest something.
 
gazmorton2000 said:
Thank you for the advice. I think I am going to give it a go today. I will do one roll and see how things DEVELOP! (HA!) and then adjust if you folks can suggest something.
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To be honest I think you should weigh up your options depending on how much your dad wants those images, as old film is very variable and if you want the very best chance of recovering the images you would probably be best going with a specialised film recovery lab (don't bother with "Old Film Processing" as their prices are extortion when other places do the same work for 50% the price most of the time).

In the UK "Process C-22" until recently used to do such a service, but I think they may finally have gone out of business as their website is gone (they've been thought to have gone several times over the past few years only to come back). "Film Rescue International" in the USA is very highly regarded though worldwide for their achievements recovering old and obsolete film so you might want to try there http://www.filmrescue.com/.

Sam
 
I spoke to Dad first and he said that it was no big deal if there wasn't anything on there so I actually just had a go at one. Nothing good to report unfortunately. Perhaps someone can shed some light as to why it didn't look like any film I had seen before? It seemed to have a white, paper like coating on one side of it?

I may have to use a proper company for the second roll. :/
 
gazmorton2000 said:
I spoke to Dad first and he said that it was no big deal if there wasn't anything on there so I actually just had a go at one. Nothing good to report unfortunately. Perhaps someone can shed some light as to why it didn't look like any film I had seen before? It seemed to have a white, paper like coating on one side of it?

I may have to use a proper company for the second roll. :/
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Was it a roll type film - could you post some pictures up of what it looks like?

Sam.
 
Here's one I developed a year ago. Dating to circa 1963. I found it in a car boot sale Kodak Brownie 44A. That makes the 127 roll Kodak Verichrome Pan (ISO 125) around
fifty years old. I was very new to home processing, but I decided I'd give it a go. Developed in ID11 diluted 1:3 water. I gave it an extra few minutes, with usual inversion agitation. The film had 10 used exposures on it. It was rather stiff! Scanning was a wee difficult as I didn't have a 127 film holder. The below is just one of the images:

9701091581_f3a4092705_c.jpg


Flickr Link

You might find the Flickr Group for Found Film interesting.
 
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