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Showerthought: Why old film shots have that specific grey tone
Pulled out some negatives from a box last night. Shots from a 1970s Kodak Retina I picked up in Chicago. Compared them to fresh rolls I developed last week using a new stop bath. The old ones have this unique greyish cast I used to hate. Realized it's because the developer chemistry back then had more bromide in it. That's what gives it that look. Anybody else notice this when scanning their family's old negatives?
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dylan_patel24d agoTop Commenter
Actually I gotta push back on the bromide theory a bit. I developed a few hundred rolls from the 1940s and 1950s for an archive project and the grey cast is way more consistent across different brands than people realize. Kodak's Tri-X from 1954 has a totally different grey tone than Ilford HP3 from the same year, even though both used similar bromide levels in their developers. The real culprit is probably the stop bath chemistry had less acetic acid back then, which left more residual silver in the emulsion. Three different film stocks I tested all showed the same shift when I swapped to a modern stop bath formula versus a period correct one. Does anybody else have old negatives that look different depending on what year they were shot?
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richardfox24d ago
Read somewhere that Kodak actually adjusted their bromide levels on purpose back then to get a specific look for different films. Something about how the bromide acts as a restrainer in the developer, slows things down, and that extra silver retention is what gives old negatives that milky grey quality. I scanned my granddad's slides from the 60s and they all have the same tone, even the ones he shot on different cameras. Kind of makes me appreciate the chemistry behind it more now. Plus the fixer formulas were stronger back then too, which probably played a part in preserving that look.
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piper17524d ago
So you're saying my inconsistent darkroom results might actually be Kodak's fault all along?
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