Unknown bulk film - what is it?

[Brooklyncraftsman]

I have another unknown roll of bulk b&w film. I developed a test strip - any ideas about what it could be? I can read something like "B 364" on the right side. 

Thanks!

[eugen_mezei]

You will have to show us the edge markings.

[ben_hutcherson]

Those edge markings look super faint.

 

If it were mine and I really wanted to know, I'd be tempted to clip 2-3" and give it strong development in a super high contrast developer, but tread cautiously(not that you have a ton to lose-you don't know what it is now and even if you don't have a bunch left you can probably get several clips going that route). That should get the markings to pop nicely. It looks like you do have some base fog so you could overdevelop and get nothing, but I suspect with a bit of care you won't run into that issue too badly.

As for what developer to use-when I'm printing(I'm not set up to now-hopefully soon) I always keep Dektol mixed, and diluted 1:2 or 1:3 will give very high contrast on film although with super short development-think a minute or two. I wouldn't necessarily go buy Dektol unless you have it and intend to print-some people do use it as a film developer but I find it very temperamental for that-but it's cheap(~$10 for a pouch to make 1 gallon the last time I looked).

Alternatively, it looks like you're currently overexposed/overdeveloped with a relatively thick negative(actually given the faint edge markings I'd tend to think overexposed, underdeveloped), but you're in the right ballpark of getting useable negatives out of it. You could just use this roll as a starting point to tweak it, and not really worry about what exactly it is.

I say this as someone who has probably a dozen bulk loaders in the closet with partial rolls of film in them, most of which I either knew or was able to ID, some of which I don't know. The camera store where I use to hang out a lot would often give them to me if they came in since I was the only one who cared to bother with them(and if I was buying something else that day), or maybe charge me a few bucks if it came in marked as to the film. I've never used them for anything critical, but I always treated it as basically free film that was great for testing camera operation or getting an idea of lens performance. Even if I had to pay a few bucks, it was pennies per roll and D76 or HC-110 works out to $1/roll or less to develop($10 for a gallon of D76 at current prices, or 128oz, and 8 oz. stock to develop 135-36, so 16 rolls/gallon or 67¢/roll).

Edited September 20, 2023 by ben_hutcherson

[Brooklyncraftsman]

Thanks! I shot this at 100 and developed with D76 at 1:1 for 8.5 minutes. So I will try another strip with longer development time and see what I can get! 

[James G. Dainis]

19 hours ago, Brooklyncraftsman said:

Thanks! I shot this at 100 and developed with D76 at 1:1 for 8.5 minutes. So I will try another strip with longer development time and see what I can get! 

Note: The longer the development time the darker the blacks on the film will get.

[Brooklyncraftsman]

So maybe I'm confused here - I assume I have a good amount of base fog here - might try to use som benzo - but how can I tell underdevelopment from fog?

Thanks! 

[Brooklyncraftsman]

Does anyone know where I might lookup frame markings? The only markings on this bulk roll of old B&W 35mm other than the frame numbers (5, 5a, 6, 6a, etc) is the code "B 364." Cannot find it listed anywhere... Thanks!

[glen_h]

Kodak films have a 4 digit number, and it isn't so hard to find a table of common ones.

There are some Ilford films with poor latent image keeping.

The markings go away after a while.

[chris_autio]

Very outdated film. The baseline of these is maxed out.  Never buy old film unless you are making some other kind of art.  I have seen "vintage" on ebay films,

as it were an upgrade!