Found expired 35mm bulk loaded film stock - what is Kodak 2496 RN 125/100?

[AJG]

This looks a lot like Kodak Fine Grain Release Positive film,  which  is/was a low ASA (something around 3) blue sensitive film that can be developed in paper chemistry under an orange safelight.  30+ years ago I used this to make B&W slides from negatives for presentations before the PowerPoint era.  I would load some and try an ASA sequence similar to what Rodeo Joe recommended but starting at ASA 1 instead of 5 to see what shape it is in.  I used to develop it in Dektol or some other paper developer for around 3 minutes at 68 degrees F. and then stop/fix/wash like any other B&W film.  If you have always wanted to make images with white skies like wet plate prints from the mid 19th century this might be your film.  Good luck!

[Brooklyncraftsman]

Thanks AJG! That is amazingly cool. One more film stock I just tried - super foggy - but it says "B 364" on the sprockets. Any idea? I shot it at EI 100 and developed at 8.5min in D-76. 

[michael_goldfarb]

Just as a by-the-way tangent...

Back in the mid-1970s when I was making Super 8 films, I purchased stuff from Superior Bulk.  A 50-foot Super 8 developing reel/tank (which I still have, if anyone needs one) and packages of their chemistry to develop b/w reversal films like Plus-X and Tri-X.  (Since my parents were pros and I'd been developing b/w films daily for years, it just seemed natural to develop my own movie film too and save some money on processing... and not have to wait for days for the film to come back from Kodak's lab.)

The results of home-processing these b/w films were uneven... with big swirling grain, occasional scratches, or incomplete bleaching and/or re-exposing leading to muddy or solarized-looking bits.  But these imperfections actually came in handy when we made a fake 1920s silent comedy short - we explained in the faux-Blackhawk Films title crawl at the beginning that this 50-year-old short had suffered "nitrate damage in places" like so many other silent films!

[glen_h]

On 2/25/2023 at 2:49 PM, rodeo_joe1 said:

I just wonder exactly how many recently-produced negatives get wet-printed at all these days. Because I suspect the vast majority only get scanned and shared online. 

Many, if not most, commercial printers now scan and then print the scanned negative on wet-process laser scanned printers.

The data sheet for Fuji Crystal Archive mentions its reciprocity properties between microsecond and minute exposures.

It works well either way.

 

But otherwise, I have many negatives from 7th and 8th grade yearbook photography 50 years ago.

Some got printed and are in the yearbook, though I don't have my yearbooks anymore.

 

But now many are scanned and shared online, unlike anyone expected 50 years ago.

And yes, many more recent negatives get scanned and not printed, wet or dry.