Topic: Kodak Fine Grain Positive - Expired 1972

[sherwoodforester]

I have aquired a two 17m rolls of this old film. It looks kinda weird and has a yellow emulsion - from what I can learn via the web it is very slow and has no antihalation layer. I understand it is not sensitive to red light - and this is correct as I have developed it by inspection in my darkroom.

So I shot some at ISO6 and (after I remembered to take the orange filter of my lens!) got reasonable results - here are my 3 year olds shoes.  I used Ilford Multigrade developer (1+9) [I know its for paper] on the film for 6:30mins to get these results that are quite contrasty, but it printed out great on old 8x10 Grade 2 Bromesko paper.

Am I getting the best out of this film? Has anyone else used it? How should I dev it?

Cheers

[LT]

looks like you are doing fine to me! wonderfully sharp and gorgeous tones on my macbook screen.

It's not clear from your post whether you are saying it is too contrasty ... but if it is printing well on grade 2 paper, then it is fine.

I wonder how fine the grain will be if you develop it in a fine grain developer like perceptol?  I guess you;dd need to drop another stop or two in speed, but the tones will be magic I think.

[sherwoodforester]

Thanks for the comments Leon,

I was wondering if stand development might work with this film. The grain is almost negligible (I mean I can hardly see it, even at 9600 dpi scan) and the negs print very nicely on grade 2 paper.

The shoes were shot on Canon FD 50mm lens at f8 for 10s.  I tried shooting wide open at f1.4 at the beach today handheld but the shutter speeds were just too low (it was very overcast) and only got a few usable-ish shots. The the DoF was so narrow and the kids would not stay still!

I think I'll save the other 17 or so rolls until it gets a bit brighter outside.

Shane

[original_ann]

1972, jeepers.  You'd never know it looking at the output!  GREAT job!!

[reuben]

great results - even without taking the age of the film into account ! Just curious do you know how the film has been stored ?

[sapata]

I think they look great in my opinion...well done!

[Terry]

Shane--what a great find.  I really like the shallow DoF and the fine grain is wonderful.  I think you're doing it right!

[Francois]

Black blacks and white whites. I pretty much think that if you have those, you're doing something right with the film.

I just checked and Kodak Fine Grain Positive 5302 is rated at ISO 1.2 for daylight and ISO 0.3 for tungsten.

The good thing about slow film is that it doesn't age as fast as faster emulsions.
Here's the datasheet.

[Andrea.]

I love that film and have a bit left. I too shoot it at about 5 then develop it in Multigrade 1:3 ish for 2 mins. No grain at all! see http://www.flickr.com/photos/schlapp/287781711/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/schlapp/6759536463/# .

Love the shoes and the shoe picture too :-)

[Diane Peterson]

Those are beautiful little shoes..wonderfully captured here!

[sherwoodforester]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the comments and thanks for the technical data Francois.  Looks like there is plenty of experimenting left to do with this 40 year old film.

Shane

[Steven.]

geez and i thought the adox 25 i have loaded was slow