I was recently given a 4-pack of Fujifilm Super HQ 200 film with an expiration date of 2007. I don't normally go looking for expired film; I am more inclined to seek predictability than serendipity. Nevertheless, it seemed like it would be interesting to see what eleven years on a shelf would produce, so I loaded a roll in my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim. I exposed the whole roll at one of my regular test sites, the air and space boneyard behind the nuclear museum.
I gave the film normal processing in Unicolor C-41 and made no exposure adjustments in scanning. I saw little lessening of sensitivity - perhaps a stop low - and no real color shifts.
I'll probably give away the remaining three rolls at the next meet-up of the New Mexico Film Photographers group, but I think I would feel as comfortable in using this past-due film as if it were newly purchased.
6 comments:
I'm not a fan of expired film either - I also prefer to know what I'm going to get. However, I'm feeling the itch to shoot more Plus-X, a film I like a lot and miss, and now the only way to get it is to buy expired.
It seems like anything up to about ten years is a pretty good bet. A rule of thumb suggested often is to allow an extra stop for each ten years of age. I acquired some pretty old 127 once after the format became hard to get and it gave me some ok images. I'm impressed with the robustness and wide latitude of several of the modern inexpensive color films like Fuji and Kodak ColorPlus.
I have shot quite a bit of expired black and white film, some as much as 40 years past the box date, with mostly successful and sometimes even surprisingly good results. I've never shot a roll of expired color film. There are too many ways I can screw up a photo, I don't need to add that variable to the recipe. Haha!
Yep, pretty much in the same league as herding cats.
I like these shots Mike. The VUWS seems to beg for expired film. I shoot almost exclusively expired film and really enjoy the 'shiftyness' of it. Whether it's fog or grain or what have you, there are always shots that please me. There are indeed shots that displease me as well and the occasional entire roll that won't give up even a shadow, but the fun is worth the pain. I wish I could say that it is always the cheaper alternative, but the hipsters and Gen-Y shooters have driven the prices up to very near that of fresh film. Ah well, there's always x-ray film and paper if I need to appease the cheapskate in my head.
Thanks for contributing to this expired film subject with a different viewpoint. Since I have followed your work on line for a while now I know that you do show a lot of fine work, not only with expired film, but also incorporating out-of-the-ordinary processing along with camera and lens mods. While my own creative efforts tend to follow a narrower path, I do appreciate the work of people like yourself who are willing to allow a greater element of chance into the image-making process.
Post a Comment