?? developing old rolls of film -- will anything show up?

[grasswire]

I was unpacking some boxes from my mom's estate and found some rolls of film that were never developed and are probably 20 or so years old. Could they be developed into prints, still? Some are 35 mm., and some are the 100 Kodak cartridges. Whaddya think?

[LeftyMom]

1. I've developed roughly 10 yo film before.

It came out but the color was very washed out. If you can take it to a pro and have it manually done rather than by machine, that might help. Otherwise do the 24-48 hour development rather than one hour photo, it's cheaper and you get better pics.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I'm with LeftyMom on this one.........

Definitely have a commercial lab do them.....

It might cost more, but you're more likely to get good pics out of them...

If you lived in SoCal, I could definitely recommend a place to take them to.....

:hi:

[Deja Q]

3. !

As Lefty has said, the color will be washed -- but if you get them scanned, and they use a high quality negative scanner (none of this cheapie flatbed rubbish) and save as a high res file (equiv. to 20MP digital), they can easily be restored.

[jmowreader]

4. I think you should send it to these guys...

http://www.rockymountainfilm.com

Rocky Mountain Film Lab is famous for its ability to process ancient film--that's pretty much all they do. They get good prints from old film, too.

[grasswire]

5. thanks for the link

about thirty bucks a roll, and it takes 6-12 months. I'll have to save up for that, as I have about 20 rolls.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Follow their advice AND only develop, no prints AND only do 2-3 rolls

I would ask them only to process the film - and maybe just start with 2 or 3 random rolls. Tell them how old it is, have them do it manually (no machine), take it to a real pro shop, and see how the negatives look - it will be cheaper than asking them to develop AND make prints of everything.

This way you can a) see what the pictures are of, and whether they're anything you'd want anyway, and b) see if the negatives are of a good enough quality to make prints at all.

And if none of the sample rolls look good, it's probably a good bet none of the rolls are good and so you can toss them all, and you've only incurred the cost of developing a couple rolls of film.