Film Aging

[Martin Aislabie]

Does anyone else let their film age (ripen?) a little before using it?
I use HP5 and like it to be about 6months old before I use it.
I got the idea from friends who used Kodachrome and they said the colours were better is the film was allowed to age a little before use.
Professional films (such as Delta) come out of the factory in their optimum condition – hence why they are supposed to be kept cool to prevent them from deteriorating any further.
But is this true of normal films like FP4/HP5?

 

[Trevor Crone]

Martin what is the reason/ desire for deliberately ageing b/w film? I can understand it with ageing colour film with the desire for certain colour shifts etc. But with b/w there's a slowing (ISO reduction) of the emusion, perhaps an increase in grain, which indeed may be required, but this can be enhanced by developer choice.

Regards,
Trevor.

 

[Dave Krueger]

I age my film so the pictures have that '40s look to them.

I've heard basically what you've heard, but you have to understand that you're talking to people here who think nothing of maintaining a supply of their favorite films that have been out of production since the 70s.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Unfortunately, I have nothing intelligent to say today.

-Dave

 

[Ian Grant]

It's a waste of time, I've never seen any difference between new film & older film or even slightly out of date film.

Ian

 

[pauliej]

Are films like wines, that need to breathe prior to using? Just wondering...

Paul

 

[MattKing]

Working from memory here, but PE would know better.

At one time, a large proportion of Kodak's consumer film (mostly colour) was sold through small retail venues - many of them drug stores. That film was frequently stored in conditions that were not ideal for the film. Compared to modern films, the older film was also more susceptible to colour or speed shifts as it aged.

As a result, the film was produced based on the assumption that it would be in the store for a while before being used by the consumer, so it was optimized with that in mind. If you got very fresh film, right from Kodak, and it was a consumer film, it wasn't a bad idea to age it a bit.

The professional films were produced based on the assumption that they would be stored more carefully, and therefore were at optimum when leaving the manufacturing plant.

I don't think the modern films are the same. In addition, I think it is relatively unlikely now that most of us here will be buying film that has sat on a shelf behind a drugstore cash register for a year and a half.

Just to give some perspective on the challenges the manufacturers used to face, I clearly remember my father (who worked for Kodak) being approached by a neighbour because the Kodak lab had ruined the film (most likely Kodachrome) he had recently had developed. Dad had the film and processing checked, and it appeared that it really wasn't the lab's fault - it was more likely related to the fact that our neighbour had had the same roll of film in his camera for at least two years (possibly longer), and it included at least two sets of Christmas photographs - both of which were taken on our neighbour's annual Christmas vacation in Hawaii, meaning that the roll had been exposed to the older airline X-ray machines at least 4 times! (IIRC).

The neighbour got a free roll of process paid Kodachrome anyways .

Matt

 

[Snapshot]

I've never been able to discern much of a difference between new film and film that has been hanging around for a few months. Maybe I should take a closer look.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

The only thing I've ever noticed with film over time is that B&W gets increased fog, and colour loses saturation, or shifts colour balance. None of these properties are useful.

Aging is made at the level of emulsion preparation, but every film is ready to use once it hits the shelves.

It's a myth that consumer film needs to ripen on the shelves: how can you expect any reliable results if your film will be aging in uncontrolled conditions?

PE has already explained the main differences between pro and consumer films here:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I would venture only this: because color consumer film is usually more saturated and contrasty, the loss in saturation/contrast that occurs over time is less noticeable by the amateur. Also, most people who develop B&W for the first time tend to overdevelop, so if they were using old or expired film, the contrast boost would be less visible.

 

[k_jupiter]

Are films like wines, that need to breathe prior to using? Just wondering...

Paul

They do work best if exposed to photons for awhile before loading into the camera.

Pull the leader out till you get to the end of the roll then rewind it. Place in camera and you will get max saturation in your negatives. This does not work for slide film.



tim in san jose

 

[panastasia]

They do work best if exposed to photons for awhile before loading into the camera.

Pull the leader out till you get to the end of the roll then rewind it. Place in camera and you will get max saturation in your negatives. This does not work for slide film.



tim in san jose

This method is new to me. I just open the film back when at the end of the roll and then slam it shut as fast as I can. The resulting exposures are not always consistent.

 

[JBrunner]

They do work best if exposed to photons for awhile before loading into the camera.

Pull the leader out till you get to the end of the roll then rewind it. Place in camera and you will get max saturation in your negatives. This does not work for slide film.



tim in san jose

When I tried this, it resulted in a slight overexposure.

 

[Martin Aislabie]

It seems we are slowly loosing the thread on this one.
From Matt Kings commenst it seems that Kodak deliberately undercooked Kodachrome to allow for customer mis-use.
I take Matts & Trevors comments to mean - I am wasting my time letting film age before using it - and I should put it straight into the freezer as soon as I recieve it
Thanks for the advice
Martin

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

It seems we are slowly loosing the thread on this one.
From Matt Kings commenst it seems that Kodak deliberately undercooked Kodachrome to allow for customer mis-use.
I take Matts & Trevors comments to mean - I am wasting my time letting film age before using it - and I should put it straight into the freezer as soon as I recieve it
Thanks for the advice
Martin

No they did not "undercooked" KR, they simply made a film that was less susceptible to look weird if it were to shift balance or stay for too long on the shelf.

Kodak does not require consumer film to age on tablet; they just made a provision for minimal damage should this be the case.

The comment I referred to comes from a retired Kodak photo engineer who worked on many colour products, so I would rather take his word, than Matt's (no offence, Matt!).

 

[MattKing]

No they did not "undercooked" KR, they simply made a film that was less susceptible to look weird if it were to shift balance or stay for too long on the shelf.

Kodak does not require consumer film to age on tablet; they just made a provision for minimal damage should this be the case.

The comment I referred to comes from a retired Kodak photo engineer who worked on many colour products, so I would rather take his word, than Matt's (no offence, Matt!).

No offence taken, Michel .

Note as well that my comments reflect my understanding about older emulsions, in days gone by. I'm not sure, but I expect that it applied the most to the amateur colour print films, and the least to Kodachrome, of all the Kodak films. It was probably unfortunate that I referred to the anecdote that I did.

As I indicated earlier, I don't believe that this applies to modern emulsions, but I do believe that the old procedures explain why this idea is still out there.

Matt

 

[JBrunner]

It's an interesting topic. I'm usually worried about the opposite, and in my experience, the biggest bad suprises have happened with out of date film. I have never personally seen one iota of difference with the freshest of fresh, and some from the same box, shot much later, but still in date.

I have seen far greater variations from different emulsion batches of the same stock, than fresh vs aged.

 

[k_jupiter]

It seems we are slowly loosing the thread on this one.
Thanks for the advice
Martin

Slowly? Smash, Kaboom, Kerpowwie! I am not sure my photography is subtle enough to recognized aged film vs. not aged. While I understand the importance of controlling the process, this factor seems pretty low on the scale of what will influence your images.

JMHO

tim in san jose

 

[greybeard]

In the late 70s, American Photographer magazine ran an fairly extensive interview with the technical photography head at National Geographic Magazine, then generally regarded as having the best color photography in existence. There was considerable discussion of the way that NG would test production lots of Kodak film, select the ones that they liked best, and then carefully track the aging and distribution so that the resulting images would meet uniform standards. (This was pre-Photoshop, so corrections had to be done in analog as part of the printing process.)

If memory serves, the notion that consumer film was stabilized (i.e.--pre-aged) before release was discussed, acknowledging the fact that the "pro" films could be held to closer tolerances under the assumption that they would be refrigerated until use and therefore not subject to uncontrolled aging.

That article contained the deathless quote (I have the author's name somewhere) to the effect that "All other things being equal, it does help to know what you are doing."

 

[k_jupiter]

In the late 70s, American Photographer magazine ran an fairly extensive interview with the technical photography head at National Geographic Magazine, then generally regarded as having the best color photography in existence. There was considerable discussion of the way that NG would test production lots of Kodak film, select the ones that they liked best, and then carefully track the aging and distribution so that the resulting images would meet uniform standards. (This was pre-Photoshop, so corrections had to be done in analog as part of the printing process.)

Not to disparage NG, but he sounds like a pompus whatever, up a little too high in the food chain to know what was going on. Reading the excerps from Kodak and making an interview out of it. As most of NG was I believe shot in chromes, the ability to modify color printing values, even to the level demanded by NG, is fairly simple, if exacting prepress work... even in analog.

tim in san jose

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

No offence taken, Michel .

Note as well that my comments reflect my understanding about older emulsions, in days gone by. I'm not sure, but I expect that it applied the most to the amateur colour print films, and the least to Kodachrome, of all the Kodak films. It was probably unfortunate that I referred to the anecdote that I did.

As I indicated earlier, I don't believe that this applies to modern emulsions, but I do believe that the old procedures explain why this idea is still out there.

Matt

I wouldn't think the principles of aging and its impact on color balance have changed that much over the last 50 years, so I don't suspect Kodak used to do something and then stopped doing it.

Maybe if we're talking late 1930s/early 1940s Kodachrome, there could be something bizarre going on then when the technology was new, but for now I will stick to the explanations provided by PE.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, to get back to the comments of the OP and some of the early replies, I can state categorically two things.

1. Kodak film comes off the end of the coating machine meeting an aim and keeping it to age is not done. I have coated color paper and Gold 400 and tested the result within hours comparing the coatings against aim. If any coating was bad, it was forever bad!

2. Kodak does keep film stockpiled in master rolls and in trade dress packages both and they are stored optimally, but once they go out the door, you have no control over the keeping. Presumably, unless stored in a glove compartment of a car in the desert in supper, it will keep with little or no change up to the expiration date.

So, aging film is meaningless. Every box you buy has been aged in different ways and for different times. You cannot 'age' film in any way that is meaningless.

After a certain point, fog goes up, contrast appears to go down due to the increase in fog and lots of other things can begin to take place. The time it takes and what happens depends on the film. Generally, higher speed films change faster, and IR films are worse for keeping.

PE

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

If memory serves, the notion that consumer film was stabilized (i.e.--pre-aged) before release was discussed, acknowledging the fact that the "pro" films could be held to closer tolerances under the assumption that they would be refrigerated until use and therefore not subject to uncontrolled aging.

I would be very careful to use that interpretation, because it is based upon the analysis of product behavior, not on a study of product manufacturing.

Here's a parallel example: let's say you have two knives, a 20$ all-purpose kitchen chef knife, and a 400$ Victorinox. The 20$ knife is like consumer film: a bit blunt, but reliable nonetheless, and needing less sharpening. Just like consumer film: more contrasty, but won't look bad if you left it too long on the shelf. The 400$ knife is like Pro film: needs to be finely sharpened on a water stone regularly, and won't cut at all if you mangle the blade, but when properly handled will cut prosciutto in transparent slices, thin as air.

Does it mean then that A) the 20$ knife is "pre-aged" because it does not degrade as fast over time? Or is it rather the case that B) the design allows for wider tolerances, so that a mangled blade will still cut reasonably enough?

Intepretation A) is what the NG guy says. B) is my reasoning, based on PE's information.

EDIT: Thanks PE, for chiming in.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Lets take the hypothesis that film is aged.

How does film know that 6 months have elapsed or 1 year? How does it know to stop or keep going? How does it know what aging means at all? If film changes at all after manufacture, it keeps changing because it does not 'know' anything else.

It is "KEPT" from changing by anti change agents, and they are gradually used up. Along with that, film is subject to cosmic radiation. So, film is made to an aim and sold at that aim! It stays that way until it can no longer maintain the stability and then begins to 'go'.

PE

 

[MattKing]

Lets take the hypothesis that film is aged.

How does film know that 6 months have elapsed or 1 year? How does it know to stop or keep going? How does it know what aging means at all? If film changes at all after manufacture, it keeps changing because it does not 'know' anything else.

It is "KEPT" from changing by anti change agents, and they are gradually used up. Along with that, film is subject to cosmic radiation. So, film is made to an aim and sold at that aim! It stays that way until it can no longer maintain the stability and then begins to 'go'.

PE

PE:

Would it be correct to say that the amateur emulsions used to have a different aim point then the professional emulsions.

Again, I am thinking in the 1970s and earlier, and I am specifically thinking about colour negative, rather than Kodachrome (why did I repeat that annecdote:confused:?).

Matt

 

[Photo Engineer]

Amateur films were and are made to have slightly higher contrast and color saturation to satisfy the market and also to compensate for the lower quality lenses that amateur cameras (single use cameras) use.

Therefore, Portra is made to a contrast of about 0.6 while Gold is made to a contrast of about 0.65 or 0.7.

PE