Antique 35mm film.

Matty-Bass · Oct 25, 2012

Hey everyone,

A few years back I was given a bunch of antique camera equipment from my German grandfather... accessories for a Robot rangefinder camera. I've got the flash assembly, various filters, a super-old school light meter and even about five rolls of used 35mm film. The film are in metal canisters. Sadly, no camera, although I'm going to ask about it soon.

A little bit of eBay research showed this stuff might have been from the mid-30s Germany, when Opa was a teenager and doing some photography in East Germany.

My big question, what is the possibility I could still get the 35mm film developed? I'm not sure how film worked in those days, but seeing as all the canisters have no 35mm film sticking out, they've been exposed. Needless to say, I'm curious if there are photos that are 75 years old!

Any advice what to do with them?

timor · Oct 25, 2012

Wouldn't you want to do it yourself ? That might be trilling experience. beside the fact, that it will be hard to find a lab developing b&w film I am also afraid, that they might do just routine job on them.
I just ask a question about handling such an old film on another, film dedicated forum. Lets wait for any input.

JAC526 · Oct 25, 2012

Check out APUG. Wealth of info on there.

The_Traveler · Oct 25, 2012

I would buy a film developing can and a reels for 35 mm along with a couple of rolls of 35 mm b&w film, developer, stop bath and fixer.
Practice developing on the newly bought rolls.

You will have to experiment on developing times on the old film, so:

When you have the developing process down reasonably well, crack open one of the old film cassettes in total darkness, cut off 6 or 8 inches and load that into the developing reel and process it at some suggested developing time.
Repeat with successive pieces until you get a good result.
Once you have the developing time down, then process the rest of the film(s).
Meanwhile store the rest of the film in an light-tight container.

theraven · Oct 25, 2012

I genuinely would love to see the results of this! :O

timor · Oct 25, 2012

The_Traveler said:
I would buy a film developing can and a reels for 35 mm along with a couple of rolls of 35 mm b&w film, developer, stop bath and fixer.
Practice developing on the newly bought rolls.

You will have to experiment on developing times on the old film, so:

When you have the developing process down reasonably well, crack open one of the old film cassettes in total darkness, cut off 6 or 8 inches and load that into the developing reel and process it at some suggested developing time.
Repeat with successive pieces until you get a good result.
Once you have the developing time down, then process the rest of the film(s).
Meanwhile store the rest of the film in an light-tight container.

I don't think it would be that easy. The first question is how fragile is the old film and if it could be unwind from the spool without cracking. Secondly any regular developer won't do it, after 75 years, not frozen, we can be assure of great amount of fog,something special is needed here. Maybe guys from APUG will come up with some specific formula.

There is also this:
http://www.rockymountainfilm.com/blackand.htm
Maybe worth of trying. Already sent e-mail to them.

Matty-Bass · Oct 25, 2012

Thanks for the replies everyone. The good news is I'm definitely willing to try and develop this myself, as I've had a little experience in high school developing film. In fact, I just recently got back into shooting film and I've been looking into my own post-processing anyways to save cost on development. Film is where its at anyways

Ill probably end up buying a Paterson tank and reels, or asking for them for Christmas gifts. This little project might be a couple of months down the road but I'm dying to know what's on those rolls. I don't have the rolls in my possession right now (back at my parents' house) but when I examined the canisters they all looked completely sealed still, gives me hope that they aren't total write-offs. As long as I can get the negatives developed properly I can worry about making prints and enlargements later, or just scanning the negatives (my long-term plan to save print costs. Or buy an enlarger, we'll see).

Thanks for the tip about APUG. Gonna give those guys a lookup and get as much info as I can.

bhop · Oct 25, 2012

I bought a Kodak folder from the 20's that had a roll of exposed film in it. The film was a minimum of 50 years old..at least that's when it was discontinued. I tried developing it, but didn't get any images on it.. doesn't hurt to try though, maybe you'll get lucky.

timor · Oct 25, 2012

Is there any information on those metal cassettes ?

Mike_E · Oct 25, 2012

Ask around about Caffenol C+ stand development. It might be a good avenue for really old film.

gsgary · Oct 26, 2012

I would use a 2 bath developer because what ever the film or film speed or what it was shot at you use the same developing times, Diafine if possible i think it is 4 mins A bath and 4 mins B bath the tetenal 2 bath is a bit different to a conventional 2 bath

timor · Nov 5, 2012

gsgary said:
I would use a 2 bath developer because what ever the film or film speed or what it was shot at you use the same developing times, Diafine if possible i think it is 4 mins A bath and 4 mins B bath the tetenal 2 bath is a bit different to a conventional 2 bath

Maybe it should be Stoeckler 2 bath, is the simplest.

The only info other that they are willing to develop the film, Rocky Mountain Film Lab is saying:

"Agfa films from this era do not hold images very well compared to Kodak films. Without knowing how the film was stored or the actual brand or actual age, my best guess is that there is about a 50/50 chance of getting good images."