Freezing Film When You Do Not Have the Time to Process Immediately

BradleyK · Feb 17, 2012

A quick question for our older and experienced shooters: How long can exposed film be frozen without the images suffering the risk of degradation? The reason I ask? About a week after Dwayne's ended K-14 processing, I found two rolls of KL in the bottom of my freezer. I am debating whether to leave them be and wait a bit to see if hand processing becomes feasible or whether to just go ahead and try my hand at processing the two as black and white images.

cliveh · Feb 17, 2012

I never freeze film. I keep a quantity of colour film in the fridge, but don't bother for black & white film. However, I live in England.

Brian C. Miller · Feb 17, 2012

The probability of a non-Kodak Kodachrome development process being introduced is rather remote.

How a long a latent image may be viable on a particular emulsion is quite variable. I recently processed some test rolls of Fuji Acros that I exposed several years ago, and the image was absolutely fine. Another fellow had horrible problems with Ilford Pan-F, with the images having faded almost completely away. As it turns out, Pan-F must be processed ASAP, and it's a known problem with the emulsion.

Very probably your film is fine.

jbwpro · Feb 17, 2012

I have on many many occasions accidentally and out of being broke left e6, c41, and BW film in the freezer with exposed but unprocessed images on the rolls- the longest being over a year. this one (from my wedding) fell and wasn't found for over 18 months sitting in the back of the freezer and then I processed it normally and besides some extra grain, the roll was all good.

I am highly doubting that processing will come available for Kodachrome film again...

hoffy · Feb 17, 2012

"Who's Kodachrome?"
"Kodachrome's dead baby...."
(With apologies to Tarantino)

Sirius Glass · Feb 17, 2012

I store my film in the freezer, until I load it.

If I do not have enough exposed color negative film to make it worth mixing up the chemicals, I will refrigerate the exposed film until I have enough. I have done that for periods of months, not years.

j-dogg · Feb 17, 2012

I have been wondering the same thing, I'm pretty broke right now and most of my film is 6-8 months from exposure.

A couple rolls are over 20 years old but were freezer kept prior to exposure 4 months ago and from my past experience they should be fine.

Roger Cole · Feb 17, 2012

Develop or have it done as black and white. I agree - the odds of EVER being able to process this film as color are extremely remote.

thuggins · Feb 19, 2012

I recall having read instructions from Kodak never to freeze film, but only to refrigerate it. I have never seen a professional shop that kept film in a freezer.

film_man · Feb 22, 2012

thuggins said:
I recall having read instructions from Kodak never to freeze film, but only to refrigerate it. I have never seen a professional shop that kept film in a freezer.

..."storage in a refrigerator or freezer can be highly beneficial", but blah blah disclaimer use by the "use by" date...

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/e30/e30.pdf

pentaxuser · Feb 22, 2012

Brian C. Miller said:
Another fellow had horrible problems with Ilford Pan-F, with the images having faded almost completely away. As it turns out, Pan-F must be processed ASAP, and it's a known problem with the emulsion..

Can you say what evidence there is for this. I don't recall any mention of this "defect" in Ilford literature or seeing it as a general conclusion by Pan-F users on APUG or other sites

Any idea what is different about Pan-F to give it this alleged problem? I say alleged not to be provocative but simply because on any forum, Pan-F and Ilford should remain innocent until proven guilty.

pentaxuser

Freezing Film When You Do Not Have the Time to Process Immediately

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