Standard conditions and film life?

I've been curious about this, but it never seems to come up in the "X year old film" threads.

When the film companies state an expiration time frame, what are the assumed storage conditions (mainly temperature) that are implied?

Room temperature, no high temperature swings is the basis of estimate.

Steve

I just shot a bunch of Tri-x 320 4X5 stored in an unsealed box, stored in my closet. I live on the east coast of USA, pretty humid. The box was dated Feb. 2006. Developed the film normal....no problems. I think as long as things are fairly reasonable, the film will be okay. Mike Nichols of the National Geographic has said that his chrome films were often subjected to extremes---High humidity, prolonged storage in car trunks, etc....never had any problems. That said---if your shoot is hyper-critical, buy some fresh stock.

DLawson said:

I've been curious about this, but it never seems to come up in the "X year old film" threads.

When the film companies state an expiration time frame, what are the assumed storage conditions (mainly temperature) that are implied?

Click to expand...

The maximum storage temperature is on the box for some films; the conditions are detailed in tech pubs/data sheets for professional films.

For amateur films AFAIK room temperature is assumed.

Wirelessly posted (BBBold: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

TMY and TMY-2 seems to keep well at room temp. 65F to 76F year round. I'm processing two year old film stored that way and the negs are still to die for.

Tom Nutter said:

That said---if your shoot is hyper-critical, buy some fresh stock.

Click to expand...

I wasn't asking because I have a critical need, but rather to get a mental frame of reference for what refrigerator/freezer storage can do. If it is supposed to be fine (as in, no customer complaints) for years at 20C, then I can understand why many years or even decades in a freezer could work out fine.

DLawson said:

I wasn't asking because I have a critical need, but rather to get a mental frame of reference for what refrigerator/freezer storage can do. If it is supposed to be fine (as in, no customer complaints) for years at 20C, then I can understand why many years or even decades in a freezer could work out fine.

Click to expand...

It can, freezing can extend film life for years, however unless your freezer is several kilometres under ground, it can still be affected by some forms of natural radiation. Slower films are more tolerant of this then faster films. If you took a roll of Delta 3200 and stuck it in the freezer with a roll of Tech Pan (already been there for 10 years) and waited 30 years, the Tech Pan would still be okay while the Delta 3200 should be hopelessly fogged from cosmic rays.

This topic seems to come up regularly, and there are always a lot of variables.

The expiry date is that to which the manufacturers guarantee "as new" results, given storage conditions as recommended (usually sealed, dry and cool....an Ilford box here says store below 24 deg C, 75 deg F). Obviously they allow lots of latitude, it's not like a "use by" date on food.

I don't worry for most work, even for a few years over, if it's film which I've bought myself and stored in a fridge or freezer. For a real "once in a lifetime" shoot, I'd obviously use fresh film of the same batch/date and test a roll first.

I once had an exposed HP5 in my fridge for eleven years before I developed it. It came out just fine, of course. I have used some odd 10 years past "best before" PanF once with only slight increase in base fog. In museum I once developed succesfully an Agfa ISS which was taken from a Zeiss Box Tengor exposed approximately thirty years ago.

Jojje said:

I once had an exposed HP5 in my fridge for eleven years before I developed it. It came out just fine, of course. I have used some odd 10 years past "best before" PanF once with only slight increase in base fog. In museum I once developed succesfully an Agfa ISS which was taken from a Zeiss Box Tengor exposed approximately thirty years ago.

Click to expand...

Do not do something to day that can be put off until tomorrow.

Steve