It's Time To Chill-out!

Greetings All,

I want to know what people's experiences are on refrigerating B&W film for the long term (let's say 3 to 5 years) before use. Ostensibly, freezing has advantages but I would prefer to have some room for those T-bone steaks that I love!

i had a 100-foot roll of ilford pan f that I bought in 1977, put in the freezer and left there through several iterations of freezers ontil 2013.

Thawed and used, worked just fine.

I also had some Tri-X that expired in the 50s that had been frozen for about 40 years. It worked OK but had built up a bit of base fog -- i wondered if it had really been frozen all that time.

I have settled on refrigeration rather than freezing, have a small office fridge set to keep it all at about 40F.

Simon from Ilford has recommended here on APUG that it isn't necessarily good to refreeze film.

Doing it this way allows me to avoid and freeze thaw issues like when in two weeks I plan to go shooting on the Navajo Reservation for a weekend. I'll be taking an abundance of film of various stripes out of the fridge, if I shoot it all up, great, but it is more than likely that half or two-thirds of it will go back to the fridge. This happens 2-4 times a year.

While out and about the film is stored in a very nice insulated ice chest in a protected situation so there are no fast temp changes or extreme temps reached.

I guess there aren't too many folks that refrigerate for long term storange. Thank to those who contributed.

I have several boxes of film sitting in the freezer - Some have been in there for close to five years. No problems to report yet....

Before freezing, I seal the boxes in a sturdy plastic bag along with a sachet of silica gel - This hopefully reduces any problems with moisture when thawing the film out.

paul_c5x4 said:

Before freezing, I seal the boxes in a sturdy plastic bag along with a sachet of silica gel - This hopefully reduces any problems with moisture when thawing the film out.

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As long as you don't open the bag when thawing out, there will be no more moisture in it than there was when you put the film in.


Steve.

Snapshot said:

Greetings All,

I want to know what people's experiences are on refrigerating B&W film for the long term (let's say 3 to 5 years) before use. Ostensibly, freezing has advantages but I would prefer to have some room for those T-bone steaks that I love!

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We joke that one of the few good things about divorce and remarriage is that my second wife and I both brought twenty cu ft freezers to the second marriage. One freezer is in the basement by the darkroom and the other is in the garage next to the kitchen. Groceries come from the car by the freezer into the kitchen.

The large amount of freezer space came in very handy when Kodak went to packaging ten sheets of 7x17 inch film in 16x20x1" boxes. Picture the amount of space needed just to store 100 sheets. I prefer to have 200 sheets on hand since you can only order once a year. I have since switched to Ilford. I have a Kodak shooting 7x17 friend who begs for the empty Ilford boxes so he can repack in less space.

A year ago when Ilford discontinued my favorite Kentmere Fineprint vcfb paper I asked Simon how long it would keep in cool conditions and frozen. He said cool 3-4 years, frozen 5-6 years. I bought six boxes of 16x20 and put it in the freezer.

I personally have used without problems ten +year old 8x10 and 7x17 film from both Ilford and Kodak that had been freezer stored. I have done so because for years I have been reading about people here and the LF Forum doing so without difficulties.

John Powers

Snapshot said:

I guess there aren't too many folks that refrigerate for long term storange. Thank to those who contributed.

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I think there are many. We just respond slowly having been frozen for years.

John

I store films I plan on using in 1-year period in refrigerator, long-term storage stuff (Efke films, Ektachrome etc) goes straight to freezer. Although things too big for freezer end up in the fridge anyway, i.e. huge bulk rolls. I have a regular kitchen fridge with a small freezer unit, so not much can be hoarded to deep freeze storage.

Buying a freezer for my film ahead of getting one for food would create domestic problems in my house. So for now, my film is in a refrigerator that I bought for the purpose.
The jury is still out on whether I get to put film in the freezer if/when we get one.

I put all of my newly purchased film into zip loc bags, then put it in my refrigerator. Oldest one is now about 4 years old. They are all perfectly fine. Keeping them out doesn't seem to cause any issues either. So I am not sure of the benefit. I do it because it can't hurt and possibly some gain.

jp80874 said:

I think there are many. We just respond slowly having been frozen for years.

John

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I guess I'm a little impatient. Thanks for responding to the thread!

Snapshot said:

I guess I'm a little impatient. Thanks for responding to the thread!

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Remember I am 74 and carry my camera in a baby jogger. I don't know how old you are, but I do know that a the motorcycle on your avatar goes much faster than my three wheeled baby jogger. The thread title is perfect, It's Time To Chill-out! Enjoy.

John

jp80874 said:

Remember I am 74 and carry my camera in a baby jogger. I don't know how old you are, but I do know that a the motorcycle on your avatar goes much faster than my three wheeled baby jogger. The thread title is perfect, It's Time To Chill-out! Enjoy.

John

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Well, I'm babysitting today but you are right, I should take the bike out for a spin. It's a beautiful day.