Lucky Dip
While I was browsing my usual rotation of camera shop websites to see if anyone had anything exciting i saw that Camera House were doing $15 Expired Film bags. A lucky dip of 120 or 35mm, no guarantees, no promises of how it was stored what stock it might be or even an expiration on the packaging.
I waited for payday and put in my order.
Of course what I had never considered was the chance of getting black & white film. So obviously both of the 120 rolls were B&W.
According to my nonspecific price checks it would cost at least $70 to get both of these rolls developed and printed, given they were expired with no promises that’s the real gamble! Like any sane person I figured that black and white film cant be harder to develop than colour and I already have all the chemical bottles and general bric a brac.
I ordered the developer and the fixer, I bought a packet of citric acid and a bottle of posh water in a glass bottle - for the bottle. For around the cost of sending of two rolls for development and printing I was now equipped to develop up to 10 rolls of film from the comfort of my own bathroom sink!
When I learned last year how to develop colour film a lot of what I found in my research said to start with B&W it’s easier- lies!
You can develop any colour film you like with the same timings* 1 min pre-soak, 3.5 min development, 8 min Blix, fill and empty 7 times with fresh water, wetting agent for luck, hang and dry. Done. Black and white film comes with more than one chart for you to find your film stock and how long it will take to develop in a range of developer brands. I had to snip a test strip of film in the pitch black (I’m not willing to buy a red light when I can load film in the dark) to check how long to fix that one specific roll of film. Because my first test film has been discontinued I had to find the timings on reddit.
*Unless you want to push or pull your film.
Chemicals secured I set off. A camera that let me play with exposure and shutter settings my trusty RicohFlex.
I have been reading Michael Langford’s book 35mm Handbook and decided that while compensating for very expired film I should also try to use some of the advice from the book and mixing f stop and shutter speeds.
I had gone completely rogue at this point and had no intention to stop. I was taking exposures in the rain, overcast evening light, indoor lighting. Moving subjects, reluctantly stationary subjects. Why not the film might not come out anyway and it was $15 not $30+.
After a recent experiment using 120 film on old 116 backing paper it was a welcome relief to just unroll the film and get it in the reel. Only the deviation to snip off a test strip.
After testing my fixer strip I was riding high and pre-soaked my film and then remembered Afga said specifically not to and tipped it all back out again. The rest of the process went as planned, notes were checked as fastidiously as someone checking an appointment time.
(Further researching it seems that if you do soak the film it’s better to commit and soak it for at least 1 minute, not tip it out early. Agfa advise against because it can leave mottling on the film.)
And then there it was. Hung up on my DIY film washing line and drying with pictures on it.
Scanning 120 film is much easier than 35mm and even my sneak peak was promising.
The roll gave me some beautiful shots. It sounds like this stock is quite grainy and being expired doesn’t lessen that trait. I like some grain in a film photo so it certainly doesn’t bother me.
The ones I was most pleased with in a technical sense were the snoozing dog, taken twice with slightly different settings to check the differences,
and one where I used Langford’s advise and manged to get a shot of the cat jumping and clearly in motion against a still background.
The first roll of colour film I developed was found in a disposable camera in the cupboard since 2006, that film was successful and a roll expired in 2009 was perfect to test developing B&W. If you are considering developing your own film at home expired - or at least very cheap film, is a great test while you get used to timings and chemicals.
The full film of images is in my Photo Album
The next test will be a 2024 expiry in a Box Brownie. Fingers crossed!
