carl_neilson

Yes, the family was just as blown-away as I was. We have no idea who is standing behind my brother in the photo - we think it must be a school-friend of his as he is about the same size and is wearing our old school uniform.

 

I had a quick go at Photoshop restoration on much higher-res files and got similar results to you guys (thanks for your examples, by the way). I am also no Photoshop expert so I agree there's probably much more to come from these old pics yet.

 

Over the weekend I shot off a roll of Ilford HP5 (the 120 roll's spool JUST fitted) in this very same camera, and the results turned out much better than I anticipated considering the huge limitations of the camera.

 

Thanks to all for your input and feedback.

 

Carl

The last one I'll post. The other four photos out of the eight were of similar or worse quality.<div></div>

And more...<div></div>

Another one<div></div>

Hi all,

 

A week or so back I started a thread under the heading "Processing

exposed but undeveloped 620 film c.early 1980s". I had the film

processed today so I thought I'd share the results.

 

I found this film last week in my mother's box Brownie "Flash II"

model camera. I remember that as a child I found this camera and

shot this roll of film, but for some reason never got it processed

until now. Some shots show my parent's house without renovations

that were done in mid 1979, so that's the latest this film could be.

 

The film was run through the lab's equipment today with (as far as I

know)no special treatment in processing. The negs are quite faint,

so I think they put some effort into the digital printing process to

get an image. I have a good film scanner, but it only scans 35mm and

APS, so unfortunately I can't show an unenhanced example of the

negs. The scans I'm posting here are of the prints, scanned with my

flatbed scanner. For what it's worth these scans are unaltered and

are a good indication of the look of the prints I got from the lab.

 

So the details are...

 

45 year old camera (I guess it was only 20 years old at the time

though) with fixed focus, fixed shutter speed and fixed aperture,

hand-held with no photographic knowledge by me as an 11 year old

(max).

 

25 year old exposed but unprocessed Kodacolor II "620" roll film

 

25 tropical summers here in north Queensland, Australia.

 

As you can tell, conditions couldn't have been much worse for this

little experiment. Then again, I was expecting nothing at all to

appear, so to get this little blast from the past was a spin-out and

I couldn't stop smiling when I saw the prints.

 

So here goes...<div></div>

Thanks a lot for the replies, guys.

 

Yes, detective Chris Haake, I am not American. After your initial response I searched the net for labs here in Australia that could process C-22 film, but I was unsuccessful. I'm sure someone here could do it, but their advertising methods must also be back in the C-22 days. They need to discover the internet!

 

I wasn't going to go to the expense of getting it processed overseas so I resigned myself to just having an interesting old-ish souvenir. But then John's reply appeared. Thankyou John.

 

I suspect that the photos are little more than shots I took around the yard of the family car, the family cat, maybe even the family too, and there's nothing too sentimental amongst that lot as Dad took plenty of family photos at that time. Also the tape at the end of the roll had been torn open at some point, so there's a good chance that at least the last shots have been unrolled and ruined anyway. So during the week I'll take the roll into my usual lab and see if anything appears. Just as a side-note, I exposed a roll of Ilford b&w though the camera this weekend, so I'm really keen on seeing the results from that this week too.

 

Before John's answer appeared I too did a search on C-22 processing, and I also discovered the site Chris mentioned with the unprocessed roll from 1962. As well as the "father in law" photo there were other examples from other old unprocessed films, and they proved that even though the negative may appear to be totally useless at first examination plenty of attention with Photoshop to a scan of it can bring it back to life to a remarkable degree.

 

Thanks again to everyone for your advice,

Carl

Last weekend I discovered my parents' box Brownies. Dad's is a Six-

20 model C, and Mum's later model is a Flash II. Although these

cameras were designed for 620 film happily a 120 spool appears to

fit in the Flash II without any hassles, so I'm very keen to try it

out just out of curiosity to see what results I get.

 

I've been doing endless research into these cameras, but despite the

huge number of websites devoted to Brownies I haven't been able to

find a definitive answer to the question of what film speed to use.

 

I want to use black and white (colour just wouldn't seem right

somehow). My guess is to use the "it's better to overexpose than

underexpose" rule of thumb, use 400 speed, and stay away from

blazing sunshine. But I also assume that the recommended film for

these cameras in the 1950s was much slower than 400 (maybe 50 or

100iso tops?), which puts a lot of doubt in my mind about using the

400iso. The instruction booklet recommends Kodak Verichrome Pan Film

for general use, or Tri-X "a pancrhomatic film of very high speed"

for indoors or dull weather, but no mention is made of the actual

speeds of these films.

 

Is there anyone out there who has done any experimentation with

different film speeds in similar cameras and can lead me down the

right path?

 

Thanks,

Carl

Yesterday I discovered Mum's old box Brownie in a cupboard, and in

it was an exposed but undeveloped roll of 620 film, "Kodacolor II".

There is no indication on it of the film speed or any other info. I

estimate the film is from the early 1980s, as I vaguely recollect

buying and shooting it myself after finding the camera previously

when I was a kid.

 

I'm very curious about seeing what images may be on the film. I

understand that 20 years has probably killed any chance of getting

good quality negs from it, but I was hoping I could get some advice

about any special methods to process film under these circumstances

to get the best results the film can give after all this time. Or

would I do just as well to take it to a lab to process it normally,

as any new 120 film would be processed.

 

To clarify things, I don't have the experience or equipment to do it

myself, but I was hoping I could give it to an aquaintance who does,

or the normal lab I use, with any advice I learn from this thread.

 

Thanks,

Carl

G'day Red,

 

Here's a response that actually relates to your questions...

 

I'll possibly be oversimplifying things, and I don't claim to have the level of expertise as some of the other posters here, but here's some practical advice without getting bogged down in technicalities.

 

As an amateur photographer you should definitely explore using slide film. As I mentioned in a previous post it's the best way of learning from your mistakes - the lab can't fix or hide your mistakes in the printing process. The photo you take is exactly the slide you get (unless a dodgy lab stuffed up the processing).

 

While practicing with slide film don't use professional film. Consumer film is a third of the cost and perfectly fine for gaining experience. Save the professional stuff until you're confident that you are obtaining good results consistantly with the consumer film, and then move up a level.

 

Prints are very easy to obtain from slides. All you need is a scan of the slide and then you can get it printed at any lab just like you would with a digital camera file. Having your own scanner is a good investment as it gives you more control over the quality of the scan, but the photo labs can scan your slides for you if you don't have a scanner.

 

As for the Kodachrome/E6 dilemma... I think you should start with E6 film, either Fujichome Sensia or Kodak Elite Chrome. I say this not because I'm claiming it's better than Kodachrome, but simply from a practical point of view these films give good results and you can see those result within a day or less, therefore they are ideal to practice with. It will take a long time for you to see results from Kodachrome because of the delays in shipping and processing. Once you've experimented with a few E6 films try Kodachrome too. Then you'll know for yourself and if you like Kodachrome better than E6 film then you'll accept the delay in order to have a result you're happier with. As a bonus you'll then have the expererience to endlessly argue with people on forums.

 

When it comes to choosing which E6 film to buy, tou can get different films for various purposes - some have over-saturated colour which makes nature, landscape, etc shots look spectacular. Some have neutral what-you-see-is-what-you-get colour, which is better for portraiture, etc. Kodachrome has neutral colour. All these different films have their purpose - one will be best for one situation and another will be best for a different situation. It's up to you to decide whether your subject will look better with natural colour or oversaturated colour and choose the right film to suit.

 

Back to Kodachrome; it will last longer in dark storage than E6 slides, and if you want your slides to be handed down from generation to generation then it is a good choice for that reason. Having said that, I have read some claims that E6 slides will now last until after we're gone before noticably deteriorating, so that's another consideration.

 

Just in case certain people misinterpret this post, I'm a Kodachrome fan and have a few rolls in the fridge right now. I like using it for it's natural colour and it's archival longevity, but I'll happily use E6 when the occasion suits it.

Over the years I've had prints done from slides a few times. I've never had a print made directly from a slide so I can't comment on the results of that process. I have had prints made from internegs a few times at different labs and I've never been happy with the result. They always look washed-out to me. Now I have a film scanner and I just get scans of slides printed by my local lab from CD along with my digital camera's photos, and they look great to my (admittedly non-professional) eye. Much better then my experiences with the interneg process.

Getting back to the original questions...

 

I'm an amateur photographer too. About 12 years ago I got really interested in photography and started using slide film to help me learn, mainly because I knew the end results were all my own doing (good or bad). In other words, unlike with prints the lab could not correct my mistakes. Back then I always used Kodachrome. I knew it probably wasn't the best looking film out there, but as other people have noted it is probably the longest lasting. I chose it because my Grandfather's Kodachromes from the 50s looked much better than my father's E6 slides that were ten or twenty years newer. So my logic was that modern E6 films probably look better in the short term but they won't be new forever and in time to come my Kodachromes would look much better them them.

 

My interest in photography waned after a couple of years but last year I did a short course and now my interest is back again in a big way. This time I tried using professional slide film, and I have discovered that there is a steep but hopefully rewarding learning curve to taking good slides. Instead of Kodachrome this time I tried Velvia (both 50 and 100iso) and my results were very disappointing... dark photos with too much contrast. I got much better results with a much cheaper roll of Sensia. So be prepared to possibly be disappointed, but to learn and improve with each exposed roll.

 

As far as viewing them goes...

 

Yes, the projector is a pain, and I admit that I rarely go to the trouble, but when I do it is a real treat as seeing your picture brightly lit up wall-sized is amazing in comparison to flipping through an album.

 

Don't feel that you'd be restricted to projectors or light boxes either. I still like to have my favourite photos in my album. Late last year I bought the best film scanner I could afford (Canon FS4000US), and I have been scanning my slides old and new. All I have to do is take a CD of the scans that I want printed into my local lab and get prints made for my album just like you would from a digital camera. In fact I picked some up today and they look great.

 

I haven't seen any good reviews of faster slide film, so I think I'll be using 64/100iso slide films the majority of the time when I don't need the speed, and only use print film when I need faster film.

A database or some other kind of computerised cataloging is definitely the way to go. What I do is number all my rolls of film (negs & slides) as I process them and type the details into my computer. Then I can search the database for key words or dates and it is easy for me to find the neg/slide, which are all stored in the order in which they were taken.

I remember reading a review of it somewhere that said it was the consumer equivalent of Astia