Can water logged undeveloped film be processed?

[bigdog]

I was canoeing with the son and wife yesterday and when I took the canoe out of the water my 15 year old Ricoh point and shoot took a bath. Can a roll of undeveloped film that has been soaked in lake water be processed? Is the camera toast?

 

[back alley]

cant hurt to try.

the film might be 'bloated' a bit and not take the chemicals, but i doubt it.

joe

 

[Toby]

Loading it onto a reel would be the big problem also don't let it dry or it might stick together

 

[FrankS]

There's no way you're going to be able to load this film onto a reel as Toby said. You'll have to process this film in a tray or tank in total darkness. This won't be very much fun.

 

[Honu-Hugger]

Never done this before, but if I was faced with your situation I'd load the film in a darkened bathroom. I would presoak the film canister in clean sink water and then load the reel in or over the sink. Rinse it gently a few times by submersing it in and out of clean water and there's a good chance it will develop the same as with a water pre-soak. I always pre-soak T-Max in a water bath and many people pre-soak other B&W film. Good luck -- keep us posted 🙂.

 

[FrankS]

I've never tried loading totally wet film onto a reel, but even slightly moist film won't load because it gets sticky. (I'm talking plastic reels.)

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

You didn't say whether it's E6, C41 or B&W. If it's B&W, you'll be fine, just do what Manolo and Frank said. If it's C41, you should take it to the lab ASAP and tell them what happened. If it's E6...well, in nomine Pater...

 

[el_rico_es]

Can't hurt to give it a try..

While vising Toronto this summer, I decided to keep all of my exposed 120 film in plastic ziploc bags and placed within a cooler full of ice.. the thought being to keep them cool.. well, ziploc bags are NOT water tight... :bang:

Several of the ziploc bags, filled with film, slipped into the ice cool water... the film got wet.. No way to tell how wet, but it did not look good..

I checked several websites for opinions on processing/handling wet film. My choices came down to express shipping the film to my friendly local processor in the states or finding a lab in the TO area that would process film that had been submerged.. Since I wasn't sure how much of the film was submerged, I did not want to risk damaging undamaged film by keeping it wet...

I called the very nice people at KornerColor lab ( on Bay and Bloor ).. They initally stated that they would not process the film because it would corrupt their chemicals, but I was able to get them to accept the film.. They were able to process all 18 rolls successfully..

In the future, I will not place film into cooler full of ice..

 

[kiev4a]

Hey🙂

If you are using stainless steel reels, you can load the film on while it is wet. So you could soak the film in clean water in a tray/sink to unstickify it (in the dark of course) and then load it on to the S/S spiral.

ManGo

That's a big advantage os SS reels. Shouldn't be a problem to load wet film (if you are familiar with that type of reel. Plastic reels? Forget it.

 

[back alley]

for keeping film cool on a hot day i use a small cooler with frozen gel packs in it.
nothing to melt.

 

[T_om]

Loading wet film is no problem at all.

Stainless steel reels do not care if the film is wet or not. Load away.

Plastic reels are a bit more difficult, but not impossible. In a darkroom, immerse the plastic reel and film... have both under water either in a sink or in a bucket. With the whole thing under water, you will find the film 'walks' onto the plastic reel just fine.

Tom

 

[canonetc]

As someone asked above, is it color film or BW? If BW, you shouldn';t have a problem. Just soak the film in a darktank in water for a few minutes to clear away algae, fish bones or other detritus from the lake. Then give it a go.

If color....I have no idea.

Chris
canonetc