GAF 500 Color Slide Film

A friend of mine presented me with a roll of 36 exposure GAF 500 Color Slide Film exposed some time

ago.

 

He's asking me to ask the experts on our Leica Forum how and where to get this film developed in modern

chemistry, as all the labs that used to process this emulsion are now E-6 only.

 

Does anyone out there have any guidance for him and me? TIA for any useful advice on this matter.

 

Len

According to the fifth Google match (http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00HxDG), it's E-4.

 

You cannot process E-4 film in an E-6 line, the high temperatures will melt the emulsion off.

 

Rocky Mountain Film Labs, and others, run E-4 every now and then. Pricey, and you may not get very good results, to say the least.

 

Or, have someone develop it by hand as B&W. Might give better results, as you're only trusting the silver part of the chemistry, not the dyes and dye couplers, which are much more unstable.

GAF 500 was mainly made in the mid 70's and was never a very good film. Most likely you won't get much if you did expose and process it. I shot a few rolls and remember thin shadows and heavy grain with poor color. The best thing to do is put it on a shelf to remember the bad old days of GAF film.

Ditto on the above. GAF 640T was a much better film but it was never as good as Kodak or Fuji stock. It's long gone as well.

 

Enjoy a part of photo history.

I shot a few rolls in my impressionable youth. Huge grain and underexposure were the norm.

500 ASA was optimistic. ASA 250 or less was more realistic. I just searched some storage

boxes but couldn't find the old slides to scan and post here.

Consider it TriX, push it a stop or two in whatever B&W chemistry strikes your fancy. In other words, you want to over-process to build contrast. If it's way too dense it'll still be printable.

 

I've pushed 40 year exposed B&W film this way with great success, and E4 can be treated like B&W. Odds are better this way than in color. Cross processing of E4 involved C22, and that's probably a losing prospect, but it was much more flashy and colorful than cross processing E6.

I thought it was a lovely film. It was much used by photographers at the time, including pros. Very soft and grainy. They don't make them like that any more.

 

Alan

It was a great film for flourescent light. I used it backstage a lot.<div></div>

Thanks all for your responses. My friend is thrilled that he's been given multiple paths to a

solution. You guys are great!

<p>This is an old old thread but I'm amazed that people have remarked that GAF 500 wasn't a good color slide film. It was a wonderful film if you understood how to use it and exploit it's positive characteristics. Sarah Moon produced an incredible portfolio for the 1972 Pirelli tire calendar. These images are hard to track down on the net now but maybe worth Googling around for.</p>

<p>Just found a link - go see:</p>

<p>http://www.pbase.com/belyaevsky/image/92304361/original</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Old timer here too - I loved GAF 500 for what I could do with it that none of its contemporary films could do. For as long as it was available, I never went out on a major trip without some of it along for night and low-light work.</p>

Blast from tha past! My daughter brought 1000s of my old slides back from a visit with my siblings in the US. Among them were GAF 500 slides from a Chicago concert in Atlanta in 1974. I had totally forgotten about them. Fujichrome and Sakurachrome slides from 1976 are all faded to reds now whereas the same film from ca 1980 is still OK. Agfachrome used in 1984 is also faded in a strange way. Kodak's information about their slide film seems to have not been hype. I found one Kodachrome slide from circa 1962, and it seems it was taken yesterday. There are also Ektachrome slides from 1966-1984 and they seem brand-new. Here's one of the late Terry Kath--original guitarist/vocalist/songwriter for the rock group Chicago. Taken with either a Nikon F or Nikkormat EL, with Nikkor 50mm/1.4 lens.