leaving exposed film in camera

msbarnes · Sep 27, 2011

How long can film sit in a camera? I guess this is similar to asking how long should exposed film go undeveloped? More specifically, I'm talking about Tri-X for 35mm and 120 films. Obviously the sooner the better, but I'm wondering if I can safely stretch a roll for a few weeks if I had wanted to. This is assuming that I'm storing my camera in a cool/dark place.

ColdEye · Sep 27, 2011

The longest i have stored exposed film was around 2 months I think. It was on my canonet 19 that had sticky shutter problem. I placed underneath the table where I keep my camera stuff and remembered it had film when I was about to give it away. It was very hot and humid then, but I noticed nothing wrong when I developed the film.

ROL · Sep 27, 2011

As I understand it, the longer exposed film sits around, the less bonded charged electrons become to the film. In the case of TriX specifically, the Tri's become separated from the X's and reattaching them can be time-consuming if not nearly impossible. SuperGlue has been known to work as a substitute for fix in particularly recalcitrant films.

Bill Burk · Sep 27, 2011

Stephen Benskin said:
I found this while going through some old test results. It is a latent image stability test...

Here is a relevant thread...

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Short answer: 30 seconds.

Long answer: The thread discusses how much loss of latent image you can expect.

brucemuir · Sep 27, 2011

With 120 you can have film flatness issues also if say you shoot half a roll and come back days/weeks later.

JSebrof · Sep 27, 2011

I remember when I got into photography my Mom handed me a compact p&s 35mm camera with half a roll of kodak color print film yet to be shot still loaded in it. Half the roll had been exposed easily 10 years before. I shot the remainder of the film and processed it, and what I found was that the frames exposed when the film was still fresh looked great, despite being left in the camera for more than a decade. The more recent frames that I took however were underexposed and had a reddish tint (could have been the tungsten lighting, though it was tungsten film). I remember being surprised that the original frames looked so good, I was expecting the whole roll to look like the more recent ones.

Poisson Du Jour · Sep 27, 2011

Leave it in for as long as you feel comfortable with. I regularly leave a roll of Velvia 50 in my camera for anything from 3 to 4 months. Neither myself nor a medley of printers have ever brought up anything relating to spoilage of any film I have used.

A roll of Provia 100F has been in my Zero Image Pinhole since late June. B&W films IIRC degrade very, very slowly. Film left in a camera and subjected to repeated extremes of temperature (particularly very hot temperatures) will become deranged and show casts. B&W film will lose effective film speed. I don't get in a sweat about it.

Gerald C Koch · Sep 27, 2011

A problem with leaving film in a camera is that it can take on a particular curl. This can lead to problems when you try to load it onto a reel. TLR's are the worst offenders in this respect since the film path often has a 90 degree turn. For 35mm choose a fim length 12, 20 or 36 exposures that you can completely use in a single session.

DWThomas · Sep 28, 2011

I don't recommend it, but in 2008 I discovered an almost finished roll of 120 Plus-X in an old TLR. Developed in HC110, I got images from it that indicated it had been exposed in 1981! They were certainly not optimum, and the base density was high, but I was able to scan a couple of them for web use. So I don't think I'd lose sleep over a few weeks -- or even a few months.

KanFotog · Sep 28, 2011

I recently found a roll of 35mm Kodak 200 film that was sitting in the attic of my home since at least 2003.

Got curious, got it developed and it came out fine with 36 images.
Colors are a bit off but considering that the film has experienced 40 degree celsius summers, about 12-15 winters, and all kinds of humidity, that's okay.

It was shot with a focus free, fixed aperture and fixed shutter camera too so I'm 27 different kinds of impressed with film as a medium.

On the other end of this spectrum, there are d-shooters who crib about their 3 year old RAWs not opening anymore

Cheers,
Som

railwayman3 · Sep 28, 2011

I often leave part-exposed film in a camera from a few weeks up to a month-or-two, if I'm not doing any shooting. No worries at all. The only time I'd deliberately use up a film quickly would be anything specialist, like a very fast film or an IR film.

Obviously, I keep the camera in normal domestic conditions, not anywhere like a hot car.

(Not directly relevent, but have just used an old Orwocolor (expiry 1992!) film found in the depths of my freezer....24 (technically) perfect prints, indistinguishable from those from a fresh film exposed at the same time!)

Jeff Kubach · Sep 28, 2011

Sometimes I leave film for a couple weeks no problem.

Jeff

darkosaric · Sep 28, 2011

I got old agfa isolettle in one store in Munich - and film was inside: I develop it in Rodinal 1+100 for one hour - semistand, and results are there. I guess film was in camera for 30 years or something like that - you can judge by clothes

Alan W · Sep 28, 2011

Garry Winogrand used tri-x and often waited years before having exposed rolls developed.They were probably stored properly though!

bdial · Sep 28, 2011

Garry Winogrand used tri-x and often waited years before having exposed rolls developed.They were probably stored properly though!

Dunno about that, there are some videos showing some of that stash he left behind, large trash bags of film rolls stuffed in file cabinets and desk drawers, as I recall. Not exactly what most would consider "proper".
The image starts degrading very quickly, and the process continues until the film is processed. But on a pratical basis, a few months is generally no problem, when you start measuring the timeframe in years the affects start to be obvious. How bad the affects are depend on the film and the conditions.

markd · Sep 28, 2011

I've waited months to process film and I haven't seen any real issues with it. It's usually better that way because then you forget what you shot and lose the expectation of how you thought your images should look, right? I've been shooting a lot of slide film and the processing doesn't come cheap so I have to squirrel it away until I'm able to pay for it. They say that slide film should be processed IMMEDIATELY but I think that's mostly for people who have to deliver a product or other people just spouting off what they've heard before.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

jeffreyg · Sep 28, 2011

A number of years ago we took my wife's point and shoot that had (I believe) Kodacolor loaded to one of our son's college graduation. After finishing the roll of snapshots we took it for processing to a one hour shop. When we got the prints, much to my surprise we had his high school and college graduation pictures on the same roll. All were fine.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

wblynch · Sep 28, 2011

Found a roll from 1958 in a box camera my sister got. We developed it and got pictures.

Look up Vivian Maier. They are still developing her film from 50 years ago. Beautiful stuff. A real treasure.

vpwphoto · Sep 28, 2011

I have developed film on a couple occasions that was more than 30 years post-exposure. Not optimal... but the latent images sure stick around.

Wade D · Sep 29, 2011

I found an old roll of Kodachrome 25 in a camera that quit working on a trip to Yosemite in 1980. The camera was in a box in a hot garage for 20+ years before I had it processed. To my surprise the slides came out great. Granted, it is not typical that film that old would be so good with vibrant colors and no side effects. Now if I could only find those slides after 5 moves...

Garry71 · Sep 29, 2011

I have had a half exposed roll of Ilford XP2 in a camera for 2 years now. I'll find out what it's like in a couple of weeks time!

Klainmeister · Sep 29, 2011

darkosaric said:
I got old agfa isolettle in one store in Munich - and film was inside: I develop it in Rodinal 1+100 for one hour - semistand, and results are there. I guess film was in camera for 30 years or something like that - you can judge by clothes

No, actually. That's simply how they still dress in Munich.

All joking aside, that's really pretty cool. Wasn't there some guy who has a whole website devoted to developing rolls from old cameras?

brian d · Sep 29, 2011

Klainmeister said:
All joking aside, that's really pretty cool. Wasn't there some guy who has a whole website devoted to developing rolls from old cameras?

here is one such site;
http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm

A few years ago I managed to develope a few sheets of 2X3 film from someone's wedding that I estimated to be from late 50's or early 60's

Barrie B. · Sep 29, 2011

Exposed Film left in camera.

msbarnes said:
How long can film sit in a camera? I guess this is similar to asking how long should exposed film go undeveloped? More specifically, I'm talking about Tri-X for 35mm and 120 films. Obviously the sooner the better, but I'm wondering if I can safely stretch a roll for a few weeks if I had wanted to. This is assuming that I'm storing my camera in a cool/dark place.

.
As long as you wish - it`s your film, depends on when you want to use the camera again.

perkeleellinen · Sep 29, 2011

A couple of months I suppose for me. I've left exposed film for much longer before processing - just over one year in fact when I was living abroad and had no darkroom access. I just put all the rolls in a drawer and then had a huge developing and printing session when I got home. I think I must have had 50 rolls by then, I spent weeks in the dark, it was quite good fun as it brought back memories.

leaving exposed film in camera

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