identify issues with reversal greyscale 8mm film

[Nia]

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Hello,

I have found expired ORWO reversal, greyscale double 8mm film from 1967/1968

It has been subject to harsh conditions of heat/ bad storage etc

For these image stills shared here, i have been hand-processing the films with D94 chemistry, re-expose them in Cairo's sun for minutes, then using D94 as a second developer without fixing the image (hence all silver halide should be consumed at the last step)

I have the following questions:

1) Could you help identify the cracks/wrinkles?

2) Some of the results seemed really good at the re-exposure process (image attached), but then turned out less contrasty at the end results- do you have an idea why?

3) Do you have extra general tips on how to get better results/ clearer images/ better contrast etc?

Thank you very so much in advance

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[adan]

1) As to the wrinkles/cracks, looks like slightly different forms of reticulation. Analogous to the cracking of wet clay in a riverbed when drying and shrinking under hot sun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudcrack

The wet gelatin shrivels and cracks if:

- moved between processing baths of significantly different temperatures

- dried too rapidly.

Today's films are harder to reticulate, but the gelatin coatings used in the 1960s were not as resistant.

I suspect the "harsh conditions of heat/ bad storage" may be the cause. It was "baked into" the film sometime over the past 55 years.

2) As to the different appearance right after reversal, and then later when dry:

When film is viewed wet and still somewhat opaque, we are viewing it by reflected light. Which gets darkened twice by the image (the light entering the film through the silver image, and then bouncing back to our eye again through the silver image). Once the film has dried and we view it with transmitted backlight, the image only looks about half as dark as it did when wet.

|<> vs. >|

However, it is also possible/probable that this is again simply the result of long and hot storage. A film can fade even before it is processed, which is why films come with "expiration dates"  and an expected shelf-life of only 2-3 years. B&W films often exceed that limit by quite a lot - if well-stored (ideally refrigerated).

But the latent image (excited electrons caused by the impact of photons) will fade out eventually - and heat accelerates the chemical reaction.

3) I'm not sure anything can be done about (1) if it is a physical change during storage. Better control of processing temperatures and drying conditions may help if it turns out to be a processing problem.

The density might be improved by significantly longer development (2-3x what you have used so far), to try and convert every possible bit of exposed silver halide to visible silver.

And/or by using an additonal processing step at the end, with a chemical intensifier solution, which plates out additional metal onto whatever silver has developed, to increase the density/darkness/strength of the image.

Below is just one of several forms of intensifiers - others would include selenium toning with a strong solution (1:3 dilution), or a mercury intensifier. Unfortunately they all tend to involve rather nasty chemicals:

https://www.freestylephoto.com/050065-Formulary-Chromium-Intensifier-Powder-1-Liter

[Nia]

This explanation makes perfect sense - as these cracks only appeared when I re-exposed the film for longer periods of time under the sun (in hopes to get higher contrasts) - moving between the wet solutions and the long(er) exposures of harsh summer sun have caused this-- luckily and according to the notes and results collected, these cracks are not "baked into" the gelatin...

for reference, so far, the "safe" periods of the second exposures in direct sunlight for this film have been between 50secondes to 1:30 minutes

and the longer periods, which caused the cracks were over 3 minutes (the longest i made was 5minutes)

I will attempt to fix the second exposure period next time and confirm the safe limit...

Thank you so very much for your generous, thorough answer; I will try to use this advice to get better results