Film Re-cycling Experiments Part 1.

After ripping out 70 odd ft of Vision1 500T (15 years old) out of a bulk loader and sitting it on my floor in the light (to make room for new Vision2 50D and Vision3 500T for bulk loading... still got another 700 ft of Vision1 500T in cans), I thought of something to do with it.

Cut some of it up, loaded it in a tank, processed it in some Xtol, now then I chilled a weak solution of potassium ferricyanide and potassium bromide to bleach the film back to all silver halide (just silver bromide) slowly to make a high contrast, fine grain, slow speed b&w film.. though I can try putting it through C-41 to get the CMY dyes (wont be a real colour image, but can treat it as a b&w during scanning for chromogenic b&w for IR dust removal), or just regular b&w processing.

The stuff still in the can and old expired film sitting around I have that's now shitty quality (Kodak Gold 100 from 2000), I can try just bleaching the fog (specks of elemental silver) away back to silver halide to restore the speed and denisty range.

If I want to keep it as useful colour film, that will have to be gas bleaching, so that it doesn't wash out the anti-halation layer and the spectral sensitisation dyes etc.

I also figured I could bake some film out in the sun until it is all reduced to metallic silver, and gas-bleach it back to silver halide for a high contrast, fine grain, slow colour film.

Kodak Australia Helpful

Left a message on the Kodak site U.S. asking the difference between 5219 (Vision3 500T, http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Products/Production/Color_Negative_Films/5219.htm) and 5230 (500T, http://motion.kodak.com/AU/en/motion/Products/Production/Color_Negative_Films/5230.htm) as it was newly listed with a newer data sheet.

Received a phone call from a Kodak Australia rep (Fuji Australia last year or the year before I had to chase down numbers which most were no longer working it seemed..) explaining that 5230 is basically Vision2 (iirc) and lower cost and aimed for TV dramas etc etc. with a more limited format size and length range. He was quite helpful and enthusiastic

5219 is still the latest and greatest 500T. It comes in 100ft spools.. so it's ready to bulk load, so I dont have to buy a 400ft core and rewind by hand into a bulk loader.. which takes some damn time last time I tried.

50D comes in a 200 ft core at the smallest size.. which isn't too bad, I'd like to try that too.

And also 1000ft of 65mm.. to trim down into my saved up 120 spools and paper.