Expired film and Rodinal. Did "you" think I selected correctly

[Chinasaur]

After a two year break from shooting/developing film...

Just developed Legacy Pro™ 400 expired 7/2011 and shot in 2013. Used 5 year old bottle (1/3 filled) of R09 @ 1:25 for 12ml for 300ml @ 64F for 8.75 min.

Fixed with Ilford Rapidfix™ for 5 min at 1+4 dilution.

It "looks" a bit fogged/not "sharp"..could be focus. Won't know till I take it in for scanning.

I actually ran a lot of estimates through the memory banks to get this..but as we all know...Rodinal forgives/allows a lot of leeway. And no, I didn't figure in Rodinal age....that's "in my opinion", the least relevant factor..

What does the hive mind think? Too little or too much?

Will post a shot/two once I get it back from scanning....

 

[Fixcinater]

Flip a 50mm lens around and use it as a loupe. You'll know if it is sharp.

I doubt you could see much fog on 400ASA film expired in '11 but Rodinal wouldn't help suppress it, and if it was stored in horrible conditions you might. I've had good luck back to late 90s with 400ASA if stored in decent conditions.

 

[newsgrunt]

depends on how film was stored as well. can we see a pic of the negatives ?

 

[Chinasaur]

Has been refrigerated the entire time. I'm taking to a scanner tomorrow AM and will post results.

 

[newsgrunt]

I'm shooting 9 year old 120 Acros and it looks fine but then it's a slower film. Looking forward to see the negs and hopefully someone here can offer some info.

 

[Fotohuis]

Expired iso 400 film and R09/Rodinal is not the best combination for having less base fog.
Also R09/Rodinal will give some degradation effects after 4 years. Of course Black in color now and a lot of Crystals. Normally it should work but not in an optimum way.

In fact for 35mm R09/Rodinal is only suitable for slow- and medium speed cubical type films hence to many grain.

It "looks" a bit fogged/not "sharp"

Which indicated a fixer problem. Re-fix with fresh fixer!

 

[GarageBoy]

2011 is not that expired, especially if kept cold

 

[sevo]

2011 is not really expired in technical terms - that is about 50% over the expiration limit, and the latter is not where all film suddenly turns useless, but the point where the first traces of ageing may become visible under marginal storage conditions. Personally I do not treat 100-400 ISO black and white film that has expired anywhere after 2005 different from fresh one. Five year oxidized Rodinal is far more likely to be the culprit in your case than a film that is a mere 50% overdue...

 

[Chinasaur]

Actually it's not fogged. The fixer was new. Films been in a refridgerator all this time. The question was more in line with "how would any of you have calculated how long to develop given the age of developer and film".

 

[Dwig]

Actually it's not fogged. The fixer was new. Films been in a refridgerator all this time. The question was more in line with "how would any of you have calculated how long to develop given the age of developer and film".

One mistake is not considering all THREE factors:
1. Developer age and poor storage.
2. Film age past expiration date.
3. Age of latent exposure (2 years in this case).

2 year old exposures aren't that old but will shift the balance of the other factors. In general, weak (old) developer is less effective, out of date film tends to be somewhat slow (2 years out of date at time of exposure), out of date film tends to acquire some base fog (4 years out of date at time of development), and latent images tend to weaken with age.

 

[Bille]

shot in 2013

Here is what Ilford says about Delta 400: "Once exposed, process DELTA 400 Professional film as soon as practical. Images on exposed but unprocessed film will not degrade for several months when stored as recommended."

Legcay 400 may be worse in this regard.

See also this thread http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/008wUq

 

[Dante_Stella]

You chose... poorly. But you know that already. And to be fair, at the time you started this, you only had control over the development.

When the latent image gets old, it loses its punch due to the creeping base density. Based on my own bumbling trial-and-error work with this kind of thing, it would be a case for an unforgiving, high-energy developer that jacks up the contrast (like HC-110B). You might only have a fractional chance of getting what you want, but using old developer on old negatives presents pretty much a 100% probability of disappointment.

Dante