The expense of shooting film

faberryman · Sep 4, 2023

My film is older than your film.

Roger Cole · Sep 4, 2023

Agulliver said:
I think there's a few of us who literally have stored film for 30 years in a freezer and it's appeared to work "perfectly" when defrosted.

Slower films maybe. Don't try that with TMZ or Delta 3200. Of course most are in between, but it's a big stretch for 400 speed films too.

Agulliver · Sep 5, 2023

Yeah I wouldn't keep TMZ or Delta 3200 more than three or four years. In fact I've got some of the latter I need to work through in the next 12 months or so. But I've had stuff like Fomapan T800 over twenty years in the freezer, HP5, Tri-X 30 years. I'm just finishing off a 100 foot roll of HP5 that expired in 1994, and wasn't even refrigerated for the first ten years. It *is* showing a little base fog, I wouldn't push it to 1600 but it's doing just fine. Even Ektachrome seems to do 20 years in the freezer happily.

Mackinaw · Sep 5, 2023

Agulliver said:
I think there's a few of us who literally have stored film for 30 years in a freezer and it's appeared to work "perfectly" when defrosted.

I found several boxes of 120 Agfa 25 in our freezer, that probably date to 1988 or so (possibly earlier). I shot several rolls earlier this summer, and the negs look perfectly fine.

Jim B.

michaelelliottphotog · Sep 5, 2023

Roger Cole said:
Slower films maybe. Don't try that with TMZ or Delta 3200. Of course most are in between, but it's a big stretch for 400 speed films too.

I'm shooting 25 year old Fuji 400PR and still getting good results; not that I ever rated it at 400, maybe 320, usually 200 (but always developed for 400).

20-25 year old 320TXP is also yielding pretty on point results. For instance, this, this, or this.

But some bulk loaded Fuji 1600PR that I have no idea how was stored was thoroughly unusable even shot at 800.

I definitely get far better results (unsurprisingly) out of expired, well-kept black and white film than colour film, but it's still a crapshoot. Anything I absolutely need (which is very little, on film) I shoot on fresh film. Or preferably digital.

Roger Cole · Sep 5, 2023

Mackinaw said:
I found several boxes of 120 Agfa 25 in our freezer, that probably date to 1988 or so (possibly earlier). I shot several rolls earlier this summer, and the negs look perfectly fine.

Jim B.

Oh I'm sure a film that slow would be good for a long time, though I wouldn't be sure of 1988 until I tested it, as you did.

I wish I had stored some Agfa C41, particularly Ultra 50. Like Velvia in neg film, it wasn't for everything but for things where you really wanted that over the top saturation, wow.

Mr Negative · Sep 5, 2023

Can you really put a price on happiness?

xkaes · Sep 5, 2023

Roger Cole said:
Oh I'm sure a film that slow would be good for a long time, though I wouldn't be sure of 1988 until I tested it, as you did.

I'm still shooting Agfapan 25 in 35mm, 120 and 4x5" that is that old and it works fine. Way back then, I tested it to get the CI I wanted with my development -- and I expose it at ISO 12. I did back then and I still do now.

Works great -- as does my Ektar 25.

Doubt all you want -- and if there are others out there who have old frozen film, but doubt that it is any good, please let us know. We'd love to take it off your hands -- you'll sleep much better without all that doubt weighing on you. As Mr Negative says: "You can't put a price on happiness".

Sirius Glass · Sep 5, 2023

Mr Negative said:
Can you really put a price on happiness?

A positive thought from Mr Negative. Who woulda thunk?

Mr Negative · Sep 5, 2023

Sirius Glass said:
A positive thought from Mr Negative. Who woulda thunk?

Haha I have one or two a year.

xkaes · Sep 5, 2023

Why not? I'm positive about my negatives.

SodaAnt · Sep 10, 2023

faberryman said:
One way to avoid that problem is don't shoot hundreds of images, and of the images you do shoot, only edit the keepers. I acknowledge that some people are, for some reason, unable to restrain themselves, but that is a problem with them, not the medium.

+1

Just because digital allows you to quickly take hundreds of images doesn’t mean you should. When I go out with my digital gear I can spend a full day in the field and come home with 10-15 images. The memory card manufacturers hate me.

And of those 10-15 images, I might only spend time working on less that half of them in Photoshop, and fewer yet get printed.

CMoore · Sep 10, 2023

What advantage does 100ASA have over 400 in the freezer.?
Thank You

Sirius Glass · Sep 11, 2023

CMoore said:
What advantage does 100ASA have over 400 in the freezer.?
Thank You

I have very little ISO 100 film in my freezer. I have mostly ISO 400 films in the freezer.

CMoore · Sep 11, 2023

Roger Cole said:
Slower films maybe. Don't try that with TMZ or Delta 3200. Of course most are in between, but it's a big stretch for 400 speed films too.

Sirius Glass said:
I have very little ISO 100 film in my freezer. I have mostly ISO 400 films in the freezer.

Sorry, i had meant to quote the post above

Sirius Glass · Sep 11, 2023

CMoore said:
Sorry, i had meant to quote the post above

Humppp . . . I am not good enough to quote?!?

Roger Cole · Sep 11, 2023

CMoore said:
What advantage does 100ASA have over 400 in the freezer.?
Thank You

The faster the film, the more subject it is to fogging from all exposure, including cosmic rays which are not stopped by temperature.

Sirius Glass · Sep 11, 2023

Roger Cole said:
The faster the film, the more subject it is to fogging from all exposure, including cosmic rays which are not stopped by temperature.

I have not found that to be a factor with ISO 400 film stored for over a decade. Faster films may be sensitive enough to have those problems, but I do not have experience with those films.

CMoore · Sep 11, 2023

Roger Cole said:
The faster the film, the more subject it is to fogging from all exposure, including cosmic rays which are not stopped by temperature.

Sirius Glass said:
I have not found that to be a factor with ISO 400 film stored for over a decade. Faster films may be sensitive enough to have those problems, but I do not have experience with those films.

The score seems to stand at
400 is OK... 1
and
400 not OK... 1

xkaes · Sep 11, 2023

The film in my freezer is stored in those lead film bags. The are cheap, don't need batteries, and let me know what's film and what's not.

Sirius Glass · Sep 11, 2023

CMoore said:
The score seems to stand at
400 is OK... 1
and
400 not OK... 1

But my experience and vote are much more valuable.

Arthurwg · Sep 11, 2023

Did anyone mention the price of paper? How about $177.50 for 100 sheets o f Ilford 8x10?

chuckroast · Sep 11, 2023

Arthurwg said:
Did anyone mention the price of paper? How about $177.50 for 100 sheets o f Ilford 8x10?

Stop buying Ilford and buy Fomabrom Variant 111 VC FB. Cheaper and better in every way than the Ilford paper. I like Ilford's products for the most part, but their papers are not great.

chuckroast · Sep 11, 2023

Mackinaw said:
I found several boxes of 120 Agfa 25 in our freezer, that probably date to 1988 or so (possibly earlier). I shot several rolls earlier this summer, and the negs look perfectly fine.

Jim B.

I have processed freezer store film from the early 1970s recently and it worked just fine.

I have processed no-idea-how-it-was-stored Super-XX from 1961 and it mostly worked fine. The problems were mechanical, not chemical or emulsion. The sheets were stuck together and caused damage to the film service.

In both cases, the trick was to use very dilute semistand development to manage fog and get full film speed. D-23 worked well, but showed more grain. Pyrocat-HD showed slightly more fog, but far less grain.

I consider anything I bought and froze with dates from 1980 and forward more-or-less new ...

Sal Santamaura · Sep 11, 2023

CMoore said:
What advantage does 100ASA have over 400 in the freezer.?
Thank You

Roger Cole said:
The faster the film, the more subject it is to fogging from all exposure, including cosmic rays which are not stopped by temperature.

Sirius Glass said:
I have not found that to be a factor with ISO 400 film stored for over a decade. Faster films may be sensitive enough to have those problems, but I do not have experience with those films.

CMoore said:
The score seems to stand at
400 is OK... 1
and
400 not OK... 1

Cosmic rays are not the only type of ionizing radiation that fog film and aren't slowed by low storage temperature. Steve lives in Los Angeles, which is generally built upon soil that doesn't have much rock. Those who reside where the subsurface geology includes a lot of granite, or whose homes suffer from radon gas (a bigger problem than the one it presents to their film), will likely have a different experience.

The expense of shooting film

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