How long do negatives last?

This might sound like a rather simpleton type of question, but how long can one reasonably expect a routinely developed, properly washed negative to last? On another forum a poster was asking how to clean some old family negatives, and one reply was to simply digitalize them, and update the digitial file every couple of years, and not bother much with the cleaning and archival storage of them, since they would ultimately crumble to dust.
I took exception to that reply, but am not entirely sure how to refute it, or even if I should. A properly cleaned, archivally stored negative or slide...should we be thinking in terms of centuries, or just several decades?

I appreciate that the dyes in color transparencies would fade quicker, but a B&W negative would have much more staying power, wouldn't it? How long can we expect our negatives to survive?

Ages

richard littlewood said:

Ages

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.. or centuries, to be more precise.

terri said:

... one reply was to simply digitalize them, and update the digitial file every couple of years, and not bother much with the cleaning and archival storage of them...

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So then, I would suppose, that one would clean them on the computer; so no work is saved doing that.

Then, let's think for a moment that one "updates" the digital file every so often. If you are a producing photographer, that means that you can spend the time to scan --not inconsequential-- and you keep adding to the number of files. Then you get to update them as well. At some point you, and perhaps your progeny, keep updating the files, no one will have time to take any more images due to the up keep needed to store and manage the digital files.

Could this mean that at some point we will see no one taking any more digital images?

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The answer is it depends. On polyester bases, e.g. sheet film, many hundreds of years. On acetate, e.g. most roll film, not so long; "vinegaring" will likely occur in a much shorter period, depending on storage conditions.

For the complete answer, go here:

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Actually it depends on the base. I don't know the history real well, but for a while negatives were being put on a nitrate base and these deteriorate really freaking quick. They are also dangerous and if the base is nitrate then digitization would be a viable alternative to copying them onto a more stable negative base.

If they are not nitrate negs then you are good to go for centuries. I have handled 100+ year old plates that contacted amazingly well, and showed no sign of crumbling to dust.

That poster obviously had no idea what they were talking about. Refer the original poster to this site for the truth.

Polyester (all modern cut film, most modern 120 film, some modern 35mm and all APS): forever under reasonable conditions.

Non-safety (nitrate) film (mostly old 35mm): A very long time under ideal conditions, not too long under adverse conditions, ALWAYS highly flammable, and increasingly unstable as it deteriorates.

Older acetates (pre c. 1950, all formats as far as I am aware): decades, maybe even a century or more. Even longer under ideal conditions (cool, medium humidity).

Newer triacetates (post c. 1950 35mm and possibly some 120, I don't know): usually longer than diacetates.

All from memory, and referring to base only, but pretty accurate I believe.

Cheers,

R.

The negatives and slides in question are from a family-based photography business of the 1950's and '60's that the OP wished to clean and preserve, as well as scan. I replied that cleaning prior to scanning could be as simple as using canned air, a soft sable brush, and possibly some aid like Film Kleen, then to put the negs in archival sheets for indefinite storage protection. The guy who is arguing the point with me told me to "dream on" and referred me to a site that talks about nitrate-based movies of the first 20th century.

I have a few (precious few) family negatives from the 1930's and 40's that look just fine. As my family was hardly wealthy, I'm sure they were developed at the drug store or wherever was cheapest back then. They look almost new and have printed fine. They were kept in the typical shoe box in the closet. Hardly optimal storage conditions given decades without air-conditioning, etc.

I wish I had more of the negs. Mostly they just kept the prints, like most non-photographers, I guess.

I would bet today's negs will hold up just as well.

The discussion of film base is facinating - something that I've not considered in the past. It seems that the talk is always about proper processing and toning for longevity. For what it's worth, I've got some glass plate negatives from the late 1800's and early 1900's that are doing well.

- Randy

terri said:

The negatives and slides in question are from a family-based photography business of the 1950's and '60's that the OP wished to clean and preserve, as well as scan. I replied that cleaning prior to scanning could be as simple as using canned air, a soft sable brush, and possibly some aid like Film Kleen, then to put the negs in archival sheets for indefinite storage protection. The guy who is arguing the point with me told me to "dream on" and referred me to a site that talks about nitrate-based movies of the first 20th century.

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Dear Terri,

Well processed pro mono negs from the 50s and 60s -- half way to forever.

Colour slides, unless Kodachromes, are likely already to have deteriorated.

Cheers,

R.

I've seen some prints recently made from glass plate negatives and the detail was amazing!

Roger - this guy is saying that nitrate based negs – "celluloid" – was used in virtually ALL photographic films (as well as movie film) until well into the 1970s. I don't know how accurate that statement is.

That is not accurate but it was used in all formats 35mm to movie films. When I was working in an archive my intro to nitrate negs was putting a match to a 5x7 nitrate neg under a chemical hood. Quite the impressive burn. So, in a way the guy arguing with you is partially right. The way to tell is to look at the color of the base. It will be yellowed if it is nitrate. Then snip a piece off and light it (outside of course) If it melts it is not nitrate. If it burns like a fuse it is nitrate. FIlm bases were not all nitrate.

Proper processing and storage in an archival environment are important to longivity. If Terri's negatives show no deterioration now, they could be good for many more generations, Negatives from the 1930s casually stored here are still fine.

The original negative is more important than any copy. Give it the best care possible. Digital copy files can be distributed to several family members for insurance should the originals be destroyed. I lost several years of negatives in a darkroom fire. Ansel Adams almost did the same, which would have been a tragedy.

terri said:

Roger - this guy is saying that nitrate based negs – "celluloid" – was used in virtually ALL photographic films (as well as movie film) until well into the 1970s. I don't know how accurate that statement is.

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It's rubbish. Non-safety base was but a memory in the 60s when I started photography and among my late father-in-law's images (going back to the 30s) we found ONE nitrate-base film. Little if any non-safety base was used by major manufacturers after the late 1940s and I seem to recall that a lot of the great Hollywood shots were on diacetate. I could research this more carefully but a quick Google reveals cellulose acetate 1923, diacetate mid-1930s, triacetate from 1947.

Cheers,

R.

On most supports (other than nitrate base) film negatives (B&W only) will last about 100 - 200 years with no significant change. I have negatives from about 1920 which look as fresh as the day they were processed and they are on old acetate support.

Paper prints can last as long.

Old color prints can last 25 - 50 years and newer prints can last 100 - 200 years.

However, even Henry Wilhelm will admit that his tests are not totally accurate due to all of the variables involved. I have had a chance to discuss this with him personally and took the ANSI course in image stability in May given by Dr. Jon Kapecki of Kodak. There are arguments over what the 'correct' conditions are that will reveal the real stability of the image and the support and no one has the only answer to this.

There is a lot of research going on at RIT in their image stability lab as well as at the Wilhelm institute, but suffice it to say, digital can't hold a candle to current analog processes either in hard copy or on some sort of disk storage due to rapid deterioration.

In a recent discussion, I believe that some predict that 'archival' storage for digital is less than 40 years even under optimum conditions, and this does not account accurately for deterioration of the digital medium or the 'spread' of the hard copy print. I rarely see comments on this latter, but digital ink images and dye images tend to spread and become less sharp with time. You can add this to the list of things that happen to digital images.

In any event, Kodak has introduced an arhcival CD for digital image storage which may have the capability of equaling the stability of an analog negative.

PE

In a post on another thread someone stated that the military and NASA convert digital files to film for archival storage and that NASA converts color images to separate 3 plates. The issue is not how long a file will last but who will be able to read the file in the near future. NASA no longer has the tape player to read the tapes that were made during the Apollo moon missions.

Out of curiosity, does anybody have information on what modern films are produced on what sorts of bases (polyester vs. acetate)? Alternatively, is there a simple way of determining this, such as the burning test mentioned earlier for spotting nitrate bases? (I'm assuming no modern film uses a nitrate base, given earlier comments in this thread.)

FWIW, to add my own anecdotal experience, I've been going through some family photos from the mid-1960s and making fresh prints for myself. (My sister has the originals.) These are mostly color and I've been able to get very good color prints from most of them, although my filter pack settings are a bit odd. If the dyes have faded, it's been in a way that's easily corrected, with the exception of one roll that's just ugly and refuses to print or scan nicely. For most rolls, my modern prints have better color than the prints made in the 1960s from the same negatives, but I don't know how much of that is because of better modern paper and how much is due to faded prints. In a thread I started on this topic, PE noted there was a Kodak film from the time with a color balance between that for daylight and tungsten, and I suspect (but don't know for a fact) that this is what was used and is the cause of the odd filtration settings I need. I've only got one roll of B&W film from this period and it prints fine, although the negatives look like they've got rather high base fog. I don't know if that's a sign of inadequate fixing or if it was that way from the start. (All of these rolls were processed with a drug store's send-out service.) With all of these rolls, I've had more problems with dust, scratches, and damage from a flood the negatives survived than from fading or generic age-related detioration.

Overall, then, I'd say the biggest threat to negatives is physical mishandling that produces scratches or other damage. I expect my family's treatment of negatives was pretty typical, leaving them in whatever envelopes they arrived in and then ignoring them except for ordering reprints.

I assume that the age of the negative also depends on how well you washed them after fixing, as if any of that is left it can slowly get ruined over time.

Dear All,

I have had the pleasure of visiting 'behind the scenes' at the National Film Archive in the UK, and all the old nitrate films have been ' carefully' copied onto modern film stock, and all the old nitrate stock is carefully preserved and stored, with very, very large tanks of water stored above each stored film archive section in case one decides to combust...

It really is difficult to give the expected life of current triacetate or polyester films, but I would be surprised if it was less than 120 years, probably nearer 200 years. As always with photo emulsions storage conditions are key.

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

I chair an archive of about 50000 negatives, all sizes from 11x14 and Cirkut taken starting in 1890. About half are nitrate film negatives, 2 1/2 x 4 1/4 taken 1930- 1948. My experience is that longevity is largely based on storage. Cool and dry make a tremendous difference as well as how stored - some "glassine" envelopes, in warm storage conditions, exacerbate the deterioration on nitrate negatives. Cooler and dryer would be better but what we can afford is 67 degrees F and 43-44% humidity.
Of course the best is glass, properly processed. we have thousands 6.5x8.5 commercial glass plates as good as the day taken.
I believe all nitrate in, at least, the first world was gone by 1950, maybe some 35mm nitrate movie film lasted until the mid 1950's.
Our biggest problem area is a very nice, that is to say well taken, collection from the 1948-54 period taken on Ansco acetate 4x5 sheet film. I don't know if it is just the film, or the fact that it was stored in patent cellophane sleves with a paper insert, not allowing any out gas circulation, but these have cracked and bubbled and crumble like a dry leaf. We have not experienced the same kind of deterioration on Kodak sheet film from the same period.
We are digitalizing our nitrate as time allows.

Roger Hicks said:

Polyester (all modern cut film, most modern 120 film, some modern 35mm and all APS...

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Roger, current black and white sheet film is indeed coated on polyester. However, I think virtually all modern 120 and 35mm is on acetate. There may be a few exceptions, but most manufacturers' literature I've reviewed says acetate.

Although written for those storing motion picture film, here's a link to some Image Permanence Institute information on the vinegar effect.

http://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/shtml_sub/actionplan.pdf

I hope Simon Galley and/or Ron Mowery correct me if wrong, but I believe the same triacetate base discussed in the above paper is used for still black and white 35mm & 120 films.

back in 1997, I went to a weeklong conference on managing photo collections in the "digital age" at the smithsonian. Some of the most interesting lectures, were by James Reilly from the Image Permanence Institute. I remember them saying that the storage environment was the most important variable over the quality of the enclosures, film type etc. It all came down to temp & relative humidity. Temp more for color, rh more for b/w--for various reasons (dye stability and base stability). They were pushing hard to stick with film, b&w film in particular and to tone everything.

I still have the materials I brought back, and among the papers is a survery the LOC did of federal & state collections in archives across the US. They looked at what the various negatives they had--time frame, and then identified the base types and the manufacturer as well. It seems only Kodak kept any sort of concrete record of what they made & when they stopped or changed the bases, but the timeline shows 1954 as sort of the cutoff date for nitrate based films.

The pro films--mostly cut sheets--started to get phased out to acetate pretty early on, by at least 20 years prior. By the 50s, only certain rollfilm stocks and pack films were still nitrate. You can tell the Kodak nitrate sheet films by certain notch codes, and many actually say "nitrate" on them. I have a chart of various notch codes for nitrate film also, but there are some pretty vague areas as far as id'ing other manufacturers. I have worked with both nitrate & acetate based films that were fine--and others that had deteriorated, and it can be hard to tell the two apart, unless they get to the point where they're really going downhill.

I have actually seen more problems with the acetate films from the 40s onwards, than the nitrate. They bubble & warp up, as the base shrinks and they can be a PIA to print or copy at this point. Glass plates are also pretty hard to deal with, they can get brittle, and the emulsions can often flake off. Not to mention, the storage problems--they're just plain heavy and difficult (fragile) to store.

the polyester (kodak--estar) based films are purportedly the most stable. Most b/w sheet film is polyester now, and some rollfilms are also. Some (mostly kodak) sheet chrome films are estar based, while Fuji is sort of 50/50. It's my understanding this had to do with being able to strip triacetate easier than polyester, which is pretty tough & hard to cut etc. most of the archival records work is done on polyester based films now--microfilm in particular.

I have a datalogger in our film storage room at work, and monitor the temp/rh. In the individual drawers, we have some temp/rh monitors as well--and the room conditions can swing somewhat, but the drawers act as a buffer. It's interesting to monitor the temp/rh this way--but in reality, it is very hard to control. It is almost impossible--even with a dedicated hvac system--since as the seasonal conditions change, it stresses the internal system, and it take a day or so to respond & correct. So it's like a see-saw almost. You have to try to control the room on average--so you can get to your film as needed day to day. If you really want to archive it--you drop the temps significantly (cold, near or at freezing) and lower the rh, and then you just leave them there forever.

my opinions only/not my employers.

Sal Santamaura said:

Roger, current black and white sheet film is indeed coated on polyester. However, I think virtually all modern 120 and 35mm is on acetate. There may be a few exceptions, but most manufacturers' literature I've reviewed says acetate.

Although written for those storing motion picture film, here's a link to some Image Permanence Institute information on the vinegar effect.

http://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/shtml_sub/actionplan.pdf

I hope Simon Galley and/or Ron Mowery correct me if wrong, but I believe the same triacetate base discussed in the above paper is used for still black and white 35mm & 120 films.

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I stand corrected on 120 if my memory is at fault, which is by no means unlikely. Very little 35mm is on polyester because of light piping problems but e.g. Rollei's new ScanFilm is.

Cheers,

R.

Last week I made contact prints from some 8x10 glass plate negatives that were given to me by a former neighbor. One is of a street scene - a World War I bond rally. There are some automobiles in the scene, and it is possible to read the year on their license plates - - - 1917.

I doubt that these negatives have been printed since around the time they were originally made, if then. When I received them, they were in a Kodak Azo box with an expiration date of 1953. They were simply stacked in the box - no interleaving, and no particular attention to archival protection.

My conclusion is that negatives can last a very long time.