Using expired film

[usccharles]

hello,

been using my M8 for quite awhile, and recently started getting back into film. pulled out my stock of unused film thats just been catching dust for a while now, and i'm noticing that half of them expired! anybody have any insight into how these expiration dates affect the film? can the film's quality be maintained if they are kept in at temperature controlled environment even if the expiration date passes? any tips on using expired film? how long after expiration can i still use these films without losing quality?

i have a bunch of film that have expired from RVP50, 100, Kodak 160 NC, Delta 3200, Delta 400, XP2, Kodak 3200, among others.

thanks for the help. sorry for so many questions!

[kodaktrix]

It depends on the type of film and the storage conditions. If it is some years, especially for colour film, nobody can say without test.

Just take one of each type, expose it under different light with some 1/2 stops up and down, develop it and You know exactly what You got.

Regards

Oliver

[JasonG]

Hi,

As a positive example, I have just shot and developed four rolls of Kodak T that were 18 years out of date and the pics are superb! Now all I need is a couple of boxes more of this stuff and I'll be happy.

Tra

Jason

[erl]

The answer is as wide as the Nile (in flood!) I'm afraid. Some films will be fine, some disastrous. As a previous poster said, "try before you rely" (paraphrasing ).

I had some seriously OOD C/T film many years ago and was shooting a critical concert performance, live on stage. The contrast range of C/T is not user friendly at the best of times under stage lighting, but I used one roll of the seriously OOD film alongside fresh film. The client "raved" about the OOD film results. They were good. Reason: the film had lost contrast (this is what happens to OOD film) and consequently it 'compensated' for the extreme stage lights.

Caution: Never use OOD film (exclusively) for anything important. But It can be fun for 'everyday' shooting. General rule: It loses 'speed' with age, so start over exposing as it gets older. I still have a large stock of OOD film (thanks M8!! ) which I will only 'play' with now. Anything important will still warrant fresh stock.

[darkstar2004]

Alot of factors affect out of date film.

With E6, you can get color shift & lower contrast. With B&W, you can get lower contrast. It depends on how far out of date the film is.

If the film was frozen before the expiration date, it should be good as freezing halts the aging process. For that reason, I always freeze my unused film until I use it and refreeze it till I get it processed (much to my wife's chagrin).

As a positive example, I have just shot and developed four rolls of Kodak T that were 18 years out of date and the pics are superb!

Congrats, Jason! You were lucky to get good results from film that was that old!

Had it been frozen or was it stored at room temperature?

[ejd]

I've been using out-of-date film a lot recently and it seems perfectly fine. I'm working through a pile of Tri-X pan dated June 2003. No problems with 2005 HP5 and Delta 3200 either. I recently bought some Velvia dated 2007 (about £1 a roll, as I recall) and that seems OK too. A roll of 2005 Velvia shot last month was fine. Of course this is all done purely for pleasure -- nothing 'important' -- so it doesn't really matter whether the pictures come out or not. But it's my impression that the use-by dates on film are pretty conservative, and it will generally be good several years after expiry, longer if stored carefully.

[usccharles]

thanks for all your comments. now i'm pretty relieved. all my expired film are no more than a year past expiration. will keep testing and will look into freezing unused film too.

thank you!

[batmobile]

Originally Posted by usccharles

thanks for all your comments. now i'm pretty relieved. all my expired film are no more than a year past expiration. will keep testing and will look into freezing unused film too.

thank you!

Should be not trouble at all. I have shot film oder than that with no bother.

PS freezing film slows ageing but does not stop it. Cosmic rays are responsible for certain aspects of agening and there is nothing that can be done (realistically) to halt them. Preventing film getting too hot, ie using a fridge or cool cupboard is plenty good enough in most cases.

Rgds

[chango]

Good morning,
Darkstar is right. It must freeze the film at a temperature of -0 ° C. -8 Or moreover, is excellent. This stops the aging process of the film. The out of the plastic box 2 hours before using it to break moisture and prevent condensation tasks. Be careful that your XP2 is the most fragile films BW above. For colors I agree kodaktrix. The results can be... amazing. Give us new

A link for you
Photo Utopia

The film, nothing but fun (and sorry for my English very bad quality)

[maxspbr]

I had some experience with out-of-date black and white film.

When I was just starting with b&w photography (1990) my father bought for me several (around 10) 100ft rolls of Fomapan 100 ASA outdated by 2 years (the price was something like US$3 per 100 ft roll - of course Fomapan wasn't a very popular film here in Brazil).No fridge, just room temperature. First 300 ft used it as 80 ASA, with very good results. Then I had to use stronger developers. The last ones were terrible, very coarse grain. But this was almost 2 years after - and the film was expired 4 years before!

I don't know how is Fomapan now, but at those days it was not a very good film. But I really learned about photography with this film...

Martin