So I got this roll of an old russian color film called Svema TSNL 65. There is not much info about it online, but from what I gathered it uses an old process called C-22. Not C-41 as we are used to. Wikipedia says a little bit: "The development of the film material was carried out at temperatures of around 75°F (24°C), making the process incompatible with the more modern C-41 process, which uses a temperature of 100°F (38°C)"
I found some forum posts about people trying to develop these kinds of films in C41 and end up with the emulsion in their hands. Someone had experimented with lower temperatures and longer times, so I thought I'd try this route too myself.
The first thing I noticed was that the film came in just a roll, no cassette. So luckly I had already some cassettes I could put this roll in. Pretty easy, it came rolled backwards so just put the end bit into the roll and started rolling tight, then put it into the cassette and off we went. My Pentax MX did not like this film, it was too stiff and britle. When I loaded it and turned the winder, the film straight snapped off. The Canonet works better with these kinds of issues since it has a different kind of mechanism to advance the film.
I shot it at around ISO12, since GOST 65 is ISO80-64, that makes it around 2 stops more. The film expired in April 1982, so according to the one stop per decade rule, that would make it a little bit too little. And my initial experiments show this to be correct, another stop would have been better.
So, results. I got pictures, but it seems the color couplers are just going bonkers from the C41. It's kinda like a b/w image with random flows of colors going through it. I developed at room temperature for 10 minutes with very careful agitation as to not to upset the emulsion. I then did a mistake and blixed it for a mere 6 minutes. At room temperature, this was not at all enough. I did another round of blixing for 4 minutes, but this was STILL not enough as I can see some residual silver. Something also went weird when drying, a big piece of the negative got a weird red stain, which might indicate a fixing problem.
However, I am in any case very pleased with the results since I love to experiment and document these kinds of things. I am sure there are still tens of thousands of rolls of the stuff sitting somewhere in a forgotten warehouse. This was just half of one roll, so more will follow soon. What I think I'll do next time is warm up the liquids just a tiny bit to 24C, agitate at bit more normally, develop a bit longer, and then blix for at least 10min straight. I will also shoot it at ISO8.
Here are some pictures. Enjoy the cosmic colors.
Probably my favourite this one.