Should we use expired film or is it garbage ?

[Tel]

I like to shoot 127 film. I've got a collection of 4x4 TLRs and love shooting them. I can get fresh HP5 in the Ilford "ULF" sale but color has been hard to find. Some years back I bought several 100-foot rolls of 46mm (that's the correct width for 127) color stock that was used by a portrait photographer in a special camera that shot super-wide frames and had a motor drive, for school portrait sessions. I'm still shooting that film and I get generally good results, especially from a roll of Agfa XPS 160 film that expired in 2001.

 

[ezphotolessons]

They are opportunistic parasites, IMO.

if people buy-it, like-it and buy-more, how is person an opportunistic parasite? just giving someone what-they-want, what-they-expect makes person a opportunistic parasite?
are people who hard-core bad-poured all their wet collodion plates during the 2000s collodionsilver rush parasites too?

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

Not a lot of my frozen film [Velvia, Provia] stock is expired, but I know some certainly is.
No big deal. If you scan-to-web or scan-to-print, it is easy to correct obvious anomalies in post, maybe not so easy in the darkroom, but it is not a hang-up or disincentive whenever images are being prep'd for print or web and correction, including post-scan step compensation, is required.

 

[nosmok]

If I had to pay new-film prices to learn how to shoot LF, I wouldn't have dived hard into LF. Wait a minute, if I had to pay new-film prices to figure out home development, I wouldn't have done that either. And yes, Panatomic X rocks (I have 1 box of 8x10 PanX I'm saving for a special occasion...). Verichrome Pan is pretty reliable too, if it's newer than 1979 or so.

 

[Agulliver]

Should it be used or is it garbage?

I'd far rather someone have fun experimenting with expired film than throwing it away.

That said, the real answer is "it depends". Most of us will have used B&W film a decade or two expired and found that it's performing as new, or certainly good enough to shoot at box speed or one stop over exposed and still get excellent negatives. Some films such as Verichrome Pan seem to be indestructible.

In all other cases, including colour film more than a decade expired and very old B&W film....it can be a crap shoot. It can also be fun trying. And one can get a sense of satisfaction from getting any kind of image from film 50+ years old.

Other than the recent Analogue Wonderland film, which was clearly advertised as a gimmick to celebrate their anniversary....which very expired films are respooled and sold as a specific product? I'm not familiar with that segment of the market. But clearly there's demand.

And it absolutely can be an artistic choice to shoot with expired film. I personally don't like expired colour film beyond 5 years it's date as I'm not a fan of the colour shifts. But others are, and that's totally cool. Additionally, I know some colour films are fine 10-15 years expired. My local shop discovered some proper Agfa Vista in it's basement 5 years ago, and I snapped it up at £1 a roll because I knew it would be fine. And it was.

I wouldn't say that aged film is imbued with magical properties, but it is different to fresh film. And there are people who want to work with that....so why not let them? It does nobody any harm....regardless of whether they find it in an attic or buy it from a vendor who's acquired a warehouse of the stuff. If someone gets something out of shooting it, that's far better than dumping it in the rubbish.

 

[wiltw]

If I had to pay new-film prices to learn how to shoot LF, I wouldn't have dived hard into LF. Wait a minute, if I had to pay new-film prices to figure out home development, I wouldn't have done that either. And yes, Panatomic X rocks (I have 1 box of 8x10 PanX I'm saving for a special occasion...). Verichrome Pan is pretty reliable too, if it's newer than 1979 or so.

If I tried to learn to process film with expired stuff, I would have wondered to what degree any 'abnormal' appearance of the developed film was due to MY error, vs what might have been resultant from the use of expired film!
The only film I ever ruined during processing was YEARS into my experience, long after I had alreay mastered the process of developing film -- including processing for color transparency film -- because I empty-headedly grabbed the fixer and poured it in as the first solution, in a rush to shoot an assingment and get prints to the newspaper offset printer! I had to rush to do a reshoot (which fortunately was actually possible in this case) and rush back to process film and prints and get them to the printer.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

If I tried to learn to process film with expired stuff, I would have wondered to what degree any 'abnormal' appearance of the developed film was due to MY error, vs what might have been resultant from the use of expired film!
The only film I ever ruined during processing was YEARS into my experience, long after I had alreay mastered the process of developing film -- including processing for color transparency film -- because I empty-headedly grabbed the fixer and poured it in as the first solution, in a rush to shoot an assingment and get prints to the newspaper offset printer! I had to rush to do a reshoot (which fortunately was actually possible in this case) and rush back to process film and prints and get them to the printer.

I agree. If you have to save money, then buy the cheapest BW film you can find as long as it's "fresh" to avoid confusion about whether the bad shots are due to the film or your errors. The other things I did when I started LF was to set up the equipment in my home and practice shooting with no film. Just going through all the paces from setup to snapping the shot and tearing down the setup.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Fresh film has the fewer problems associated with expired film. My photographs are valuable, at least to me, so I am more interested in using fresh film than saving money.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Give it a try. If you like it, there's your answer. The answer may be different for every batch.

 

[51Spartan]

Hey David, I saw your comments on a couple of other forums about using the besseler slide king projector. I was wondering specifically if you were able to use it in your home or in normal rooms with a 12.5 lens. For example, could I get a 2 footby 2 foot image from 10feet away?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Hey David, I saw your comments on a couple of other forums about using the besseler slide king projector. I was wondering specifically if you were able to use it in your home or in normal rooms with a 12.5 lens. For example, could I get a 2 footby 2 foot image from 10feet away?

Welcome to Photrio!

 

[ZhanTeh]

I don't use expired film for any of my serious work.

However, occasionally I do come across bargain ones and couldn't resist getting some.
I use them for the more experimental or 'mood' shots.

Expired 4x5 Kodak Portra 400:

 

[nosmok]

Here's some 4x5 Tri-X 320 that expired in 1982-ish (oh no!), rated at 40 or so, and developed in Caffenol (not that!) Delta formulation. When I have time I'll do a little dust removal; there's no processing at all on the 2400dpi negative scan this lo-res (420K!) copy is taken from. It's not perfect but the expired film doesn't hold it back-- probably the Caffenol does . Now that my kids are older I could probably use more toxic developers, but since I develop in the kitchen it's still probably a bad idea...

 

[loccdor]

Large format will be more tolerant of expiration, for sure.

 

[Pioneer]

Large format will be more tolerant of expiration, for sure.

That is interesting. I never heard that before.

I guess that means that my 5x7 is fine.

Where is my Caffenol?

 

[mikestr]

Should we use expired film or it’s garbage ?

What do you think of expired respoolers and old brand resellers of expired film ?

Should it be considered as good as it for experimental purposes or should we forget it ?

Buying outdated film to save some money and for offbeat effects are two completely different things. In the first instance, it's a perfectly sensible idea if the film comes through normal retail channels but is simply leftover stock, the film is of medium speed, e.g., ISO 50-200, and the cost is substantially lower than buying new film. Expiration dates are conservative, and professional films tend to be kept refrigerated. Even when one buys only fresh film, especially in quantity, there's a good chance that some of it will go past the sell-by date before it's used. In this scenario we're talking about a few years, not decades. Unlike B&W film, which may lose some density and contrast, color films may also show slight but correctible color shifts. Five years past expiration should not be a serious problem, especially if the film is kept cool.

Be careful about faster films: The main cause of deterioration is cosmic rays, which penetrate even lead bags, and of course your fridge or freezer. These can render film useless in just a few years if you live at high altitude. I would not buy outdated TMAX 3200, or even 800, especially if it came from a store in Denver. Every 3,000 ft above sea level will cut the shelf life of film by half!

Buying film in bulk, e.g., 100 ft rolls, and loading them into reusable cassettes, is a great way to save money. I used to do it all the time. I used a Watson 66 bulk loader. Just be careful with the cassettes. If not kept perfectly clean the light trap can collect dirt that will scratch the film. When in doubt use a new one.

I must say that I feel that a bit too much is made of the cost of film. It's possible that those who grew up in the digital age are accustomed to making a great number of images of the same subject because there is no cost penalty. If you think of film as an opportunity to make important images you will be more selective. And you have to buy a lot of film befiore you've spent as much money as on a really good digital camera system.

As for the second use case I have no advice.

 

[loccdor]

That is interesting. I never heard that before.

Well, if you're not magnifying the emulsion as much, you're not magnifying its damage as much.

 

[whojammyflip]

I've got a load of black and white film (possibly 200 rolls) in a fridge in the garage. As long as there is ice in the ice drawer in that fridge, I am assuming the film is keeping itself in good condition. I guess the thing is, for me, I know how I have been storing it, and if I had a bad roll, I would bin the other films from that batch. The film which I worry about is the bulk stuff I have which I cannot keep frozen as its in a bulk loader. I tend to grab film from the fridge, so the two bulk loaders with 100 and 400 speed Ilford Pan films in them are sitting there.

Here is a thought, I believe films like Rollei Retro 100 are rebadged Agfa films, from when Agfa went bust in 2005. If Agfa went bust 20 years prior, I am guessing the film stock must have been kept frozen at the production end, waiting to be cut up and packaged into rolls.

 

[MattKing]

Thread title and first line of first post tweaked - "is it" from "it's".
Because it has been driving the anally retentive proofreader in me crazy!
Hope the responses you got from your query have been helpful.

 

[Disconnekt]

A good chunk of the film I've shot is expired, most of it is film I never got to shoot when it was fresh cuz it was discontinued before I was born/when I was really young/not into photography at the time. To me, it's pretty much a "why not? Its there to shoot/try out & see what I get!", even though I know its not gonna look exactly how its supposed to when it was fresh & theres always chance nothing comes out.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Thread title and first line of first post tweaked - "is it" from "it's".
Because it has been driving the anally retentive proofreader in me crazy!
Hope the responses you got from your query have been helpful.

I wish someone would correct the capital S in another long running thread which irritates me no end.

I guess it's up there with this thread which I'm amazed is still attracting comment.

End of pointless post.

 

[Prest_400]

The expired I used usually is because of it "falling on my lap". I did succesfully get a batch of 2021 HP5 and P400 120 which I used for a long weekend. Kept refrigerated and given away by a photographer that moved away.

As of 120, it's my main format and mostly stock up myself. Even BW I keep refrigerated and shoot at most a couple years after expiration.
My local auctions are a bit mad with regards to expired film. Even a 1-5 year expired Ektar or Portra fetches 10-25% more than off the shelf fresh prices.

Sometimes bought to freeze and it expired there, specially color (Fujichrome). I do have a bunch of good Portra and Eltar exp 2024 which are basically trip leftovers.
My best record was 2006 exp Fuji Astia shot and developed in 2020-21. I'd like to have tried Agfa, Konica color films but nowadays would be very very rare to get anything reasonably to spec.

 

[Cholentpot]

I shoot 90% expired film. When I got into film people were giving stuff away. Once hooked never to stop. I know what I'm getting into so it doesn't bother me when I get a bum roll or 5. I've found over the years that bulk expired film generally holds up better. Also expired short-ends from movie production is another great source of cheap film. Issue is I can't get my hands on the stuff anymore. It got too popular.

There's a big but here that no one's touched.

I develop and scan everything myself. Black and white and color. All done at home by hand. The cost saving is monumental if you include bulk expired film in the mix. My fresh stuff goes out to a lab but that's 5 rolls out of 150 a year. Even that will sit around until I have enough rolls to justify sending off.

 

[mshchem]

I have a lot of expired film I bought fresh. A savvy investor I'm not!

 

[thinkbrown]

I have a lot of expired film I bought fresh. A savvy investor I'm not!

Sure you are. You're hedging against future commodities inflation and tariff uncertainty, or at least that's how I pitch it to my wife