On Mar 1, 2006, at 10:40 AM, graywolf wrote:
Yes, up into at least the early to mid-1950's. Because that is what I was shooting and developing as a kid. I am not sure when they changed over to plastic cores.
I have a case of 120 film of Italian manufacture that as best I can determine comes from the late 1950s and is on wooden reels.
Back when I was still running my lab, before retiring to initially be a dad for a while and then focus myself back on my sidetracked photographic career, I bought the entire contents of a guy's garage to get a couple of really neat photographic pieces, including a Kodak glass plate camera stand from the turn of the century that was in magnificent shape. Among the stuff I got were thousands of magazines, and boxes marked PHOTO CHEMICALS that contained many glass jars of powder, mostly unlabeled. (Also, perfect condition cans of old Kodak developers that had never been opened. They made one hell of a window display.)
One day I was looking for something at the back of the lab and I knocked one of the PHOTO CHEMICALS boxes off of a shelf. Aww crap, I thought. But when it hit the ground, there was no sound of breaking glass. The corner of the cardboard box tore, and inside was another cardboard box. I pulled it out, and it was labeled 120 FORMAT - MADE IN ITALY. Inside was a full case of 120 film wrapped in silver foil, never before opened.
I shot a couple of rolls of it to try to determine if it was useable. Effective ISO turned out to be around 25, maybe a little slower, with surprisingly little base fog. It's definitely not full spectrum sensitive.
I keep saving it for some kind of cool project, but I can't figure out what kind of cool project I could use it for. I was going to use it for Sunset, the photographed noir-style short novel (basically a book with a photograph on every facing page), but since I was doing a lot of available light stuff it was far too slow.
I'd sell it if someone wanted it, but I can't really think of what it's worth. I'd trade it for neat or useful lenses.
-Aaron
