Kodak no longer following "2 year rule" for expiration dates?

[loccdor]

The latest Tri-X 400 35mm 36 exposures I bought have dates of January 2027. I bought them October 2024. Just something I noticed...

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Slow sales may mean that film is sitting around on shelves at stores and distributors passing their expiry dates and becoming worthless. Distributors may be complaining to Kodak and not pre-purchasing many emulsions that don't turn over quickly enough. Longer expiry dates would encourage stores to stock up more.

 

[pentaxuser]

Slow sales may mean that film is sitting around on shelves at stores and distributors passing their expiry dates and becoming worthless. Distributors may be complaining to Kodak and not pre-purchasing many emulsions that don't turn over quickly enough. Longer expiry dates would encourage stores to stock up more.

Doesn't that suggest that expiry dates are, to a certain extent at least, an instrument of the marketing dept and not solely one within the remit of the film engineers?

I wonder how many honest engineers in the Kodak "good times" of high demand were fired for suggesting that longer expiry were possible?

pentaxuser

 

[ChrisGalway]

Sounds like common sense to me. After all, it's B&W, the stuff keeps for years unless maltreated. Now I'd be concerned if they extended the "expiry" date of Ektachrome!

 

[mshchem]

Could be EK and Alaris taking the slack out of the supply/distribution network

 

[MattKing]

Fresher film.
"Develop before" dates build in an estimate for how long product will take to make its way through the distribution channels. That is the same film that won't be in the hands of a customer in, e.g., Australia, until a couple of months from now.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Properly stored, most black and white films, except the highest speed ones, should be fine for more than a decade. I don't know what all the fuss is about. The past issue with 120 backing papers has been addressed elsewhere.

 

[DeletedAcct1]

Properly stored, most black and white films, except the highest speed ones, should be fine for more than a decade.

Sorry, no. This is a myth.
I've got confirmation of my 10 years expired Apx 100 made in Leverkusen some time ago. It was unusable due to skyrocketed base fog.

 

[DREW WILEY]

No myth. Many of us have shot sheet film 20 years out of date without any fog issues per actual densitometer readings. Films vary. I recently developed and checked some 40 year old Tech Pan, and it behaved as if new. ALL of my 8X10 TMax sheets of both speeds stored in the freezer are over 15 years old and fine. And that's a far bigger investment than anything 35mm! - a smart investment too, since the prices have quadrupled since I bought it. The last of my Fuji Acros sheet film was well over 20 years old when I finally shot it, and it was not even cold stored.

 

[pentaxuser]

Properly stored, most black and white films, except the highest speed ones, should be fine for more than a decade. I don't know what all the fuss is about. The past issue with 120 backing papers has been addressed elsewhere.

There's no fuss in the sense that according to all who have responded we have welcomed the move because we all believe that the 2 year expiry date is too short

However I just wonder what that tells us about what appears to be the change in Kodak policy. My "wonder" is about why Kodak has changed its mind.

Have the film chemists/engineers discovered that they were wrong or were at least far too conservative in the past or have Kodak known all along that its film expiry date was too short but not told us simply for "commercial" reasons and what does that say about Kodak's other expiry dates in terms of authenticity?

Oh and ín case anyone is wondering, the same questions are equally legitimate if or when Ilford were to do the same

pentaxuser

 

[MattKing]

However I just wonder what that tells us about what appears to be the change in Kodak policy. My "wonder" is about why Kodak has changed its mind.

Who says they have?
A "Develop Before" date is based on a number of factors, including projected retail availability.
This probably just made it to retail availability a bit quicker than expected.
Do you not think that Harman takes into account how long it takes for the boats to get their product to the USA before they put a "Best Before" date on their packaging for the USA market - their biggest market?

 

[DeletedAcct1]

No myth. Many of us have shot sheet film 20 years out of date without any fog issues per actual densitometer readings. Films vary.

Cosmic radiation is something you can't control so don't consider the "storage condition" variable.
There are films, and not of hi speed, that age awfully, one is Apx 100 (the last run).
Color film doesn't age well.
One film that ages very well is Fomapan 100 for instance.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Color films also differ. The problem with some of them, like the Fuji Astia series or their CDU duplicating films, or the EDupe Kodak equivalent, is that the sheet versions of them sold so slowly that they were already getting old before even reaching an intermediate distributor. I bought a fair amount of outdated 8x10 Provia of several generations. It worked fine if shot reasonably soon after thawing, but couldn't be kept around thawed anywhere near as long as equivalent fresh film. Symptoms of outdated E-6 films include highlight crossover and a general blandness in saturation. The high speed versions went bad a lot faster, like Agfachrome 1000, now obsolete anyway.

I only had a brief fling with any of the Agfa black and white films, so can't comment on those myself. I have shot a reasonable amount of Delta 3200, but never kept more than a couple rolls of it around at a time, which were promptly shot, so can't extrapolate the full story there either.

Some of this is a bit like a "best eaten by" date stamp on a tube of Pringles potato chips. For those in this country, ever notice that the Pringles etc sold in places like WalMart are way past that date. That's why they're cheaper there. But they're still edible. It's not like the glass jars of peaches I once found in the pantry of cabin way out in the woods, which was abandoned a hundred years before.

 

[MattKing]

In any event, there is relatively little connection between issues respecting long term storage of photographic film, and the significance of "Develop Before" information printed on film boxes.

 

[pentaxuser]

Who says they have?
A "Develop Before" date is based on a number of factors, including projected retail availability.
This probably just made it to retail availability a bit quicker than expected.
Do you not think that Harman takes into account how long it takes for the boats to get their product to the USA before they put a "Best Before" date on their packaging for the USA market - their biggest market?

What does the above mean? It sounds as if it means that Kodak and Ilford have always based their expiry date or should that be "expiry date" as you have mentioned on retail factors so there never has been a set-in-stone expiry date but rather one based on such factors as you mention?

If so that sounds as if the OP's statement was not correct Kodak has changed nothing so the purpose of the thread ceases to exist and what he has seen is simply a change to the circumstances of distributíon?

In Ilford's case and presumably Kodak's as well, what "best before" date will differ for a U.S customer buying Ilford and a U.K. customer buying Kodak in comparison to the home based customer i.e. I enjoy a longer "best before" for an Ilford film compared to the U.S customer because the retail chain is shorter fro me in the U.K. and vice versa?

Is the retail chain from factory to customer sufficiently long to make such a difference and do you know for sure that what you have said is actual Kodak or Ilford policy

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[mshchem]

I have the same model refrigerator as Indiana Jones,

which Indiana Jones survives an atomic bomb detonation by fitting himself into a lead-lined refrigerator to shield himself from the explosion.

A good Amana Refrigerator!

 

[cmacd123]

presuably the date is from when the film was coated. there have been some shortages of retail stock, soyou may just be getting film that is closer to the Coating date.

 

[Don_ih]

Do you not think that Harman takes into account how long it takes for the boats to get their product to the USA before they put a "Best Before" date on their packaging for the USA market - their biggest market?

If they do, then the "Best Before" date has nothing to do with the film in the package. It then has to do with shipping and storage. In that case, they'd be better off not putting any date on the film (which is what they do with their paper).

 

[rcphoto]

If I'm buying new film I don't know i've ever paid attention to the date. I do pay attention if I'm buying something that I know is out of date and not been made in a while.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

There's no fuss in the sense that according to all who have responded we have welcomed the move because we all believe that the 2 year expiry date is too short

However I just wonder what that tells us about what appears to be the change in Kodak policy. My "wonder" is about why Kodak has changed its mind.

Have the film chemists/engineers discovered that they were wrong or were at least far too conservative in the past or have Kodak known all along that its film expiry date was too short but not told us simply for "commercial" reasons and what does that say about Kodak's other expiry dates in terms of authenticity?

Oh and ín case anyone is wondering, the same questions are equally legitimate if or when Ilford were to do the same

pentaxuser

Expiry dates are very conservative with pharmaceuticals and food from the market as well. I always wonder if they're being safe or just looking at their bottom line.

 

[MattKing]

Develop Before dates do factor in the normal time it takes to get film on to the shelves.
That is because they relate at least in part on how long film is likely to be in the hands of photographers - when they are not nearly as likely to be stored properly, and therefore more likely to deteriorate more quickly.
The Develop Before date is printed when the boxes are filled, without knowledge of where the film is going to end up. So it has to be a date that works for the film that takes the longest time to get on to the retail shelves.
If you happen to be buying from a source in New York - near where it is manufactured - it is likely that the film gets there quicker than the film sold by a retailer in Melbourne

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Color films also differ. The problem with some of them, like the Fuji Astia series or their CDU duplicating films, or the EDupe Kodak equivalent, is that the sheet versions of them sold so slowly that they were already getting old before even reaching an intermediate distributor. I bought a fair amount of outdated 8x10 Provia of several generations. It worked fine if shot reasonably soon after thawing, but couldn't be kept around thawed anywhere near as long as equivalent fresh film. Symptoms of outdated E-6 films include highlight crossover and a general blandness in saturation. The high speed versions went bad a lot faster, like Agfachrome 1000, now obsolete anyway.

I only had a brief fling with any of the Agfa black and white films, so can't comment on those myself. I have shot a reasonable amount of Delta 3200, but never kept more than a couple rolls of it around at a time, which were promptly shot, so can't extrapolate the full story there either.

Some of this is a bit like a "best eaten by" date stamp on a tube of Pringles potato chips. For those in this country, ever notice that the Pringles etc sold in places like WalMart are way past that date. That's why they're cheaper there. But they're still edible. It's not like the glass jars of peaches I once found in the pantry of cabin way out in the woods, which was abandoned a hundred years before.

Peach schnapps?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

In any event, there is relatively little connection between issues respecting long term storage of photographic film, and the significance of "Develop Before" information printed on film boxes.

Should you note when you freeze it how many months to the expiry date was so that when you defrost it you have those many months newly available?

 

[warden]

Expiry dates are very conservative with pharmaceuticals and food from the market as well. I always wonder if they're being safe or just looking at their bottom line.

Yes to both, but more the former than the latter.

 

[MattKing]

Should you note when you freeze it how many months to the expiry date was so that when you defrost it you have those many months newly available?

Film doesn't have expiry dates.
It doesn't magically die on you.
It has "Develop Before" recommendations attached to it. Those are determined based on a bunch of statistical information about both the characteristics of the film and on typical and atypical storage and use conditions. The date is chosen, because relying on it minimizes the number of unhappy customers and retailers and labs. Traditionally Kodak and the other major film manufacturers chose dates very conservatively, because they had a lot of control over how film is handled before it gets into the end user's hands, and because the people who were likely to notice small changes - the very particular customers - tended to use a lot of film, and tended to have money at stake.\, and tended to use high quality labs.
A lot has changed since then. In particular, the amount of within specification lab development has plummeted., So Develop Before dates have got more conservative. But even given that, as an end user, you have no way of knowing how the film was handled before you got it. So other than using film as soon as is practical, and handling and storing it in temperature controlled, cool to cold conditions before you use it, is the only systemic approach that makes any sense.
If your suggested procedure makes you feel comfortable, go ahead. But it isn't likely to make any measurable or predictable difference, unless you have control over a lot of the other variables.