How should old Ferrania CR50 slide film be developed, and can it be processed as black and white?
Asked 3/14/2018
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I found several old 35mm film cassettes marked "exposed" and "CR50," which I believe may be Ferrania CR50 reversal film. I first tried developing one roll as black and white using Ilfosol, stop, and fixer, but got almost no visible image apart from faint edge markings. Is this film likely to need an older color reversal process, and if so which one? If proper color processing is impractical, can it still be developed as black and white, and what times/results should I expect with very old stock?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
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Well I'm answering my own question as I had some more old reels of film to develop and so was able to experiment a bit - and the results might be useful to other people.
All the below are colour reversal films developed as B&W, using Ilfosol 3 developer (1+9 dilution), Ilfostop (1+19 dilution) and Ilfofix (1+9 dilution). All at 20 degrees celsius.
In all cases, Ilfostop was for around 30 seconds and Ilfofix was for 7 minutes.
Obviously I don't get any colour from them - just monochrome. There was a green tinge to all of them, except the magenta & cyan ones mentioned below.
Ferrania CR50 (35mm): 8 minutes. All the films I developed had never been exposed, but I got to this time from developing the word 'SAFETY' on the film edge :-)
Kodak Ektachrome EPD135-36 'Process E-6' (35mm): 6 minutes gave an underdeveloped result - so I'd shoot for 7.5 minutes if done again.
Kodak Ektachrome EH135-20 'Process E-4' (35mm): 8 minutes gave an overdeveloped result - so I'd go for 6.5 minutes in future.
Kodachrome-X EX620 'Process E-4' (120 size film): 6.5 minutes gave a good result.
Kodakcolor 400 'Process C-41' (120 size film): 8 minutes - turned out very well. Had a magenta finish, which partly washed out into the developer & fixer (which helped the scanning). Easily the best result I had.
Agfacolor CT18 (120 size film): 8 minutes - good results, a strong cyan finish washed out into the developer & fixer.
I also developed some colour 16mm cine film using the same process:
Ektachrome EF7242: 8 minutes - good results.
Agfa Gevaert T615: 8 minutes - good results.
Most of the films were around 35 to 45 years old - so it was good to see what was on them.
Thanks for people's comments on this.
Originally by user72953. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user72953
8y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Ferrania CR50 appears to be old color reversal film, and some sources suggest it may predate E-6 and may have originally required an older reversal process such as E-4. For very old exposed film, proper color recovery is uncertain anyway because latent images may have faded over time, especially if storage was poor.
If your goal is simply to recover any image at all, developing it as black and white is a practical approach. Based on the shared results, Ferrania CR50 was successfully developed as monochrome in Ilfosol 3 at 1+9 for about 8 minutes at 20°C, followed by a stop bath for about 30 seconds and fixing for about 7 minutes. Expect no color, only a monochrome image, possibly with a tint in the base.
If you can see edge markings such as "SAFETY," the film has developed; blank-looking frames may just mean the original images were badly underexposed or have faded. With film this old, outcomes are unpredictable. If the images matter, a specialist old-film lab may be the safest option.
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