This week I bought a used bulk film loader (more on that in another post). The seller also gave me five previously rolled rolls of film. Three of five were marked “1600 ASA TX 36 EXP.” I took this to mean the rolls were Kodak T-Max 1600 (since Tri-X pegs out at 400 ASA). He warned me that the film was old and he didn’t know if it was any good or not.

I figured I’d shoot a roll. If it didn’t work, I’d only be out my time. I put a roll of it into my Canon Canonet QL 17. I set my external meter to 1600 and took a few days to get through the roll. Later, I developed in Diafine.

The negatives were really thin. But there were visible negatives! I examined the edges of the film strips and saw it was labeled “Kodak Safety Film 5063” which is their Tri-X 400. This means I metered my shots to be two stops overexposed. Not ideal, but not the end of the world.

Scanning the negatives revealed they were super grainy. Deliciously grainy, in fact. But the scans would require some tweaking in Lightroom. Running a few of them through Topaz Photo AI might also be appropriate. Results of a few shots are below.