Photography Query

jeallen01

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@jeallen01
Are you a jack of all trades????????????????
Absolutely, but also "master" of ABSOLUTELY NONE! - as will have been abundantly clear from many of my posts on this forum (and MANY others!) .:(
PS: FWIW, been interested in photography since my early teens - and I started with a "620" film format (!)folding Kodak which I tried to use for shooting planes at Farnborough airshows in the early 1960s. That lead me to get an early Praktika SLR and building my own darkroom and enlarger (made to drawings in a book from soldered--together large baked bean cans, some wood - including the neg carrier - a couple of steel plumbing pipes, & the lenses from my cameras as enlarger lenses! But it DID work!), which, in turn, got me into photochemistry, DX radio with an old superhet Rx, E&E engineering at uni, and then, finally, the regs & safety side of the electric/electronics industries where I, finally, found a "sort of" "career for life" (and quite a few other things out of necessity and lack of cash!).

PPS: IIRC I think I did actually use, and later develop, Verichrome/Pan in the days I used the Kodak :)
 
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nelson_b

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Thank you "all" for the quick response,s and very detailed replies :)
I have shown all this info to my neighbour and she is most grateful ... and can now go ahead and seek out the specialists needed - now that she knows what she actually has, and what can be done as regards scanning the negatives etc ...
I will return here at some point, and report on the outcome ... thanks again :)
 

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The 35mm film strips can be viewed by attaching by the edges to a window in daylight. Photograph them with a smartphone (most will focus very close- hold it very steady) and then invert the image in software, or maybe in "negative" special effect. Quality won't be very high but you will be able to see what they hold.
Higher quality still can be had with a DSLR and a macro lens. There will be people in the local camera club with a scanner. Ask round before you spend money.
The (French) Verichrome (monochrome) films are likely to produce pretty grey results, it they come out at all, after remaining undeveloped for half a century. The previous suggestion of developing them in D76 is a good one - but ask in the camera club for help as they need to be processed in a tank with a 120 reel. ID-11 will also work. They will be either 6 x 6 cm or 6 x 9 cm, an old, odd format which won't fit in many scanners.
 

jeallen01

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8 on a 620 roll = 3&1/4" x 2&1/4" is how I remember the neg format! :D
Agree that the contrast & "definition" are likely to be "rather poor" - that's how I remember that too!
 

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There was a third variation where there was a different mask that could fit in the camera and then, there would be 2 number viewing Windows on the back of the camera. So, putting the film in you wound until the 1 appeared in the first window, took the pic then wound until it appeared in the second window. So it ended up with 2 half size pics in place of each 6x9.

Think the format was called Isoly but could be mistaken.
 

jeallen01

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There was a third variation where there was a different mask that could fit in the camera and then, there would be 2 number viewing Windows on the back of the camera. So, putting the film in you wound until the 1 appeared in the first window, took the pic then wound until it appeared in the second window. So it ended up with 2 half size pics in place of each 6x9.

Think the format was called Isoly but could be mistaken.
Edited: Ref "Isoly", this later triggered something in my mind to the effect that Agfa produced a number of "Isola" cameras. Did a bit of searching that showed that this range (and later 35mm) of cameras from the 1960s/70s cameras was originally called "Isoly" and used the 4cmX4cm format on 120 film, but was then renamed to "Isola" - so I don't think that Isoly was the name for the format that you had in mind.

@OP: might be worth asking the lady if she already has any prints which she thinks may have been taken with the same camera because that could give an idea of which format was used in it?
 
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jeallen01

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Ref the "16 on 120/620" issue, this Wikipedia page lists the commonly used formats on 120 film, and 6cm X 4.5cm is one of them - until recently it was quite widely used in some "Medium Format" 120/220 film SLRs like the Pentax 645 and so on.
 

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The old black and white films need to be developed by someone who has been developing by hand for a long time.

A clip test must be done first. The film is taken into a darkroom and a several small sections are clipped off and developed to find a time and temperature to give good results.

I would expect the choice of developer would be one known to compensate for possible harsh contrast and base fog due to its age. Professional labs usually default to that type of developer anyway. (If it was me, I would prefer to try stand development of some clips in Rodinal but I doubt any lab would try that!)

Get the film scanned professionally by the people who developed it. The 35mm film can go in a minilab machine which will hold it flat, illuminate it properly and have the right amount of contrast for the image. The medium format roll films will be scanned in a professional scanner, usually either a Hasselblad or a Nikon and will give excellent results. Any non professional scanner will not compare to the results of the professional scanners.

Try The Darkroom in Cheltenham, Peak Labs, Photo Hippo, or DSCL in Manchester. I have used them all over the years. There are various ways of dealing with black and white film so you need to phone them and talk to them so they know what they are dealing with. You will find them all helpful even if they can't help in this particular case.
 

nelson_b

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Hi Folks --
Just to let you know the outcome .....

After chatting on the phone to various company,s my neighbour sent all that she had to The Darkroom in Cheltenham .... and had all the negatives made into prints .. and was pleased with the results (family photos) ....

The undeveloped film was not a success ( just fog ) age and poor storage i guess ...

Thanks again to you all ..... for all the input on this .......
 
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