Hey everyone,
I recently shot some Fujichrome 64T Type II that expired in 2002 and wanted to share results from an experiment testing my "overexpose and pull" approach for expired slide film.
Most of the advice I've seen for expired E-6 seems to be "shoot it at box speed and pray," but I wanted to see if something more deliberate could work. My idea was to overexpose by about 1 stop per decade of expiration, then pull the first developer by the same amount. That gets image density above the fog floor, and the pull keeps highlights from blowing out.
I shot two rolls with back swaps on my Mamiya 645 Pro at different levels:
- Roll A: +1 stop overexposure, -1 stop pull
- Roll B: +2.5 stops overexposure, -2.5 stop pull
Some things that stood out to me:
- The heavier overexposure/pull (+2.5/-2.5) gave the cleanest results. Actual blacks instead of purple fog, noticeably better color separation
- The +1/-1 roll was a clear improvement over box speed, but shadows still had some fog
- Color cast went from magenta/purple at baseline to more of a cool blue bias with the heavier pull
- Backing paper bleed and mottling are still there. Those are storage/age artifacts, not something development can fix
I also put together a video walking through the full process and comparing scans, for anyone interested:
I've attached a few comparison frames below, with the baseline (box speed, normal dev) first, then +1/-1 and +2.5/-2.5 from the same subjects.
Curious to hear if others have tried overexposure/pull on expired slide film, and what ratios worked for you. Most of what I've found online is about negative film. Slide seems a lot less documented.
I recently shot some Fujichrome 64T Type II that expired in 2002 and wanted to share results from an experiment testing my "overexpose and pull" approach for expired slide film.
Most of the advice I've seen for expired E-6 seems to be "shoot it at box speed and pray," but I wanted to see if something more deliberate could work. My idea was to overexpose by about 1 stop per decade of expiration, then pull the first developer by the same amount. That gets image density above the fog floor, and the pull keeps highlights from blowing out.
I shot two rolls with back swaps on my Mamiya 645 Pro at different levels:
- Roll A: +1 stop overexposure, -1 stop pull
- Roll B: +2.5 stops overexposure, -2.5 stop pull
Some things that stood out to me:
- The heavier overexposure/pull (+2.5/-2.5) gave the cleanest results. Actual blacks instead of purple fog, noticeably better color separation
- The +1/-1 roll was a clear improvement over box speed, but shadows still had some fog
- Color cast went from magenta/purple at baseline to more of a cool blue bias with the heavier pull
- Backing paper bleed and mottling are still there. Those are storage/age artifacts, not something development can fix
I also put together a video walking through the full process and comparing scans, for anyone interested:
I've attached a few comparison frames below, with the baseline (box speed, normal dev) first, then +1/-1 and +2.5/-2.5 from the same subjects.
Curious to hear if others have tried overexposure/pull on expired slide film, and what ratios worked for you. Most of what I've found online is about negative film. Slide seems a lot less documented.
