16mm Kodachrome 25 clip tests as B/W neg in Paterson reels

Bernhard Kipperer · January 2, 2017

Hi all!

I just bought a cheap old 16mm 30m/100ft Kodachrome 25 (expired in 1988) to practice film loading with my new Krasnogorsk-3.

But since this film came still in its original packaging, I thought of actually shooting some short clips with parts of it as well to further test the K-3 before buying fresh film.

I don't have any Lomo tanks for 50/100ft developing at hand but thought of using Paterson photo reels for the clip tests.

What about the following experiment:

1.) In the darkroom cut off a 5ft piece of the 16mm film and load on a 16mm movie daylight spool
2.) Shoot these 8 seconds at 24fps with the K-3
3.) Unload in the darkroom and tape the 5ft 16mm film to some junk 35mm 5ft film, emulsion facing out
4.) Load that bi-packed film as usual onto a Paterson 35mm reel for photo developing
5.) Do remjet removal then develop as a black and white negative film

What do you think? Any chance this could work at all?

I see a problem with the film's speed, let's assume it lost 1 stop per decade, so it's at ISO 3 now (25 to 12 to 6 to 3).
The camera uses 1/60s at 24fps and the lens starts at f1.9, so I played around with the "sunny 16" rule, correct me if I'm wrong;

With ISO 3, on a sunny day, I shall use f16 and 1/3s.
f16 down to f1.9 is a bit more than 6 stops, so on a bright day at f1.9, I overexpose by 6 stops at 1/3s.
So my shutter speed could go faster, 1/3s to 1/6s, 1/12s, 1/24s, 1/48s, 1/96s to finally 1/192s.

So wouldn't that mean I can use 1/60s at 24fps with that ISO 3 and have enough light still?
Otherwise I could still try to use 8fps, which uses 1/20s to let in more light.

Bernhard

Michael Carter · January 5, 2017

Steel 110 mm spools hold 16mm film. Jobo plastic 110mm spools hold longer pieces. Lomo spiral developer tanks hold 25 feet, 50 feet, and 100 foot loads of 16mm film, be it regular 8, double s8, or 16mm. Figuring out how to process clips can be done with short pieces and then full rolls can be done at your own place.

Michael

Michael Carter · February 20, 2017

I made a video about how to make clip tests, rather long pieces, not clips.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gQc5u8L3HJE

Bernhard Kipperer · February 20, 2017

Hi!

Cool video, thanks!

I was actually successful some weeks ago with taping the 2 16mm 5 foot clips onto two 35mm junk films and using my normal Paterson reels to develop those 2x8 seconds. Worked pretty well, I tested this many times in light, just taped the first centimeter of both 16mm and 35mm, then I tried it with two actual test clips shot in my Krasnogorsk 3, loaded in the darkroom.

Nothing overlapped and the film came out fine. I will upload pictures of the process to my website once I find the time for it.

However, in the meantime I got a cheap Lomo tank I ordered from Germany, so I can now anyhow develop 100ft of 16mm (in two 50ft pieces) at once, so no need for the Paterson work-around anymore.

But still it was a very cool experiment, Kodachrome expired in 1988, shot at ISO 3 instead of 25, developed as B&W negative instead of reversal and manual rem-jet removal in my sink and I actually got some nice images.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Bernhard Kipperer

Michael Carter · February 20, 2017

Hi,

I would like to see that. Please post a link to the web site. YouTube offers a free channel. Mine has a unboxing video of a expensive 100 ft spiral Russian developing tank.