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7277 4XR how old is it?


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There's no date hidden in those codes- the top row is the perf specification followed by the stock designation, the second is the emulsion type followed by two numbers showing which part of the wide master roll your individual can of film was cut from, and the third is the catalogue number.

Professional stock never has a quoted expiry date- you're expected to acquire and use it promptly.

All I can add is that  cans looked like that when I went to film school in 1979-82. They changed in about 1990 with the advent of Keykode.

If you really want to know, there is a latent image date code.. So if you do a clip test you will see it.

https://16mmfilminfo.com/dates.html

Edited by Mark Dunn
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The photo of the frames shows all there is to see on the edges. J2 over 57 then the frame numbers. I will look some more.

Yea, I just processed it a different way again today and had to pull the processing as it was shot at 6 Asa and too overexposed. Thank you for commenting.

Michael Carter

Edited by Michael Carter
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20 hours ago, Michael Carter said:

The photo of the frames shows all there is to see on the edges. J2 over 57 then the frame numbers. I will look some more.

Yea, I just processed it a different way again today and had to pull the processing as it was shot at 6 Asa and too overexposed. Thank you for commenting.

Michael Carter

There should be some tiny characters as well, every few feet, the same side as the edge numbers, usually  "KODAK S.AFETY FILM", a stock code, and a shape pattern as per the link I posted. The position of the dot in "S.AFETY" tells you where the stock was made, in this case Rochester.

I don't have any b/w stock to check so I can't be sure they appear on it.

The edge numbers are to identify individual frames for matching the camera original to a cutting copy. The larger number increments every 20 frames, the smaller one obviously much less often. So every cut in a film can be uniquely identified by its offset from the nearest edge number.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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You have 42258 near the beginning of the roll, so at two numbers per foot, the last edge number on the roll will be something like 43058. J2 57 won't change, probably for the whole 6000' length of the master roll. If I'm right about that, you'd have to shoot 156 million feet to get two identical edge numbers, Mr. Kubrick.

You'll see that they bear no relation to the can codes. No reason to- the can roll codes are to identify the machinery if the stock is faulty. Back in the day there would be production samples of every single roll, and roll cut, processed and carefully filed.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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Thanks Mark, 

This film was returned from the lab. My least exposed shots are the only ones to show decently. Good thing I bracketed and then experimented even more in low to no-light. The interior at f1.5 was overexposed. It must be 320 Asa. Twilight out of doors of lamps by a garage door show all the details in the dark edges, then later, and even darker, another exposure even looks good. The film edges are a light gray as is the leader, much lighter than I process, I project my films, This looks like it is made to be scanned, not projected. I can not even come close to duplicating what they did. Should have been very hot and very fast. My hot and fast resulted in totally clear film. 98 F and 30 seconds. 88 and 30 gave faint images. I got it to work though at other ways. No other markings appear on the film other than the numbers every 20 frames. 400 and 800 ASA are now in my tool kit with this film. I shot bright sun at f22 and 64 fps today to process after I buy more chemicals.

Edited by Michael Carter
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While photographing some frames on this film developed by CineLab, I found very faint, very tiny, thin, symbols and some words after KODAK, none of which I had ever seen. I'll post an image after I get a more clear photograph. But I found the symbols.

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6 hours ago, Michael Carter said:

While photographing some frames on this film developed by CineLab, I found very faint, very tiny, thin, symbols and some words after KODAK, none of which I had ever seen. I'll post an image after I get a more clear photograph. But I found the symbols.

You've found the date and factory codes. They are really tiny- they're not meant to be easily read by eye as the edge numbers are.

See here for an interesting story on date codes as relating to the faked "alien autopsy" film. Search for "1967".

https://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/alienaut.htm

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SA.FETY- which according to my resource means it was made in Canada.

Apparently there's supposed to be a vertical bar whose position enables you to determine the quarter of the year in which the stock was made. But that's getting a bit OCD.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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