Nukepr Loc: Citrus County, FL

I recently found several rolls of developed film that had never been processed. It is three rolls of 35mm film, Kidak Max, Ektachrome and Tri-X pan and thre rolls of 127 verichrome pan. I am in florida, but will be happy to mail film if I know where to send it. Help, please

RLSeipleSr Loc: North of Boston

Try "The Darkroom" - https://thedarkroom.com/product/film-developing/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAyracBhDoARIsACGFcS6u4_GcgkaKxJjKcJNcCSOiZOGbecNVpg885z_AiNT3-U1JvBkgWuEaAtwlEALw_wcB ...

SteveInConverse Loc: South Texas

Darkroom has a very good reputation from what I've seen. Costs about $25 to develop and superscan a roll of film.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You want the scans, if there should be anything good there. Darkroom will send back the negatives too. It's all handled online from their website.

jlsphoto Loc: Chcago SubBurbs

Richards photo lab in CA as well.

https://www.richardphotolab.com/

Nukepr Loc: Citrus County, FL

Thank you for the suggestion. And thanks for the additional comments about the service. I will bundle my film and ship to The Darkroom and then wait to see what images are on these rolls.
Mac

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

As others have said, The Darkroom would be my choice of lab.

Results from old film vary a great deal, depending on the film, storage conditions, how old it is, original exposure quality, etc. I usually set my expectations pretty low, so I'll be at least somewhat surprised and pleased with the results. You might find amazing history, or a blank roll of film, or anything in between.

Bill_R Loc: Southeastern Wisconsin

I used The Darkroom once a number of years ago for a similar situation. The film I found, I'm guessing, was at least 50 years old. Surprisingly, they were able to pull off a couple of images - highly degraded, but usable. I don't recall what they charged, but seem to remember it being pretty reasonable. The turn around time was better than I expected, too.

Steved3604

With old film you fight three things. Age, heat and radiation (and possibly some others). If exposed in, let's say, the last 22 years (exposed correctly) and stored in a freezer you have a very good chance of reasonably good pix. If exposed 30 - 50+ years ago and stored in a fridge you have a reasonable chance of getting a picture. Stored in an attic -- reduces chances. Heat is an issue. Freezer is usually better than a fridge and basement is usually better than main floor or attic. Kodak film usually does well with age. My WAG (wild ass guess) is that the Verichrome Pan will come out -- and maybe pretty good. That film does well with age. Black and white usually does better than color when developing old film. Of course, the only way to know is to develop the film. You are taking a chance with any old film -- good luck and let us know how it comes out.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

I've had good experiences with Dwayne's Photo of Parson's Kansas. They developed Steve McCurry's last rolls of Kodachrome 25.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

Additional Query: Should the poster inform Darkroom or other developers that the film has been sitting around exposed for several years? Would there be a difference between old film that has been exposed and not developed for several years as is the case with our poster and outdated film that is just now found and exposed. Thanks

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

YES. Any information you have about the age of the film, storage conditions, and whatever else you know about it can help.

Latent images from long ago tend to be a bit more faint than latent images exposed yesterday on very old film. That said, the storage conditions of film really have the most to do with the outcome.

Film is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation starting in the microwave band and going all the way up to gamma rays in wavelength and frequency. So any exposure to heat, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays, or cosmic radiation will fog it. Film stored in metal cans in a deep basement freezer will last longer than film stored in an attic. Both the type of radiation exposure and duration are factors in play.

Some professional films are/were made to be used almost immediately after manufacture — within three to six months. Amateur films are typically designed to be used within a couple of years of manufacture. So a film like Kodak Portra may show more speed loss over time than Verichrome Pan or Kodacolor.

Kodachrome can still be processed, but only as black-and-white. The color process no longer exists. A few labs will still run an occasional batch of C-22 negative film or E4 slide film, but the chemistry for those films is hard to get.

Plenty of black-and-white chemistry is available, and the labs who specialize in old film know which developers and times and temperatures tend to work best with it. If they can't pull any detail out of your film, it probably wasn't there to start with.

VTMatwood Loc: Displaced Vermonta in Central New Hampsha

You should define exactly what films you have and how they need to be processed, and be sure of how the developing house you want to use will process them. I recently came across an exposed roll of Kodacolor X620 requiring C-22 processing (a color process chemistry that is no longer available) ... the roll was exposed in the early/mid 60's. While the darkroom will process it as B&W (and they do all of my processing since I moved to a home with no darkroom), I chose to go with The Camera Shop in St Cloud, MN as they will not only process it (in B&W as well) but they will scan the negatives, maximize the contrast, and then colorize the scans and print the images. The "maximizing the contrast" component sounds easy but in speaking with them, there is alot of experience that goes into doing that right. They are more expensive, but your chances of getting usable images from really old exposed film goes up. In the end they will send me the negatives, original scans, colorized scans, and the prints for around $40. It's worth it to me since the film may contain images of my family that will become special to me.

I'll post a "review" of their service when I get the scans and prints back. One thing to note... on older film, there is a high likelihood of getting very few to no usable images. My expectations are 1-5 images from the roll. 50 years of unknown storage is a long time for color fim.

leftj Loc: Texas

I send mine to The Dark Room.

ELNikkor

The Max is probably C-41, so any contemporary film lab can process it. The B&W may be able to be processed at a local darkroom. I recently had a 60 year old roll of C-22 Kodacolor processed by a lab in PA. The photos came out reasonably well!