Kodak Gold Plus 100, How Old

So I just picked up two expired films from the camera store:
a 1986 expired agfa xrs 1000 (yes I intend to see if it still works)
and an old undated gold 100, if it's a gold plus 100 with a number 5, how old do you think it is? I'd guess rating it at iso 12 would work.

The rule of thumb for C41 films is they lose roughly 1 stop of sensitivity every decade. Kodak Gold film won't likely be much older than 20-25 years so I'd rate it at 32 but a slower rating might not hurt much.. The Agfa...if it were originally 1000ISO and is 30+ years old I'd likely shoot at 100-200.

Both films are going to be a guess and a crap shoot. Both will likely show significant colour shift, the Gold possibly to green.

Have fun!

Agulliver said:

The rule of thumb for C41 films is they lose roughly 1 stop of sensitivity every decade. Kodak Gold film won't likely be much older than 20-25 years so I'd rate it at 32 but a slower rating might not hurt much.. The Agfa...if it were originally 1000ISO and is 30+ years old I'd likely shoot at 100-200.

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Agulliver, does this rule of thumb apply to c-41 film which has been frozen for two decades? Thanks.

Agulliver said:

The rule of thumb for C41 films is they lose roughly 1 stop of sensitivity every decade. Kodak Gold film won't likely be much older than 20-25 years so I'd rate it at 32 but a slower rating might not hurt much.. The Agfa...if it were originally 1000ISO and is 30+ years old I'd likely shoot at 100-200.

Both films are going to be a guess and a crap shoot. Both will likely show significant colour shift, the Gold possibly to green.

Have fun!

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thank you

John Galt said:

Agulliver, does this rule of thumb apply to c-41 film which has been frozen for two decades? Thanks.

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all I know about frozen is that color films need less exposure if frozen, but there's no conclusive recommendations, I was told that a 200 speed slide film that expired in 1983 and was frozen kept should be exposed at around 125. In your case, I'd guess only doing 1/3 to 2/3s over, so long as it's not high speed film.

Ah if the film has been frozen then that rule of thumb does not apply. If you are confident of the film's storage history and it's been frozen, it will have suffered much less drop in sensitivity to light due to chemical changes but will still have been exposed to cosmic rays, background radiation etc. Colour film will still probably have a colour shift. The higher speed the film, the worse the deterioration.

I'd be inclined to over expose by a stop, possibly more for the 1000 ISO Agfa. Remember that C41 film will have had good latitude to begin with, so you can probably err on the side of over exposure. A couple of years ago I shot some Kodak VPS which had been frozen for 20 years, the results were acceptable but there was some age fogging. I wouldn't have used it for anything other than snapshots or experimental work.

Slide film is a different matter as E6 film in particular deteriorates faster than C41 negative film. B&W film that has been frozen is practically like new for decades in some cases.

The Agfa XRS1000 was made around the mid 1980s till mid 1990s and if I remember correctly it was fairly grainy compared to Kodak VR1000. Even the later Fuji 1600 was better.
Best of luck with it and maybe post the results.

Alright, just picked up another one I have no idea how old it is.
How old would you estimate a Kodak pro 400 to be?

Also, I just finished the 100 plus (it was only a twelve exposure roll), I'll let you know how it turns out.

and I'm probably going to save the xrs for spring.

A better rule of thumb would be to factor into the equation the original box speed of the film. For example, Panatomic-X, now, is usually the same speed as when it was made in the 70s, stored at room temp, to boot. However, when your speed increases like with Plus-X, you start to have to factor in the age. With 100 films, color or B&W, I would say to adjust the speed by one stop for every ten years. For 400 films, every six years and for the ultra stuff like TMZ, every three years. The fog levels with these fast films will be formidable: what you are really doing is placing the image higher and higher in the Characteristic Curve and developing less so as to try at least partially, to obviate fog levels. - David Lyga

OK- this is pretty insane.
so I got the gold back, but I had also dropped of an age unknown Ektar 1000 that I've had for over a year. The Ektar held up so much better than the gold.

Gold 100, ISO 20
Ektar 1000, ISO 100

What will the XRS give me?

Look forward to seeing the XRS.
Will it look like an impressionist's painting?