Processing Old B&W Film

SCCutler

SCCutler

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...so we're clearing out a massive quantity of junk from my Dad's house, preparatory to him coming home from the rehab hospital, and my sister found two 126 film cartridges, both black & white, both mine.

I am guessing that they date from somewhere around 1966 or so.

The film has been exposed, I can tell, because it is all in thetake-up side of the cartridge. Who knows what secrets may be in there?

So, anyone have a suggestion as to where I can get this stuff processed, without blowing an arm and a leg in the process?
 
How retro!
 

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Any photo supply store will be able to handle it or direct you to the right place. Developing B/W film is not a big deal. Anyone with a darkroom can do it. In San Diego it's either Nelson Photo or George's Camera. Call San Diego information 619-555-1212 and get their numbers. You can probably just mail the film to them and have it done in a few days.

John
 
126 color is limited to a very few specialty labs around the country. However, black and white 126 is if I remember right, the same size as 35mm. If not, there are a lot of developing tanks that have adjustable reels. The chemistry is much simpler than color and I'm sure there are many people with the stuff. I have plenty of gear myself but no time and no chemicals at the moment. I'd send it to Dave for his employee to do
 
wby0nder said:
126 color is limited to a very few specialty labs around the country. However, black and white 126 is if I remember right, the same size as 35mm. If not, there are a lot of developing tanks that have adjustable reels. The chemistry is much simpler than color and I'm sure there are many people with the stuff. I have plenty of gear myself but no time and no chemicals at the moment. I'd send it to Dave for his employee to do
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Hand processing it'll fit 35mm tanks. Machine, it may not because some of the machines (many of the machines) use the sprocket holes in 35 MM.... and 126 doesn't have the sprockets... in addition, on a machine basis, you can't print it with a 35 mm machine as the frame size is smaller.

Agree: find the right shop that can process it, or find someone with the chemicals to do it by hand.
 
Don't hold out too much hope of getting a good image off of film that old. I found an old 35mm b/w roll of exposed film in a dresser drawer. Best I could figure it was at least 25yrs old. I had it processed, but nothing came out. Don't know if the film had anything on it to begin with, or if it had all faded over the years. Negatives will last close to forever if taken care of, but I don't know about exposed, unprocessed film.

Hopefully this will work out and you'll uncover some gems.
 
SCCutler said:
...so we're clearing out a massive quantity of junk from my Dad's house, preparatory to him coming home from the rehab hospital, and my sister found two 126 film cartridges, both black & white, both mine.

I am guessing that they date from somewhere around 1966 or so.

The film has been exposed, I can tell, because it is all in thetake-up side of the cartridge. Who knows what secrets may be in there?

So, anyone have a suggestion as to where I can get this stuff processed, without blowing an arm and a leg in the process?
Click to expand...

Old exposed B&W film has a reasonably good chance of surviving. Whatever lab you choose should know that they need to process with the developer cooler than standard and to push the time in the developer to get the best contrast and image density.

Good luck - who knows what's on there!
 
Matthew said:
Don't hold out too much hope of getting a good image off of film that old. I found an old 35mm b/w roll of exposed film in a dresser drawer. Best I could figure it was at least 25yrs old. I had it processed, but nothing came out. Don't know if the film had anything on it to begin with, or if it had all faded over the years. Negatives will last close to forever if taken care of, but I don't know about exposed, unprocessed film.
Click to expand...

Got a camera from the estate of my dads stepmom in the early 90s. It was about 1/2 way through a roll of 120 at the time. We exposed the remaining pictures around the yard and hand-processed the film in our daylight tanks. The old pix came out really well with good contrast, even better than the new ones (the only odd thing was the guy who looked kind of like my dad, except for the full head of dark hair :rofl: ). Best we could tell from the events on the old pictures, this roll had been in the camera since 1964 or so.

Colour film may not hold up that well.
 
weilke said:
Got a camera from the estate of my dads stepmom in the early 90s. It was about 1/2 way through a roll of 120 at the time. We exposed the remaining pictures around the yard and hand-processed the film in our daylight tanks. The old pix came out really well with good contrast, even better than the new ones (the only odd thing was the guy who looked kind of like my dad, except for the full head of dark hair :rofl: ). Best we could tell from the events on the old pictures, this roll had been in the camera since 1964 or so.

Colour film may not hold up that well.
Click to expand...

That's cool. It's possible that roll of film I had may have never been exposed, just rewound.
 
Matthew said:
That's cool. It's possible that roll of film I had may have never been exposed, just rewound.
Click to expand...

Or storage conditions. Heat will lead to degradation. The camera we received had sat in a cool basement for pretty much all of the time in question.
 
That's the biggest problem with digital photography, there is nothing to discover years from now. We simply delete the images that don't interest us. There has been so much of our nations history found on old negatives. Pictures that were taken that held no interest at the time, like a historical ship sitting out in a harbor as a back ground for a picture of the kids, that they never bothered printing.

Researchers of the future will be deprived of that wonderful source of information.

John
 
John Baker said:
That's the biggest problem with digital photography, there is nothing to discover years from now. We simply delete the images that don't interest us. There has been so much of our nations history found on old negatives. Pictures that were taken that held no interest at the time, like a historical ship sitting out in a harbor as a back ground for a picture of the kids, that they never bothered printing.

Researchers of the future will be deprived of that wonderful source of information.

John
Click to expand...

You may well be very right...but there's also a lot more photography going on now with cheap digital cameras available, also all the cell phone cameras. If sites like flickr.com and youtube.dot com get properly archived, there's a ton of material to shock and bemuse future generations, but that's a BIG if.
 
SCCutler said:
How retro!
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:eek:) When I was the Camera Department Buyer for an East coast chain of catalog showrooms I remember going to Waltham, MA for a Kodak seminar where something new and exciting was to be unveiled. It was the 126 cartridge camera series and film format to fit them. The meeting occurred about six months prior to national release of the products and we had to sign "Non-disclosure" forms, we needing plenty of lead time before our new catalogs would be distributed in early September. Sylvania was also there with a to-be-announced thing called Flashcube. Years later the same scenario occurred re the 110 series of cameras and films.

HR
 
Lawreston said:
:eek:) When I was the Camera Department Buyer for an East coast chain of catalog showrooms I remember going to Waltham, MA for a Kodak seminar where something new and exciting was to be unveiled. It was the 126 cartridge camera series and film format to fit them. The meeting occurred about six months prior to national release of the products and we had to sign "Non-disclosure" forms, we needing plenty of lead time before our new catalogs would be distributed in early September. Sylvania was also there with a to-be-announced thing called Flashcube. Years later the same scenario occurred re the 110 series of cameras and films.

HR
Click to expand...

I had one of those cameras. I don't miss Flashcubes at all. They were an improvement over the flash bulbs my previous point and shoot camera used (with 620 film), but I'll take a strobe any day. :D Like computers, these are the good old days.
 
I remember burning myself pretty badly trying to open up a flashcube, because I wanted to know how it worked. Apparently when the little spring thingy hits the post of the flashbulb, things get bright and hot all at the same time :D

Learned my lesson on that one...
 
vontresc said:
I remember burning myself pretty badly trying to open up a flashcube, because I wanted to know how it worked. Apparently when the little spring thingy hits the post of the flashbulb, things get bright and hot all at the same time :D

Learned my lesson on that one...
Click to expand...

The first generation of flash cubes were not powered. They relied on the batteries in the camera. I had Instamatic camera that would only occasionally fire the flash cube, no matter how fresh the batteries were. No 'ready' light or whining, just point, shoot, and pray.
 
You beat me to the punch. Vontresc's experience would have been with the Magic Cube which self ignited. Any battery power in the camera was only for the then-called electric eye exposure system and/or the electronic shutter.

HR
 
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