Unfortunately, my order of film will arrive after I head out this weekend for an forway with an old friend into Utah. I do have, however, 5 rolls of Kodak E100VS that was given to me by the local lab to shoot. It's marked 2007....
Has anyone had bad luck with this? I have some Velvia as well, but I just am wondering if I should even bother shooting it at all?
Try one , if you are lucky , continue with others. Use velvia for the important ones and use 100vs after test. 100vs is the best film in the world and I wish your luck continues.
My first inclination would be to call your lab and enquire re previous storage conditions. If the film has been stored at ambient temperatures I would only use it for Cross-Pro or maybe resign it to the Holga. If it has been frozen or refrigerated it may still be salvageable for "regular" use (i.e. correctable during scanning). Nonetheless, I would hesitate to use it for anything really important.
2007 isn't _that_ old really. If refrigerated it is probably fine but I know most shops around here that used to refrigerate slide film now have it sitting on the counter for cheap and my experience with Velvia kept on the counter is that it comes out like crap unfortunately with a magenta cast that makes it useless for projection.
Must it be slides? Can you not pick up a few rolls of Fuji or Kodak C-41 film or something like that at the drug store? Might be better safe than sorry for an important trip even if it means not shooting slides.
Low temp 'fridged or <50F should make it OK. I'm shooting 07-09 Ektachromes that look fine. These days, though, crap E6 processing can ruin your results regardless of your film's freshness.
Frankly, though, I found VS to be freaky stuff and stopped shooting in favor of GX or G.