Expired film questions.

manfromh · Mar 19, 2010

A local store was selling expired film for half price. I do not know how they were stored.
So heres what I got:
10 rolls of Fuji Superia 100 120 expired in November 2009. I'm not worried about this one though.

5 rolls of Fuji Provia 400x. Expired in September 2009. Should I expect color casts, assuming it was not kept in a fridge? I've wanted to try this film ever since it came out, but it was always too expensive (about $14 for a fresh roll)

2 rolls of Fuji Superia 1600. Expired in March 2009. This one I'm worried about. A high speed film expired for a year, and possibly not been in a fridge. Is it even worth shooting this?

Also, is expired film more sensitive to airport x-ray machines? I assume not, but just wanna be sure.

Matis

Peter de Groot · Mar 19, 2010

Well shoot it and find out. I wouldn't be too worried but you only know for sure if you try it. Especially the 1600. Shoot it the way you want to but expect nothing.

Lanline · Mar 19, 2010

I've shot film as old as 27 years out of date and got good results. Shooting color even 10 years out of date, the shift in color has been slight. I found the outdated 800 and 1600 films useful in a Holga and not much else.

hrst · Mar 19, 2010

Probably quite ok, just shoot them. Shoot Superia 1600 at 1200 or 1000 or even 800, you can't go much wrong.

manfromh · Mar 19, 2010

I bought the 1600 just for kicks, so its not that important for me. The 400x, on the other hand, is something I plan on taking on a trip to Serbia with me. Thats why I don't really want to shoot any of it yet. Fresh rolls are so expensive, but I guess the expired ones will be fine. The "important" images will be taken on medium format, and 35mm is mainly for snapshots, so I guess a slight color shift is not a big deal, since I will scan them anyway.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

hrst · Mar 19, 2010

One thing I would be worried with is maximum black of the slide films if you plan to shoot dark night scenes for projection where you definitely don't want any magenta cast in darkest blacks. BUT, it's not that expired... And for scanning it doesn't mean anything, anyway.

nickandre · Mar 19, 2010

Spend the extra money for good film if it really matters and shoot less pictures. If the film costs a lot, it makes you take fewer, better pictures.

accozzaglia · Mar 19, 2010

tiberiustibz said:
Spend the extra money for good film if it really matters and shoot less pictures. If the film costs a lot, it makes you take fewer, better pictures.

Spoken like . . . not a self-paying university student.

Small wonder so many of them ditch film altogether.

Peter de Groot · Mar 22, 2010

I was a student once. 5 rolls of 400x doesn't cost the world. In the Netherlands that would come to 30 euro's or so? It is expensive but if I really want the film to be good I'd be willing to pay for it. And I know lot's of students who smoke and drink alcohol. Smoke less and drink less for a month and you've got the money as well ;-). I know those are difficult choices hehe.

accozzaglia · Mar 22, 2010

Peter de Groot said:
I was a student once. 5 rolls of 400x doesn't cost the world. In the Netherlands that would come to 30 euro's or so? It is expensive but if I really want the film to be good I'd be willing to pay for it. And I know lot's of students who smoke and drink alcohol. Smoke less and drink less for a month and you've got the money as well ;-). I know those are difficult choices hehe.

Sweetheart, lumping a financially independent, mature-status grad student — non-smoking, non-drinking, and non-whatever-else — with a bunch of undergrad trustafarians sucking on mum and dad's teat is not an effective means to foster understanding with this discussion.

You also forgot the cost processing film, which effectively doubles, if not trebles the per-roll final costs, depending on the film. Or maybe you didn't forget this and you simply came from higher means when you slogged it through uni.

Oh yeah, and

(except I wasn't kidding.)

Small wonder my post-grad colleagues who do shoot (okay, all three of them) look at me strangely when I pick up a film camera while they rationalize owning a DSLR because it's "cheap". Way to encourage people to use film, Peter!

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 22, 2010

Being a cheap guy as I am, I used to buy "Cold stored past date film" at Freestyle many years ago. Never was disappointed. Those folks afraid of expired film probably cleans out their fridge of past date food also. As for me I do the sniff test with food past their suggested date of expiration. With film and food, I use an empirical method of evaluation. I never had any bad shots from shooting expired film or gotten sick from drink milk past the date on the carton. I'm a non-conformist. I live on the edge and a little dangerously.

Peter de Groot · Mar 22, 2010

accozzaglia said:
Sweetheart, lumping a financially independent, mature-status grad student non-smoking, non-drinking, and non-whatever-else with a bunch of undergrad trustafarians sucking on mum and dad's teat is not an effective means to foster understanding with this discussion.

You also forgot the cost processing film, which effectively doubles, if not trebles the per-roll final costs, depending on the film. Or maybe you didn't forget this and you simply came from higher means when you slogged it through uni.

Oh yeah, and

(except I wasn't kidding.)

Small wonder my post-grad colleagues who do shoot (okay, all three of them) look at me strangely when I pick up a film camera while they rationalize owning a DSLR because it's "cheap". Way to encourage people to use film, Peter!

You didn't see the ;-). That was meant to take the less smoking and drinking text not so serious. Sorry if I stepped on your toes there. By the way promoting to buy film of the ebay over date is soo not helping keeping demand up. As a matter of fact that will decrease demand at the manufactures who in response will stop producing it. Anyway this is starting to go offtopic pm me if you want to continue this discussion :-D.
As for the TS if you want to be sure shoot one of the 400x films to see what you can expect. If the result is good use the last 4 rolls on your travels. If not you know what to do. Sorry for the off topic discussion.

mattmoy_2000 · Mar 29, 2010

Well to partially answer the OP's question, I've shot film that expired at some point in the 1940s with fairly decent results (and the only imperfections were due to the nitrate base deteriorating...). I'm pretty sure that some film that expired 6 months ago will be un-noticeably different. I've shot colour film that expired before I was born with fairly good results too. Anything less than a decade is pretty negligible, unless you're a colourimetrist or something.

pantelis adiavastos · Mar 29, 2010

shoot the motherf* ;p

i have shot expired slides, and negatives, and they all work well.
well ask about where the kept those films.

anyway my opinion to what mention above is, shoot much even if the film is crappy. you will never get your master shot today*. we are all in a constant learning curve....

*exept if you are a photojournalist, but if you were i dont think you would shoot film ;p

Erik Petersson · Mar 30, 2010

I have had bad results from expired high-speed colour films, such as the 1600. Otherwise I shoot expired most of the time. Expired for years. No problems.

Prest_400 · Mar 30, 2010

manfromh said:
I bought the 1600 just for kicks, so its not that important for me. The 400x, on the other hand, is something I plan on taking on a trip to Serbia with me. Thats why I don't really want to shoot any of it yet. Fresh rolls are so expensive, but I guess the expired ones will be fine. The "important" images will be taken on medium format, and 35mm is mainly for snapshots, so I guess a slight color shift is not a big deal, since I will scan them anyway.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I understand. Well, if you scan them, you can correct the slight cast they may have. I'd also advise to shoot one of the rolls and see what's going one, though I'm not of the ones who usually follow these advice...
Otherwise have faith and trust the film. I directly loaded a roll of KR64 (post discontinuation) without having ever seen any other roll of slide shot through my camera. Reckless? Yes, but it was the only way to shoot that situation for once in KR.

Are the 400X rolls 120 or 35mm? In 35mm there's sensia 400 that is a bit cheaper but I don't know how similar.

accozzaglia said:
Small wonder my post-grad colleagues who do shoot (okay, all three of them) look at me strangely when I pick up a film camera while they rationalize owning a DSLR because it's "cheap". Way to encourage people to use film, Peter!

"Nothing is free"

Probably the sum of everything I bought in film has surpassed the cost of an entry level DSLR, but I haven't noticed it, because it's bits and bits at a time.
Also it depends of the quantity of shooting. It you shoot a lot, film ends up being expensive; but for me (low quantity shooter) it's not very much of a cost... and 300 of a DSLR is film for a while.

Athiril · Mar 30, 2010

manfromh said:
A local store was selling expired film for half price. I do not know how they were stored.
So heres what I got:
10 rolls of Fuji Superia 100 120 expired in November 2009. I'm not worried about this one though.

5 rolls of Fuji Provia 400x. Expired in September 2009. Should I expect color casts, assuming it was not kept in a fridge? I've wanted to try this film ever since it came out, but it was always too expensive (about $14 for a fresh roll)

2 rolls of Fuji Superia 1600. Expired in March 2009. This one I'm worried about. A high speed film expired for a year, and possibly not been in a fridge. Is it even worth shooting this?

Also, is expired film more sensitive to airport x-ray machines? I assume not, but just wanna be sure.

Matis

For out of date film, I would be calling those 'fresh'.

B&Wpositive · Mar 30, 2010

EI 640 for the Superia 1600

manfromh said:
10 rolls of Fuji Superia 100 120 expired in November 2009. I'm not worried about this one though.

5 rolls of Fuji Provia 400x. Expired in September 2009. Should I expect color casts, assuming it was not kept in a fridge? I've wanted to try this film ever since it came out, but it was always too expensive (about $14 for a fresh roll)

2 rolls of Fuji Superia 1600. Expired in March 2009. This one I'm worried about. A high speed film expired for a year, and possibly not been in a fridge. Is it even worth shooting this?

Also, is expired film more sensitive to airport x-ray machines? I assume not, but just wanna be sure.

Matis

Shoot the Superia 100 at EI 64 either right now, or freeze it and shoot it later at EI 64.

Shoot the Provia 400x in the next few months. It should be fine unles it was damaged by heat or something.

Shoot the Fuji 1600 soon, and shoot it at EI 640. I recently shot a 6-month expired roll at EI 800. Speed goes down not quite linearly with time on this film, but almost. But it will still be usable unless it had heat damage.

Expired film questions.

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