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Stephanie Brim

Mental Experimental.
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One (1) bulk roll Tri-X.
One (1) bulk roll Plus-X.
Total cost to me, with shipping: $9.65.

I came across them on Ebay last night very late. The both of them are expired, one before I was born, but they've apparently been frozen since they were first bought. They were kept by a store. I've made out like a bandit. I'm sure the Plus-X is going to be fine, but I'm worried about the Tri-X...I'll just have to shoot it and see.

My first bulk loading...this is going to be so much fun.
 
My best luck with old tri-x has been at 200iso and pulled 1/2 stop or so. There may be some fogging but if you are lucky not too much.
 
Unfortunately for me, I'll be dunking it in Diafine, which means that my Tri-X will be shot at around 1000. I'm shooting the Plus-X at around 320. :)
 
I have tried a bit of expired trix in diafine and have had mixed results. It excentuates fogging pretty bad. You may have luck if you run a test roll and see if there is a drop in film speed, I have been meaning to try old trix at 800 in diafine...I have just been too lazy. You can definately get some good results...just a bit more finicky.
 
Since it's old and bulk, no harm in trying out a few in diafine :) I need to get more of that stuff, I accidentally spilled it the other day :(
 
I need to get containers for mine. It's in milk jugs now, but I don't want to keep it more than a couple months in those...it will eat its way through.
 
I used some glass pickling/jamming jars. Not going to do that again -- they slip way too easily and are very difficult to pour out of.

I've been storing my rodinal run-off in a milk jug. It actually had a little milk left in it.. it's now this lime green color and smells horribly interesting. No, I'm not flushing it down the toilette. Chemicals are so much fun :D
 
I had some 1973 Tri-X that I found worked well in diafine at EI400. The fog ate the usual speed bump and it balanced in the end.

William
 
I think that Diafine will work well with the Tri-X, but it's going to be a bit of trial and error as to what speed to shoot it at. Do you really recommend going 400 with the Plus-X?
 
That's what I use for Plus-X regularly and really like the look. However, as with all things, it's a terribly subjective thing plus that's with current film to boot.

The best thing for you to do with both rolls is spool out a pair of 12 exposure rolls, find a nice view with lots of interesting detail and then burn through the Plus-X at, say: 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400 (2 shots at each EI for control) and see which neg you like best. Do the same with the Tri-X at 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1000. Given that it's expired, that's where I'd stop. Isn't it fun that you can mix and match EI with Diafine like that :D

Good luck!

William
 
I think the earlier post about 400 in Diafine was for TXT, not PXP.

The general rule with TXT is to add a stop per decade. So if it expired two decades ago, then you'll want about 400 for the TXT in Diafine.

allan
 
No, the 400 was for Plus-X. That's the normal Diafine ISO. As people have said, it's also a subjective thing.

If it has been frozen all this time, there isn't going to be as much of a worry...but I'm still going to have to test anyway. The Plus-X I'm going to shoot at almost normal speed because it's a slower speed film and there really shouldn't be worry there.
 
Stephanie,
Directly to your first comment about PXP at 400, William said:

"I had some 1973 Tri-X that I found worked well in diafine at EI400."

Being frozen or not has NOTHING to do with whether you can still shoot at the same speed. Over time, the film picks up base fog from cosmic radiation. Unless the freezer used had 10' thick walls of lead (and even then that might not be enough), you will need to increase exposure to get similar shadow density. This is more so with th eTXT than the PXP.

allan
 
That's interesting, Allan, I didn't know that was the reason; I thought it was because of stability issues.

I rate Plus-X at 200 for Diafine. It sounds like you may have to rate it at the "normal" speed. I'm interested in seeing your results.
 
Gabriel,
Yup. That's why 2 years is the shelf life of Delta 3200, regardless of how you store it (well, it's shorter if you store it hot :). You will be amazed at how quickly fog picks up on that film. 2.5 years past expiration and the fog is visibly much, much, much more than fresh stock.

allan
 
Steph,

With Diafine, you might want to use your films at nominal speed if they are expired. Even for fresh Tri-X, I tend to stick to the 400-800 range, which offers better contrast and tonal range IMHO. Of course Diafine will provide usable negatives with underexposed films, and it might even save the day in low light situations, but image quality will be much better is the exposure is right.

Keep in mind that Diafine is extremely tolerant to overexposure.

Regards,

Abbazz
 
At 23 years old that film will likely be fogged and you will need to test and compensate---and that's assuming it HAS been kept forzen. Their description, 2nd hand, is suspect. Who knows where it's been, and what photo shop would allow film to sit around taking up inventory space for that long?

Unfortunately all you'll learn in terms of exposing and developing this film will not apply to unexpired Tri-X and will be for naught once it's all gone. But at the price it may be worth it just to have fun.
 
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