After 6 weeks or so, I finally shot through the first roll of 50 year old Ansco Versapan.
Strangely, it more or less jumped on the reel, so I’m curious to see what—if anything—the edge markings reveal.
Equally strangely, the bottom of the film canister was loose… This was fortunate, since I seem to have lost my church key. I was able to just pop the end off in the darkbag, so I wonder if there will be any pictures on the roll at all.*
Due to its (supposed/purported) age, I shot it at one stop over. It was easy with enough light, but a bit difficult at dusk/dawn.
50 ISO isn’t much.
Pictured here is the ancient film chilling in a tank full of R3 Monobath from New55. Honestly, that was probably the workd’s easiest at-home developing.
I pulled the bottle out of the cabinet and stick a thermometer in it: it was about 79F. Since the instructions call for 80, I figured it was close enough and didn’t bother warming it.
I took everything outside to limit the ammonium smell. Hopefully it didn’t warm up too much, but we’ll see.
You’ll just have to wait and see how it turned out… Did the developer work?
*I’m also curious to see what, if anything, the edge markings reveal… The tape holding the film to the spindle was still sticky, and I half wonder if I was sold some new film masquerading as old Ansco, but since I picked the two rolls up for $10 shipped, that seems like a load of work for not much reward…
Either way, it’ll be nice to see what I can discover about the film once I get it scanned and in the computer, if there’s anything to scan.
