• Welcome to Photrio!
    Registration is fast and free. Join today to unlock search, see fewer ads, and access all forum features.
    Click here to sign up

Freezer or Fridge?

Hey I have some negatives that I believe were damaged in the latent image stage (between exposure and development). I suspect an inadvertent freeze/thaw cycle in the freezer without the film in a protective bag or cannister. I can post a scan of the negatives for comments. It was based on these negatives that I started using a food-vac. I have only been using the food-vac for 9 months so I cannot comment on its efficacy yet.
 

Usually the best thing with exposed film, is to process it at the earliest convenient time. If this is difficult to do most of the time, switch to Ilford XP2 and drop it at the local mini-lab for processing.
 
The only thing that I don't freeze is Polaroid film(it gets ruined). Anything else is frozen until I need it, save for an "emergency" stash in the fridge.
 
I freeze everything. Even paper. Chest freezers are cheap and cost peanuts in yearly costs, guys.
 
B&W film neither stored in fridge or freezer, just room temperature. In SF at Calumet, they have their B&W film at room temperature and told me it did not matter. Of course I have enough film for a year of shooting. Also, my fridge and freezer are small, so more room for beers...
 
Is there a danger of structural damage to either the base or emulsion from freezing/thawing cycles. (or long term freezing for that matter) My refridgerator is a basic model which needs periodic defrosting.
 
C A Sugg said:
Is there a danger of structural damage to either the base or emulsion from freezing/thawing cycles. (or long term freezing for that matter) My refridgerator is a basic model which needs periodic defrosting.
Click to expand...

I should probably wait for Photo-Engineer to answer this, but my conjecture would be that unopened film doesn't have enough water in it for ice crystals to form and do damage by repeated freezing and thawing.
 
The fridge/freezer thing is overstated I feel for monochrome film.

Have often used film 100 iso, TMax and FP4 which is more than ten years out of date just kept in house temps, and in dry cupboard. Have also used 30 year old TriX 400 iso, that was stored in a bedside table; it was fine.

I suppose colour film may shift its chroma.

Printing paper (old darkroom stuff) does not last...it fogs quickly with age, from my experience.

But after a lot of the hype lets remember black cameras sitting in the sun, cine and still.

Besides my fridge is full of food and drink!
 
I really think people's anecdotal evidence of "I used this decade old film and it worked fine" is just not good enough. It's been shown scientifically that reducing the temperatures of the storage environment increases the lifetime of the film (yes it can't get cosmic rays, not much can). For the people here who have a lot of film, most have freezers for them. If you don't, a chest freezer costs around 200-300$ new, and 30$/year in energy costs. If you have the space for it, why not locate it all in one place where it's taken care of?

I tend to notice that a lot of people don't put weight on the importance of preservation and maintenance - which is probably one of the reasons so many negatives and film in general, from past generations, is now unusable or extremely hard to print.
 
clayne said:
I tend to notice that a lot of people don't put weight on the importance of preservation and maintenance - which is probably one of the reasons so many negatives and film in general, from past generations, is now unusable or extremely hard to print.
Click to expand...


My ex-mother-in-law would throw out the negative before looking at the prints. I would talk to her and tell her that she should save the negatives.

Years later her husband died and she was crying that all she had left for a very worn and torn wallet photograph that she wanted reprinted and now she could not reprint the photograph.

Steve
 
Empirical evidence, I'd say, not anecdotal. That is based on my experimentation, of those particular aged films.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register