Evan J. Soldinger , Mar 10, 2005; 11:59 p.m.
I have a 616 Brownie camera just purchased at an estate sale. Won 8 rolls of
Ansco Supreme 616 film on eBay, with expiration date of 1956, all sealed in
original wrappers.
Does anyone have any information about what kind of developer and
processing times I could use for this film? Because the film is 50 years old, I
am expecting some fog to show up when I develop the rolls, but the possible
poor quality of the camera and this old film might be fun to play with, rather
than the sharp quality that happens with my modern cameras!
Thanks in advance for any help available.
Evan
Donald Qualls , Mar 11, 2005; 06:15 a.m.
Assuming that's a black and white film (and it most likely is), the original processing is likely to have been D-76 stock solution for 17 minutes at 68F. That was what *all* B&W films used until they started to diversify in the mid-1950s.
That said, there are two things you can count on: fog, as you surmise, and loss of speed. The speed listed on the box, if there is one, is old ASA, 1/2 of modern speed for the same film, but that film has almost certainly lost one or more likely two stops of film speed. Fog you can deal with -- develop in HC-110 or Microphen (Microphen will also get back a fraction of the lost speed). If your Brownie is one of the older, folding ones, it may have enough adjustment to allow you to get good exposures, at least in full sun, even with film losing speed due to age.
Otherwise, there are a number of usable methods to either temporarily or permanently convert your 616 Brownie to use modern 120 film -- long term, that's the only way to keep using it. I think, however, you might be disappointed, in that the Brownies for the most part are capable of remarkably good image quality for the relatively low price they commanded when new.
John Shriver 
, Mar 11, 2005; 07:40 a.m.
Moreover, save the 616 spools and backing paper. J&C Photo's coming soon page lists Efke R100 in 70mm rolls 100 feet long. That's the correct film to reload 116 and 616 spools. I've been doing the same with a quite expired roll of Agfa Professional 100.
For developing, any old adjustable tank from 25 years ago goes up to 116/616 size. Or, try and get lucky and find a 116/616/70mm stainless steel reel.
Robert Meyer , Mar 11, 2005; 09:24 a.m.
I recently was given 5 rolls of film from the 50's to develop: 4 rolls of Verichrome (not Pan), and one roll of un-named panchromatic film. I tried several approaches: 1. 17 min in D-76; 2. 17 min in D-76 + 1 Kodak anti-fog tablet/quart of developer; 3. 13 min in D-76; and 4. Diafine as instructed for all films. The Diafine was the best method by far, cutting the measured background from around an optical density of 2.0 to roughly 0.6 (I don't have my notes here, but this is roughly right), as measured on my old Kodak densitometer. I published the results somewhere on the web (rec.photo.darkroom I think). The worst methods were #2 above, followed by #1 above.
Robert Meyer , Mar 11, 2005; 10:58 a.m.
See the recent thread "how to develop old film" in rec.photo.darkroom
Donald Qualls , Mar 12, 2005; 09:27 a.m.
I'm surprise, Robert -- others have reported Diafine to add so much fog as to make the old film unprintable. I suppose it depends more on unknown variables like storage conditions than it does on the developer, but in general I'd expect a low-fog developer to produce better results with old latent images.
The difference in this case is that we're not talking about vintage images on the vintage film, but rather using the film (expired almost 50 years ago) to make new images. Latent image fading is less an issue, loss of speed more, increased fog about the same.
