Topic: Professional Film

[jharr]

I bought 100ft of film that was simply labeled "Professional Film ASA 125". Seriously generic with a black label and white helvetica letters. It was expired in 1981, so I figured I would start at around iso 50 and see what happened. I normally do stand development so I would have to be WAAAYY off before I got into the "nothing useful" area. Here are a couple of shots from the first roll. I had to PS the massive scratches I managed to put on the film while rolling it, but other than that these are pretty much straight from the scanner.

Taken with my Nikkormat FTn + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 (awesome glass).


Looks like an orange by James Harr's Photos, on Flickr


Autumn Leaf 2 by James Harr's Photos, on Flickr


Glass Eye by James Harr's Photos, on Flickr

[KevinAllan]

The results look pretty good for 32 years expired! Don't think I need to worry about my six-months expired TMax ... should be good for a while. Besides, after Xmas I can sneak it back into the freezer....

[Late Developer]

Very nice...!!

[Francois]

I'm always amazed at how tough film actually is.
When I think I was advised by a lab guy back in the 90's to just throw out the expired stuff because it won't work well anymore!
Yet, I've been using expired stuff since the forum started and never had any problems with it.

BTW, what do the edge markings look like on this mystery film?

[Hungry Mike]

Good results! Was the film brittle? So any edge marks to speak of?

Speaking of resilience, I've been pretty lucky with expired b&w film. For instance, I still get decent results from the plus x i use that was expired in 1965. I said good... Perhaps I should clarify, it is interesting and appealing to me! Colour on other hand, really old stuff can yield some fun results but more often then not it turns out junk - especially most of the expired fast film I've tried.

[jharr]

Here you go. It says "CD2   D91796   ILFORD SAFETY FILM". The last digit changes incrementally down the roll (D91797... D91798). The film is not brittle or curly. It is really nice with a low level of base fog. I should say that the sphere above was saturated red in daylight, so there may be some orthochromatic tendencies with this film.

[jharr]

Speaking of resilience, I've been pretty lucky with expired b&w film. For instance, I still get decent results from the plus x i use that was expired in 1965. I said good... Perhaps I should clarify, it is interesting and appealing to me! Colour on other hand, really old stuff can yield some fun results but more often then not it turns out junk - especially most of the expired fast film I've tried.

Mike, check out my last blog entry. I have this film and some Tri-X that expired the same year. Admittedly, it isn't a scientific test at all, but interesting none the less.

[Hungry Mike]

Interesting comparison. Adonal is Rodinal? I had very similar results from Tri-x (expired 1991) in a Rodinal 1:100 stand.

Whatever that professional film from ilford is it does look good.