You develop your own films don?t you?

You develop your own films don’t you?

If you have your own darkroom, or if you use film cameras regularly, there are always a few people who mention the attic. As in ‘Grandpa’s cameras are in the attic. I don’t even know if they have film in them!’
This leads me to ask if I can have a look, to warn someone against sending a pre-war Leica to the charity shop and the like. A quick visual examination is often followed by trying wind and rewind levers, to see if there’s any film inside. Very often, there is…

And a motley selection of films I’ve turned out of elderly cameras! A few are close to being undevelopable: Kodachrome, and pre-C41 colour negative film, older colour slide emulsions requiring the various brews that preceded E6. But as E6 dates back to the Seventies, and C41 is similarly venerable, the majority are worth a try. Some black-and-white films are also beyond the event horizon – but things like Selochrome and Verichrome Pan are within my memory, and worth a shot in general purpose modern developer, even if one has to make a guess at developing times.

If you ever try this, err on the side of overdevelopment. Emulsions that have been around a while have usually lost speed and contrast, although extended development also pushes up already-high fog levels. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, though!

I think the oldest roll I’ve had in my darkroom was a 127 spool of Verichrome Pan, Kodak’s box-camera film, with very high tolerance of every kind of abuse, and I believe it dated back to the Sixties.
And there are some surprises. One roll of colour negative film turned out to be full of images of an elegant and elderly lady posing without benefit of clothes… How do you tell someone that their uncle’s pictures of auntie Doris were rather daring? (I think I said nothing really came out on the film.) The poses were decorous, but the camera technique was pure readers’ wives (if you don’t know, you may wish to think twice before asking!)

But a recent encounter with a young lady’s grandad’s Zenith EM was deeply rewarding. She’s in her thirties, and her grandad died when she was two: a 24-exposure roll of Kodak film delivered 18 images – a few flowers, and a succession of images of a little girl. And yes, it was the woman who showed me the camera. Sadly, the camera had fared less well than the film, and the winding/shutter mechanism is not in good nick, so that it will never expose another film (at least without light marks and weird frame spacing!)

Tags: Film Old cameras home darkroom