Developing film exposed 30 years ago

dasuess

dasuess

Nikon Freak
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During our downsize and move to a condo last summer I discovered a dozen or so rolls of bulk loaded Tri-X that was exposed around 30 years ago. I still have my Nikor tanks and reels and thought I would give a try at developing these and see what I have. Probably mostly family stuff of when our daughters were young, but reason enough to get the film processed. There could also be images that could be useful in a book I am working on about the town where I grew up.

When I was processing film on a regular basis, I used Rodinal, either 1:75 or 1:100 with sulfite added (Bill Pierce formula). I'd like to use Rodinal for this, but I am unsure what dilution or developing time to use given how long ago the film was exposed. Each roll of film has been stored in a plastic Kodak flim canister, so there should not be a problem with light leaks.

I would welcome any words of wisdom - thanks !!!
 
I bet it will be amazing to see the pictures that come out of that. I bought a Zeiss-Ikon folder off ebay with a roll of film inside and sent it away to be processed - from the look of the pictures it must have been in that camera since the 60's or so, at least! I wish I could offer advice with respect to your question, however the only developer I've used in recent memory is Diafine - which is a compensating developer, so to a great extent developing time doesn't matter.
 
I have developed a bunch of film from cameras I picked up, rolls found in the attic left by the previous owners, etc.

Best results have been with HC110.
 
Just use normal agitation, like every 1,2 or 3 minutes. Stand development will not diminish the fog, but it can cause other problems. Here, the main point, is to see the image.
 
One question I've always had about really old exposed film: would one develop the same way (adding time more time than usual, etc.) as if the film had expired ages ago, but only recently been shot?
 
hamradio said:
One question I've always had about really old exposed film: would one develop the same way (adding time more time than usual, etc.) as if the film had expired ages ago, but only recently been shot?
Click to expand...

No, but the other way around. That is, extending the processing time is often inevitable for film that has been exposed a long time ago - for one, you have to counter contrast loss (where longer development is beneficial) in the latent image, for the other, there will be intensity loss on top of that, and you can't make up for that by longer exposure, so you have to accept the increase in fogging you'll get from over-development.

In recently exposed old film, you ought to counter the sensitivity loss by exposing at a lower rating. And as there is no contrast loss in a fresh latent image you'll generally benefit (in terms of lower fogging) from processing to regular values.
 
HC-110 would be a good choice. It can have (0,3 logD) less fog for a very old film compared to Xtol or Rodinal.
 
I would cut a test strip and give it a go in paper developer for 2 or 3 minutes and see how it goes. Having stand by farmers reducer also might come handy in case your negative turns out to be very foggy or very low on contrast due to it's age.

Regards,

Boris
 
In 2008 I developed Tri-X, T-Max 400, Delta 400 and HP5+ films that had been exposed sixteen years earlier and which had been kept in a cardboard shoebox in my attic, otherwise unprotected from London summer and winter attic temperatures.

I used Rodinal 1+50 and followed Don Cardwell's advice (APUG Forum) for minimal agitation (I used very very gentle inversion) at five-minute intervals. For HP5+ I gave 18 mins; for T-Max 400 (original version) 15 minutes; for Delta 400 27 minutes; and for Tri-X 25 minutes. They all gave very acceptable results but the best of all, with hardly any fog at all, was HP5+. It seemed to be very resistant to the negative effects of whatever changes occurred over such a time. (Of course this doesn't mean that using my equipment HP5+ is a better film when used properly. I'm just mentioning the differences for the sake of interest).

It was amazing to get photos of my two sons who had been 9 and 13 when the photos were taken, and were 25 and 29 when the images were developed. None of this was intentional of course. A fair number of exposed films had accumulated and I'd simply been too busy to process them at the time, and, as with most things, they were put out of sight and out of mind - except for occasional moments of feeling bad about my own inefficiency. I'm sure it was those bad feelings that made me process the films in the end. I'm really glad I did though.

Anthony
 
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