working out what an old film is (probably B&W)

Hi all,

 

I've been scanning a box of old negatives from an old box I have been handed.

 

Most of the photos are negatives are from the 70's. Some are black and White,

some are Colour.

 

Problem is that in the box I found an old roll of film still in it's canaster.

 

I can't tell if it has been exposed or not, but on the chance that it has photos

on it I want to get the best chance of developing it.

 

I took it to the local shop, but they wouldn't run it through their machine as

they can't tell if it is colour or B&W.

 

Most of the label is ripped of. The parts I can read are...

"ASA 125 DIN 22" "36 EXP VUES AUFN" "Made in England ILFORD".

 

There is also the bottom of a letter in blue which coulkd be the bottom of a '+'

sign or the bottom of the number '4'.

 

The rest of the label is ripped and I can't read any of it :(

 

 

Is there enough information from any of that to determine what it is?

 

Looking through the box of negatives I have been scanning, the only film with

ILFORD written on the negative is a few strip of B&W negatives "ILFORD HP4"

 

I am guessing that because it is ILFORD and that the only other ILFORD in the

box were B&W that it probably is, but I want to give the film the best chance

possible of making it to a picture :)

 

 

Any advise welcomed.

 

 

Max

Dunedin

New Zealand

As far as I know, Ilford only makes black and white film. The only sort of exception to this is XP2, which is a black and white film designed for C-41(color negative) process, but all of their other products, to my knowledge, are traditional black and white films.

 

It sounds like you have a roll of Ilford FP4, or one of its FP series predecessors. FP4 is a ASA 125 film that's most comparable to Kodak's Plus X. The current incarnation of this series is FP4+.

 

HP4 would be an ASA 400 film intended to compete with Kodak Tri-X. Its current incarnation is HP5+.

Ilford did make a color negative film ,. or one of it's sister companies did, BUT it likely would not be as fast as asa 125. possibly asa 32 for their color print film

,

\i did a serious search thinking that at one time the madea a " kodachrome clone film" never found it. lots of history is lost.,

I am not familuar with what films Ilford made in the '60's and 70's but I think they made both color and chrome film in addition to b&w.<br>I would take a film leader retriver and extract the leader then pull out about 2 inches of film from the start of sprocket holes on each side and give it a visual inspection. B&W film should be grayish to a slight magenta tint depending on the antihalation coating, color film will be more of an orange cast. If you cannot determine which type film it is then develope the snip in B&W chimistery. Although this will be the fully exposed leader it should be ovious as to what film type it is. Take another 2 to 3 inch snip and process it to determine if it has been exposed and to determine the foging of the film. <br>The first snip should leave at least a frame length of leader prior to the image area, the second snip may take 1 to 2 frames of any exposed images.<br>Charles

Thanks for the assistance guys. I friend recommended another lab, and taking it to them they were pretty sure from looking at the casing that it was a b&w film that they recognized. They are sending it away to their Christchurch lab, as our local labs no longer develop b&w, and if the film was ever exposed and if anything survived I should know about this time next week.

 

Once again thanks for the assistance.

The film is 99% likely to be Ilford FP4 or FP4+ Labels on Ilford films are colour coded and the 125ASA B&W film FP4 or FP4+ uses the colour blue for the printing.