Ilford PAN400 10-year old exposed

Hello! I haven't posted here for over 10 years and I see I only posted 4 times back in 2004. Sorry about that and forgive me.

I'm back to film photography with new enthusiastic attitude!

 

But first... I have a question. I have a roll of 135 Ilford PAN400 B&W that was exposed some 10 years ago. Since then it was stored at a room temperature.

The question is this: I want to develop it using some generic D-76 developer. Do I need any development time adjustments for this 10-year old vintage of PAN 400? Please advise and if you think I need to make a better choice of a dveloper let me know also.

Like you, I took about a ten year vacation! AFAIK, the latent image ages worse than the film but people have had good success with really ancient film. You might have fog to deal with. I'd overdevelop slightly, figuring I'd rather have more image even at the expense of more fog. If I thought the roll was something that I might really value, i'd risk cutting it in half and doing the halves separately. Naturally the best frame of the bunch will be the one cut.

Kodak's HC110 is a low fog developer, but I don't know if you'd want to invest in a one liter bottle (over 30 USD) for just one roll. I think Conrad's advice might be the way to go.

10 years isn't so long, so you should do fine with ordinary developers.

 

I have developed rolls of mine after about 30 or 40 years. That likely will never happen to me again.

 

I have developed rolls that were not mine closer to 60 years.

(That is, slightly older than I am.)

 

For ordinary room temperature, you should be fine. For some warmer climates, there will be some extra fog.

 

 

 

This is Tri-X about 30 years later, developed in Diafine. (That is what I had at the time.)

 

I borrowed a camera from my father, as my (year old) Nikon FM had slide film in it, and I needed some black and white prints.

The last roll at the end was finished, then stayed in the camera for over 30 years, until my father found it.

 

White spots in what should be black are fog, but otherwise they aren't so bad.

 

To see the rest, even if you don't have an FB account:

 

Page House a long time ago | Facebook

Thank you Conrad, Mike and Glen.

 

I also want to ask your advice for using Rodinal stand 1+100 for 1hr. That seems to be some magic trick for any occasion when someone asks: "I'm in doubt how to process this particular film". Sometimes one even asks how to process "This unknown type of film".

 

The often seen answer is as I already mentioned: Rodinal 1+100 stand for 1 hr.

People get good results with any kind of B&W negative films as well as with cross-processing C-41 using that magical formula.

Why is that formula so popular and safe to use for almost anything?

Compensated developers, which includes stand, have the ability to not overdevelop highlights, while properly developing shadows.

 

I mostly don't use stand, but have used Diafine for many years.

 

With Diafine, the times are the same for all films, and for temperatures between 70F and 85F.

There are suggested EI values, but it isn't so bad for overdeveloping.

 

Also, Diafine lasts close to forever, until you lose too much in pouring.