Developing Expired Ektachrome P800/1600

[Oliver Compton]

I just shot a 25 year old roll of expired Kodak Ektachrome P800/1600 film (reversal). I've shot a bit of expired film but never slide film and I'm just curious how I should get it developed.

Knowing that it would be less sensitive (it was not stored in a cool place), I decided to shoot at a lower ISO. The roll has 4 options and says to circle which speed you used: 400 - E-6, 800 - P1, 1600 - P2 and 3200 - P3. I stupidly didn't pay attention to that when I put it in and thought it was 200 for some reason, so I shot it at 100 ISO.

My question is, if I got it developed like it is 400, would my compensation for the degraded sensitivity be adequate or too much? In other words, should I get it developed at 400 or pull it to 200??

Also, I shot it expecting to not be able to get it processed "properly" and only get it cross processed. Since then, I found a place that does slide film developing, so now I'm not sure what I want to do. I'm open to doing either and mostly just want photos that aren't a washed out mess or underexposed garbage!

I'm still figuring out expired film and push/pull techniques, so excuse me if that was confusing. Would appreciate any insight or suggestions into what to do. Thanks!!

 

[MultiFormat Shooter]

With the age, lack of cold-storage, and exposure situation, you'd probably have the most luck with cross-processing. It would probably have a decided magenta cast, if processed as E-6.

 

[Donald Qualls]

i agree with @MultiFormat Shooter -- in this case, you're probably ahead to stick with the original plan of cross processing as C-41 at normal (no push). That way you'll get possibly overexposed negatives with the "x-pro" look -- but both overexposure and x-pro color shifts will give reasonably printable negatives (though not "natural looking" colors), where overexposing by what's probably at least a stop or more even accounting for age would likely produce slides that are a waste of money (overexposed slides are, in my opinion, one of the worst things you can try to view -- when projected, they'll make you squint trying to pull any kind of image out of the glare).