[pure-silver] Re: Plenachrome film development
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 01:37:09 -0800
----- Original Message -----
From: "janet ness" <nessj@xxxxxxx>
To: "pure-silver" <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 8:20 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] Plenachrome film development
I have a student in my darkroom class who will be bringing
in to develop a roll of Plenachrome 120 film that was in an
old box camera he just purchased. Since this film is 50
years old or more, I expect it is fogged. Would it help to
add some Benzotriazole solution? I have some on hand and the
container says that it is used for paper, but could it help
the film? We have no idea how long to develop the film in
Xtol, but I expect we can't overdevelop it. We don't
expect this film will yield much, but what the heck, we have
to try.
Janet Ness
Plenachrome was Ansco's answer to Kodak Verichrome, a
medium speed (about ISO 64 daylight) orthochromatic film
meant for box cameras and similar use. An old chart for
AGFA-Ansco 17, very similar to D-76, gives a time of about 8
minutes @ 68F for a gamma of 0.8
If the film has been exposed the best you can do is to
give it normal development. Any anti-fog will tend to
destroy whatever latent image remains. I would also
recommend developing in a very active developer like Dektol
1:4 at quite low temperature. Images from some very old film
has been recovered by using process developer at cold temps.
If the film is unexposed normal development without an
anti-fog but with perhaps a stop or more of extra exposure
will be most likely to be successful. While anti-fog can
result in clear borders it changes the curve of the film
and, since it looses speed anyway, has no advantage other
than making the negatives a bit faster to print.
Plenachrome was well-liked in its day and was a good
film.
Beware that if the film is very old it may have
suffered from vinegar syndrome. Ansco's support was not as
stable as Kodak's so some older still film has suffered
pretty badly.
Save the box, its good memorabilia.
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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