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Old Verichrome update


giverin

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<p>Thanks to everyone who helped me identify my old 120 film and who offered advice on developing it.</p>

<p>The internet is a double edged sword. It enables you to access so much knowledge and experience from all over the world. The downside is that sometimes, all that knowledge and experience can't reach a concensus.</p>

<p>So I bit the bullet and made a start. I loaded the film onto my reel and into the tank. That gave me my first look at the other end of the backing paper. It confirmed the opinion from this learned forum that the film was indeed Kodak Verichrome. Given the "No2 Brownie" marking on the paper, I reckon the film was made around 1935.</p>

<p>Someone here had posted that Kodak's figures for developing in D-76 stock was 17 minutes. I knew from reading about other peoples experience with old film that I was likely to get very dark and/or foggy negatives so I thought that I had little to lose and something to gain by trying something a little different. I decided to use TMax developer rather than D-76 (remember, I didn't have any HC 110). I worked out that TMax 1+4 was pretty much the same as D-76 stock in terms of timings. I had read elsewhere that people had good results developing old films at low temperatures. I didn't have the nerve to go down to the +2C that was mentioned but I lowered the temp from 20C to 15C (about 59F). I knew that I would have to extend the development time quite a bit but acting on the suggestion from someone here, I developed by inspection under a red safelight. I pulled the film out after 17 minutes, 24 minutes and finally 30 minutes. I reckoned that at 30 minutes, the image wasn't getting any better so I stopped and fixed at that point. Again acting on the advice from someone here, I gave it a good long fix...about 20 minutes.</p>

<p>Given the Brownie frame size, there should have been 8 frames on the roll. I had 3 1/2 frames where an image could be discerned. After that the roll was completely dark. The "good" frames were at the start of the roll and dark frames had been on the outside of the completed roll. Obviously the outside of the roll had given some protection to the frames at the start of the roll. The visible frames are too dark to print under an enlarger but you can make out the detail under a strong light. They are outdoor scenes and one of them may be of a shooting party in the countryside.</p>

<p>I returned the film to its owner who may try and get the three good frames scanned. If he does, I'll post the images. All in all though, it was an enjoyable experience and a bit of an adventure.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Thanks for the update. Appreciate it.</p>

<p>Hope we can see the pictures--sometimes a scan will sort of handle negatives that would be unprintable. VueScan has some options that might help for multiple scans to reduce noise, etc.</p>

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<p>If you would please post a link from your original post to this one, then people later can find the conclusion to that post. <br>

I have not as yet developed mine. I may get a chance this evening. I am planning on doing a clip test then developing HC110, dilution Bat 60ºf at the time that the clip test determines.</p>

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