I have an old roll of Kodak Super-XX 35mm 36-exp film which was exposed sometime in the 1950s, I'm guessing, and which I would like to process. Can anyone tell me what developer and what times/temperatures would be good for this? Thanks!

-- Britton Baine (saxon629@yahoo.com), April 12, 2002

Answers

Not sure what you'll get, and the processing should probably be adjusted to try and compensate for the age, but I do have a data sheet. Kodak suggested processing in full strength D-76 at 65F for 25 minutes with intermittant agitation, or 20 minutes with continuous agitation. That's not a typo- they wanted 65F, not 68F. Those numbers were also for a gamma of .8, quite high I think. The speed is listed at 400, but their exposure tables give quite a bit more exposure than the sunny 16 rule suggests. Maybe dense negs were in fashion back then, or the speed wasn't as high as claimed.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), April 13, 2002.

2 or 3 years ago I had a similar problem. (My film was Verichrome Pan from the late 50's) I processed the film in Diafine with excellent results. Base fog was high but development was good over all. The nice thing about Diafine is the you process all film at the same time and temperature. It has a two part development and is relatively easy to obtain. Good luck. RO

-- Robert Orofino (minotaur1949@iopener.net), April 13, 2002.

Maybe using an anti-fog agent in the developer would be a good thing. For 500 ml developer, for example D-76, you may add 0,5 - 1 g of potassium bromide. Hmmmmm, there's also an anti-fog agent called benzo...something. :-)

-- Patric (jenspatricdahlen@hotmail.com), April 13, 2002.

As far as I can remember it was ASA 200 normal exposuer. The times above must be for push in exposuer index. It was the speed film of its day. Rather on the grain side.

-- Larrye Edye (wa4gms@juno .com), April 13, 2002.

I would recommend against adding an anti-fog agent. From the few times I've interacted with people who tried to develop an old film and used an anti-fog agent, the film came out blank.

-- Brian Miller (brian.c.miller@gte.net), April 17, 2002.

Yes, it's possible to compensate for the fog by printing on harder paper. The most important thing is to develop the information on the film, and not an issue of getting "perfect results".

-- Patric (jenspatricdahlen@hotmail.com), April 22, 2002.