Expired But Refrigerated XP2 & Efke 25

Shawn Rahman · Jun 18, 2007

Just found a couple of rolls of Ilford XP2 and Efke 25 with Sept. 2006 and Nov. 2006 expiration dates (respecticely) deep in the bowels of my fridge. I think I bought these in early 2005 and they've been living in the fridge since.

Has either one lost its usefulness, or should they still be good?

fschifano · Jun 18, 2007

I'd be surprised if they've gone bad. I've got film older than that in my fridge and it's fine.

AgX · Jun 18, 2007

The general attitude towards deepfreezing unexposed film is that it literally freezes it at the state it was before freezing (somewhere else I posted figures on freezing exposed film).

The industry freezes too. In a press release Agfa stated that they are freezing at -26°C. (Which is more than the -18° C typical in househould. Could be they share freezing space with others who need deeper temperatures.)

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · Jun 18, 2007

They're still good.
Refrigeration extends the life of film quite a bit by my understanding, more so with the slower speeds, there's no reason to think they'd be damaged in any way.
I'm using colour negative film that expired in mid 2005, I think was kept on a shelf, and it's still spot on.

Snapshot · Jun 18, 2007

I've had no problems with film that's been frozen and expired.

kjsphoto · Jun 18, 2007

I have used film that has been 10 years old with no problems at all.

The film will be fine...

srs5694 · Jun 18, 2007

If the film was in the refrigerator section (with milk, etc.), the preservative effects of the low temperature will be less than if the film was in the freezer section. Still, the film is well under a year past date, and if it's been refrigerated or frozen for ~2 years I agree it should be fine.

One other point that's been alluded to earlier: Fast films get less of a longevity boost from freezing or refrigeration than slow films. The reason is that cosmic rays fog films in proportion to their speed, and temperature has no effect on this problem. What freezing/refrigeration does help with is slowing down chemical changes. That said, I don't expect that even your ISO 400 XP2 Super will be significantly fogged by cosmic rays at just a few months past its date.

htmlguru4242 · Jun 18, 2007

I've used refrigerated and un-refrigerated XP2 that's more than a year past date, and its been absolutely fine.

There's also no reason that there'd be an issue with the Efke.

It's all fine!

AgX · Jun 18, 2007

I just realized that the initial question was about refrigerating and not deepfreezing. I mixed up fridge with freezer...

Concerning cosmic radiation, I somewhere read that the industry tries to protect their stock against them.
(In the hightime of atomic test fallout radiation was another issue to the industry...)

Expired But Refrigerated XP2 & Efke 25

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