Shooting and developing Ektachrome 64, expired in 1979

Hi,

 

I recently shot a roll of ancient Ektachrome 64 slide film. Expired in 1979, no idea how it had been stored.

 

I have a few rolls of this stock so I'm testing. I decided to start with this roll at near box speed (50ASA) exposure and regular development.

 

Terrible results - or, more like no results at all. See the image.

 

Any ideas where to go with the next roll? Heavy overexposure, longer development time, both, or what?

 

Many thanks for your comments.

 

Regards

Otto

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by mellais

That film looks like it hasn't been developed at all. There's no outer edge frame numbers and no frame separators. Can you post more information about the processing ?

That film looks like it hasn't been developed at all. There's no outer edge frame numbers and no frame separators. Can you post more information about the processing ?

That was my initial reaction too. I asked the lab about it but they haven't given me any answer yet. Is it really possible to develop a film so that you cannot see the frame numbers and frame separators?

 

Feels weird.

 

Otto

I think it is dead.

 

This is reversal film, so the unexposed part should be dark black.

Numbering is white (clear) on a black background.

 

Your film is (close to) completely clear, so pretty much fogged.

 

With negative film, you can increase exposure, within the exposure

latitude to get above fog. You can't do that with reversal film.

 

You could try as a negative, either black and white or C-41, but the results

are not likely to be much better. Best to use this for display purposes only.

 

As you say, unknown storage conditions. It seems that they were not good enough.

Has this film been processed at all? Ektachrome, and indeed most chromes films, have black rebates and leaders/tails after processing, with film data visible on rebates.

The other thing is, well, 1979 is a long, long time ago...

Slow-speed Ektachrome is a difficult film to expose well when expired after such a long time. A baseline guidance is 1.5 stops for every 10 years elapsed, but variations — likely wild and unpredictable, will be found depending on storage. Film that has been frozen over a very long term will still have lost speed but can provide useable images. Latency will be affected if the film was exposed but left unprocessed; with Ektachrome, that means any recorded images will come to nothing, much like Ilford's infamously "disappearing" Pan F+ 50 film with its well-known poor latency.

Ektachrome 64, and likely other Ektachromes, has about 6 stops on the exposure side

of its Characteristic Curve. (A gamma of about -1.5, so 9 stops in density.)

 

If you overexpose by 6 stops, there is nothing left.

 

Compare to C41 films, which have 10 stops, and the curve hasn't leveled off at the top,

so maybe 12 or so. If you overexpose 6 stops, you still have 6 stops left.

What are those round holes doing between the sprocket holes, and why does the film appear to have water blobs and other surface marks all over it?

 

I've never encountered 36 exposure cassette Ektachrome with punctures between the sprocket holes. Nor any processed film that appears to be grey and opaque.

 

Is this a leg-pull?

I think I have known those little holes on other films, but haven't tried to keep track of them.

 

The gray is hard to explain, but it isn't obvious how the picture was taken.

What are those round holes doing between the sprocket holes,

 

I've puzzled over that too. The dots occur at 4-sprocket intervals, so maybe in those days (1970s) an alignment / orientation assist when loading into machines? I have no recollection of my own Ektachrome transparencies from that era having little dots among the sprockets.

What commercial lab returns the film uncut and unmounted too?

If there are no frame lines, all labs that I know.

 

The one nearest me, charges extra for mounting, so presumably returns it that way if you don't want it mounted.

If there are no frame lines, all labs that I know.

Yes, but in that case there's usually an 'advisory' sticker on the film that puts the blame firmly on the photographer.

 

A lab that just returns an uncut and unsleeved length of blank film with no further explanation really has no right to call itself a 'lab'. A slop-house maybe, but not a lab.

Another thought occurs to me.

Since it expired in 1979, that batch of Ektachrome would have been produced on the cusp of the transition from E4 to E6 and before the widespread introduction of E6 processing to general, amateur labs. Therefore it might be designed for the obsolete E4 process and not be compatible with E6 at all.

 

What process is stated on the box?

Not too long ago, I shot a roll of EPP that the lab pronounced "completely dead." At my request, they processed another from the same batch, with the same results.

 

I still have it around here somewhere, but it was essentially a clear and nearly colorless strip of acetate. This was 120 format, and expired in 2006.

Ektachrome-X is the E4 film, Ektachrome 64 (and other numbers) are E6.

 

Do you mean that they might have put one in the wrong box?

 

Ektachrome 200 is the replacement for High-Speed Ektachrome.

 

Ektachrome 50 and Ektachrome 160 are the tungsten balanced versions.

 

The longest I ever tried was about 8 years, which was the roll in my film camera

when I first got a DSLR. After 8 years, I decided to finish the roll. All the slides

have a pink cast, which comes from things black looking pink instead.

I think that was Ektachrome 200, but it is a while ago by now.

Yes, but in that case there's usually an 'advisory' sticker on the film that puts the blame firmly on the photographer.

 

A lab that just returns an uncut and unsleeved length of blank film with no further explanation really has no right to call itself a 'lab'. A slop-house maybe, but not a lab.

 

The might put the explanation on the box, or somewhere that the OP didn't show us.

 

In 1971, my grandmother went on a trip with my family. She brought along a (simple) camera

that use 127 film, and had a roll of Ektachrome in it. (About 8 years after my grandfather died.)

 

As a test of the camera, my dad had the roll processed. (We lived close to a Kodak lab, so

same-day E4 service.) You could see the frames, but just barely. It came back uncut,

probably with a sticker on the box, or maybe on the film. There was enough image,

though, for my dad to believe that the camera worked, and bought a roll of film for it.

In the old days, it was not uncommon to have a roll with no images returned uncut / unmounted. Saw a good bit of it over a few years working in a camera store.

Ektachrome-X is the E4 film, Ektachrome 64 (and other numbers) are E6.

I must admit that my memory fails me about the date that E6 took over from E4, and the designation of Ektachrome film from that era.

 

Wikipedia (Yeah, I know!) says that E6 wasn't rolled out to amateur (I.e general public) labs until around 1976, which would likely have been the manufacturing date of the OP's film. Also, I can't find any mention of the E6 process in the formulary for the year 1976. All of which lead me to believe that E4 and E6 coexisted during the time that the film in question was 'fresh'. Furthermore E4 film isn't pre-hardened, and won't stand up to E6 temperatures.

 

So, no, I wasn't suggesting it might have been boxed wrong. Just that it was possibly an E4 process film to start with. The first E6 process Ektachromes were suffixed 'Professional' I believe.

 

Anyway, the box and cassette should definitely say which process the film was designed for.

 

I'm also happy to add that I've never had an entirely blank roll of film returned. So I don't know what a lab's procedure is in that case. I do know that the odd blank frame completely screws up the cutting machine, and that you're likely to get other frames chopped in half!

Edited June 4, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

In about 1977, I had a Unicolor E6 box, just after it came out, so I remember

the year.

 

The choice then was between E4 and E6, so that is close to the changeover.

 

The change also included names with numbers in them, so it is easy to know.

 

All the Ektachromes with a number in the name, 50, 64, 100, 200, 400, ... are E6.

 

I am pretty sure that I remember 64 as ER, (or EPR for professional). Not so much

later, it was replaced by Ektachrome 100, EN.

 

Ektachrome X (EX) and High Speed Ektachrome (EH) are E4.

 

But yes, it might be that EX was available with an expiration date in 1979,

but not called Ektachrome 64.

 

I am not sure the year, but Kodachrome also changed over to numbers,

from Kodachrome II and Kodachrome X to the new Kodachrome 25 an Kodachrome 64,

the latter being KR.

Good memory Glen.

 

I think I must have accidentally hit the Delete button on my memory of all that old film nomenclature. I remember there was FP3, and then FP4. That's before it ate too much and became FP4plus. :p

 

Don't ask me to put a date on when that all happened though. I'll leave that to archaeologists.

I do remember the different FP and HP, but just barely, and not the numbers at all.

 

I knew the Kodak films a lot better in those days.

 

When I was much younger, I found that my father had the book

"Anscochrome and Ektachrome home processing"

 

Anscochrome and Ektachrome Home Processing by Robert Bagby: Very Good Paperback (1961) 2nd edition. | booksforcomfort

 

which seems to be dated 1961. I believe that makes it E2.

 

That was about when I started black and white processing, because

that is what I could afford. I do remember seeing C22 chemistry in

stores, but always out of my price range.

 

So, it was college years when I could afford it, and thought that

I could actually do it. That turned out to be just about the time of E6.

I do remember seeing C22 chemistry in

stores, but always out of my price range.

Yes. I don't ever remember a time when home-processing colour negative film was actually economical over putting it into a commercial lab. There was a cheap Agfacolor kit from Tetenal, but that was back when Agfacolor had no orange contrast mask.

 

I only started my own C-41 processing in the dying years of film's popularity. When even so-called 'professional' labs would screw up the odd film for you. At professional prices of course.

 

Colour printing OTOH was quite cheap to do. Again, the Agfa process was easy and economical. It was a room-temperature process you could do in open dishes, and by that time compatible with Kodak films.

 

Ahh! Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.

Edited June 4, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

When I first started getting into photography, when I was 9, my father suggested,

encouraged, or otherwise, me to learn darkroom photography.

 

My grandfather had been doing it for many years, but I only know my father to do

it in the lab at work, and not all that often.

 

I still remember, though, seeing the prices for reprints at a nearby store

in 1967, $0.07 for black and white, $0.22 for color. (I believe 3x5 prints.)

 

You can now get color prints for less than that, without inflation adjustment.

 

I would sometimes get photography magazines, and even some years

had a subscription to Popular Photography. One that I still remember is

how to divide up the large size of CP-5 chemistry into smaller bottles.

(Though I knew that I couldn't afford it.)

 

 

In addition to chemicals, you also needed filters and some kinds of analyzer

to get the color balance right. That was where Unicolor came in.

 

To save on the need for so many filters, Unicolor designed a wheel

with red, green, and blue filters, so you could time each one through

its own filter. There was also a device to get average color balance

with a diffuser over the lens, and a device that you make a print through,

with enough tiny filters. But I think that the name Unicolor comes

from the wheel, and exposing one color at a time.

 

Also, the Unidrum made it easier to keep the temperature, and to

economically use chemistry on a small number of prints.

E6 was certainly available before 1977. My two globetrotting aunties recorded many events in the UK (when flying from Australia to London took 6 days!) such as Trooping the Colour and other royal ceremonies, both on Kodachrome and Ektachrome; these would have been beautiful to look at back then, but not now, just pale, ghostly patterns of blue and grey. Only their Kodachrome slides of that epoch (1964 to 1980) survive to this day (the Great Yellow Father would be thrilled!), the rest (of southern UK, plus Scotland, Wales, the Channel Isles and the Outer Hebrides) having been reduced to nothing (Ektachrome didn't have the best reputation for archival stability). Likewise, my own pithy Ektachromes from 1977 to 1979 were discarded early last year, but Kodachromes (1980 onward) are still holding up (probable slight shifts of red to brown/sienna), stored in dark boxes in my study.

E6 was certainly available before 1977. My two globetrotting aunties recorded many events in the UK (when flying from Australia to London took 6 days!) such as Trooping the Colour and other royal ceremonies, both on Kodachrome and Ektachrome; these would have been beautiful to look at back then, but not now, just pale, ghostly patterns of blue and grey. Only their Kodachrome slides of that epoch (1964 to 1980) survive to this day (the Great Yellow Father would be thrilled!), the rest (of southern UK, plus Scotland, Wales, the Channel Isles and the Outer Hebrides) having been reduced to nothing (Ektachrome didn't have the best reputation for archival stability). Likewise, my own pithy Ektachromes from 1977 to 1979 were discarded early last year, but Kodachromes (1980 onward) are still holding up (probable slight shifts of red to brown/sienna), stored in dark boxes in my study.

 

Kodachrome doesn't use E6 processing, but its own special process where the colour dyes are added during development. That's why it has better dye stability and longevity.

 

The trade name 'Ektachrome' that Kodak gave to its incorporated dye-coupler (integral tri-pack) reversal films, dates back to the mid 1940s, and pre-dates the E6 process by at least 30 years and 4 prior variants of processing chemistry - E1, E2, E3 and E4.

 

Just because a film bore the name 'Ektachrome' doesn't mean it was linked to one particular processing chemistry.

 

For example: Six different types of Ektachrome were listed on sale in 1968 - Ektachrome Professional (ASA 50, process E3), Ektachrome-X (ASA 64, process E2), Ektachrome High Speed, available in Daylight (ASA160) and type B (ASA 125), and Ektachrome ER, also available as Daylight or type B balanced.

 

So, without knowing the exact flavour of Ektachrome used by your aunts, it's not possible to say for certain that it was processed using E6 chemistry.

To save on the need for so many filters, Unicolor designed a wheel

with red, green, and blue filters, so you could time each one through

its own filter.

It's called additive filtration, as opposed to subtractive filtration that uses a pack of Yellow and Magenta filters (Cyan rarely being used or needed).

 

Additive filtration was used by many commercial printing machines, and probably still is. It's ideal for automated exposures, but has the drawback that any nudge of the enlarger while changing filters results in one or more unregistered colours and a blurred result. It's also near impossible to dodge and burn a print using 3 separate RGB exposures.

Edited June 5, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1