Refrigerating expired film

George Mann

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Hi. I have a roll of expired of Fujicolor 200 (exp 9/2/22), which has been stored at room temperature. I plan to shoot it in the next month or so.

Would it help or hurt to refrigerate it at this point?
 

BradS

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one roll?
one month?
Why bother?

It won't help or hurt.
It will only make it a little less convenient.
 
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Sirius Glass

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Refrigerating it will arrest the slow degradation while it is in the refrigerator, so go ahead a do it.
 

koraks

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Refrigerating it will arrest the slow degradation while it is in the refrigerator

It doesn't quite arrest it, no. It will slow it down. However, the fridge won't protect the film from degradation through e.g. cosmic radiation, and chemical degradation is likewise also only slowed down and not arrested.

Refrigerating will help in the long run, but it's not a panacea.

I plan to shoot it in the next month or so.

Frankly, in this case, it doesn't really matter what you do as long as you don't put it in the oven.
 

xkaes

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I'd advice putting it in the fridge, instead of the freezer or oven. Why? You are much more likely to actually use it ASAP -- with no need to thaw it or baste it.
 
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George Mann

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I'd advice putting it in the fridge, instead of the freezer or oven. Why? You are much more likely to actually use it ASAP -- with no need to thaw it or baste it.

Well, I have never put my film in either the freezer or the oven. Kodak recommends standard refrigeration, so thats where I put it.
 

lamerko

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I don't know what "standard cooling" means, but Kodak recommends that for long-term storage of cinema films be kept at -18 degrees Celsius. For consumer films they don't give much data, but in the specifications of Portra, for example, there is a table for defrosting, where there is a column -18 degrees. Fuji says storage below 0 degrees Celsius, which means freezer.
 

Paul Howell

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Unless you have move to death Valley and living in an unairconditioned house, another month at room temp will make any notable difference,.
 

MattKing

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Sirius Glass

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We agree on these. The last one we are on violent agreement.
 

Agulliver

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I agree with those who say that 2022 is still pretty fresh and the film is unlikely to have degraded much, likely any changes will be undetectable unless you've had it those years in a tin shed in direct sun. Another month at room temperature isn't going to make any difference. If you were planning to keep it for another year or longer before shooting....I would suggest freezing it.
 

Prest_400

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I recall reading a great post (and other bits) by Ron Andrews who is also a retired photo engineer, he was active here as well but haven't heard of him in a long time.
Went a bit crazy for half an hour searching for the following source/citation! It would be fantastic if there were plotted curves about it, but also fun fact that Max 800/Portra 800 fares much better than the year 2000 ISO 800 materials did.

The quote has a hyperlink to the p.net thread. Have to say I adore those discussions with the first hand knowledge of the exKodak engineers. Copying here for reference.



Quite a bit of my stock of color film is now shortly expired or short dated. Due to the price increases and ability to stock up on some I just bought to freeze. Fujicolor and Kodacolor 200 are consumer films and should be robust to being kept at room temperature.
The official advice from Kodak is quite interesting, it caught my attemption the very prompt processing after exposure recommended (1 hour to 24h?). In that case I have had BW undeveloped for 3 years (TriX) and quite often my current color waits some months until development. I
 

Disconnekt

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I say it wouldn't hurt to just put it in the fridge for now until you plan to shoot it, especially now that its summer & youll be keeping it out of the heat
 
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