Found Film Ilford FP4 Chemistry class 1980'S??

I bought an early Voightlander Brillant on Ebay last month. It is a nice early all metal one with a compur shutter and a Skopar lens. The added bonus was that there was a partly exposed roll of film inside!

The film was Ilford FP4 this film was revised to FP4+ in 1990 so the film must have been purchased prior to then.

The film was on frame 4 when I got the camera the wheel on the camera that works the frame counter had left a rusty deposit on the film. so it was exposed some time ago.

I developed the roll of film that day in Kodak X-Tol. I have found that developer works well on old ilford films.

Looking at the photographs it looks like this could be a high school chemistry lesson in progress, bring in an old camera and load some B&W film shoot some film and develop the pictures. I would say that the person that took these pictures turned up with there grandfathers old camera which takes 120 film, and the school did not have a developing tank for the film. so it stayed inside the camera.

The cameras that the other people are using are point and shoot jobs, I would guess that this film was exposed in the 1980's

The voigtlander Brillant that the film was inside is a very nice example I have cleaned its Skopar lens and cleaned the shutter I am in the process of running a film through the camera, The skoppar lenses are very sharp and I have had good results from my other Voightlander brillants that have this lens.

Found Film. 616 KODAK VERICHROME PAN

I bought a Kodak folder a while ago, It had a part exposed roll of

Verichrome pan inside. The film was in very poor condition as the backing paper was stuck to the film.

I developed the film with the backing paper on and soaked the paper off when I had processed the film.

I got 3 printable frames and here two of them.

This looks like a very proud mother and son with future daughter in law, its a pity the person who took the photographs did not get them developed as they are super pictures, who knows??

Found film. The story so far... HP3 200 & AGFA Isopan I.S.S.

This set of photographs are from the two sets of negatives that were in a metal 35mm Ilford film can.

The negatives are in good condition but a little dirty, I am washing them at the moment.

In my last post I was guessing that the photographs were taken in Cyprus well I guessed correct!

The sign in the photo below reads Khirokitia there is another rather blurred photo that has a sign in it that reads Nicosia.

As you can see here we have an RAF camp and an RAF Land rover The markings on the door reads 751 SU That stands for 751 Signals Unit.

A quick search on the Internet revealed...

751 Signals Unit (Cape Greco and Ayious Nikolos),

Commanding officer Sqdn Leader R Street.

A mobile signal unit camped in tents providing radar coverage of the area.

C.O. Sqd Ldr.Mc.Donald 1958.

Detachment at Cape Andreas Mobile Radar unit based at Cape Greco until late 1959 when it was closed and some personal transferred to Nicisia.

This closed Jan l960 and transferred to Cape Gata i.e 280 SU.

This may be the photographer???

As the camera angle is low and the subject has that pensive when is the self timer going to go off look on his face. Indicating to me that the camera is sat on a box and has been pre-focused by the person in the photograph?

Focusing on the camera that took these photographs, When I got the un-exposed films and the two sets of negatives, and had developed the films, it was obvious that the camera had serious film transport problems.

The rolls of film I developed were partially exposed, the frame spacing was all over the place toward the middle of the roll merging into the last frame being a multiple exposure, the remaining unexposed film was all wrinkled up. I think the problem is that the photographer was unfamiliar with his camera and was not loading the film correctly. the film was being wound out the spool by the camera but it was not winding on to the take up spool.

This sort of thing could easily happen with a Contax rangefinder the contax also has a self timer.

The quality of the photographs also suggests Zeiss optics and the first set of negatives is from a roll of Agfa Isopan I.S.S the empty cassette was also in with the films and was printed entirely in German, The photographer may have done a tour in West Germany and got a very good deal on a S/H Contax RF??? and been given a roll of Agfa B&W film.

Next stop Cyprus and some Rolls of Ilford HP3 from the Naffy happily snapping away during his tour in Cyprus, when he gets back home to Blighty he takes his rolls of exposed film for processing and gets a nasty surprise, only two rolls of film have come out OK, The lab has developed one of the rolls of film and found problems, rather than waste money on processing the remaining films he pays for his prints and the unexposed rolls of film are returned by the lab. When he gets home the problem camera and the rolls of film are put in a draw and remain there for 58 years?

Here we are out on patrol in Cyprus.

This photograph has been taken on early on in the campaign. Because later on the Land rovers were modified with a steel pole being mounted onto the front of the bumper to protect the occupants of the Land rover from wires strung across the roads at night by forces hostile to the British forces. Note the front mounted Bren gun

Series 1 Land rovers were not built for comfort.

They don't make them like this anymore...

Some unknown faces, The person here is sitting in the rear of the Land rover in the earler shot.

And Here he is again in the back of a vehicle sporting a tash!

Its a really super Photograph

And finally a group shot this could be another shot using the self timer?

If you recognise anyone get in touch I can email hi rez scans from the negatives if you wish. The e-mail link in in my profile on this photo-blog.

Found Film Ilford HP3 -200 Weston

Found film is exposed film found in old cameras or in a drawer in a house or garage or some place like that.

With care full development you can often get some interesting pictures.

Your chances of getting an image from a found film depends allot on how the film has been stored since it was exposed.

The type of film can make a big difference to. Fast (sensitive) films tend to degrade faster due to there sensitivity. Slow films tend to yield the best results due to there lesser sensitivity.

The action of time and temperature and solar radiation will cause the film to fog over time. if the fogging is bad you will not be able to see the image, it will be lost in the fog.

With the use of a film developer that keeps fog levels down during development whilst developing the latent image you can get surprisingly good results.

From what I have read in some forums on the Web, Agfa Rodinal, Ilford Microphen and Kodak HC110 are good for this sort of work due to there good anti fogging properties and abilities to pull out the latent image from the film.










Two weeks ago I found on Ebay some exposed rolls of Ilford HP3 200 (Weston) and some Ilford FP3. These films had come from a deceased estate.

When the films arrived in there original metal Ilford cans there was also to my surprise 2 sets of Negatives one is a roll of Agfa Isopan I.S.S and the other is a roll of HP3

A quick look on the web told me that Ilford HP3 200 was on the go from the early 50 to the early 60, it was upgraded to HP3 400. Going on the type of film that I had to develop and the clothing and vehicles in the negatives I got I would say the film was exposed in the early to mid 50's

I clip tested the First roll or film in Kodak X-Tol because thats what I had mixed up, and this is a good dev for fast films. The clip test revealed very little fog in the rolls of HP3 but lots of fog in the FP3, the FP3 cassette looked like it had been opened.

I have a data sheet for these films and came up with a time of 10 minutes for the HP3 in stock X-tol and 8 mins for the FP3

The Fp3 was toatally fogged the other rolls of HP3 yielded some quite good negatives.

The image above is scanned from one of the rolls of HP3 developed in X-Tol

I am not sure where the photograph has been taken it may be Paris? or Occupied Germany?






This shot is from the second roll of HP3 and is rather good considering it was taken so long ago and only developed 2 weeks ago.







And finally this is a scan from one of sets of negatives that was in a film can that came with the films, a real bonus.
More to follow later.