[pure-silver] Re: Five year old paper?

  • From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 18:30:59 -0800


----- Original Message ----- From: "DarkroomMagic" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "PureSilverNew" <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 4:02 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Five year old paper?


For FB papers, I have never used anything but Agfa and Ilford, and it is my
experience that Agfa paper loses its edge quicker than Ilford. I wouldn't
hesitate to use Ilford FB paper as old as 10 years if it was kept in the
fridge. If storage conditions are unknown, I wouldn't touch any paper older
than 2 years, because darkroom time is valuable, and I have no time to waste
it.

Having said all of that, paper does slowly get softer with age. This is not
necessarily a big problem with VC, because you can filter to compensate for
it. There is also a speed loss, which is even less of a problem.





Regards



Ralph W. Lambrecht

http://www.darkroomagic.com

I think the longevity of paper depends partly on when it was made and on its type. I am currently using some Kodak Medalist which must be 20 years old and works perfectly but I have had other Kodak paper, notably old Polycontrast, which was useless after only a couple of years. The same for Agfa, I have some Brovira, again at least 20 years old, which works fine, no fog or apparent loss of sensitivity of contrast, but other papers do not do so well. All of this was stored in a garage with no special attention to temperature although its dry there.
My understanding is that envirionmental protection laws have requried some changes in the formulation of emulsions which ahorten their shelf lives. I've also found that VC paper does not last as long as graded paper.
I have some Oriental paper in my stash of old stuff which is probably more than ten years old but haven't had a chance to try it yet.
Reasonable amounts of fog can be suppressed by adding Benzotriazole to the developer but there are limits and large amounts do affect the speed.
As far as buying very old paper I would do it only if its _very_ cheap.
FWIW, I have been using Agfa Neutol Plus lately, a good developer but probably not long for this world.
I have also had fair luck with old film. This also varies with maker. I have some Agfa Agfapan 100, bought new about a dozen years ago, very fogged. OTOH, Kodak Plus-X sheet film older than this is fog free with the addition of some bromide to the developer. I used about 1.0 gram/liter of working solution of D-76 diluted 1:1 and got perfectly clear edges. I normally shoot this film at around EI-50 or even less so I didn't notice any loss of speed although that much bromide should have cut the speed noticably.
I will be testing the Agfa film with bromide to see if its salvagable. The Plus-X without bromide was noticably foggy but still usable. I have also had good results with Ilford HP-5 roll film, this also more than ten years old.
I sometimes have trouble finding time to work so can test only spradically. I will report anything interesting here.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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