Vacuum Sealing Film

[thuggins]

I just bought an order of Elite Chrome (my last ...?) and was packing it up for the freezer. Does anyone have experience with sealing film inside vacuum bags? The rolls are still in their canisters.

Does the vacuum have any deleterious affect on the coating?

 

[tkamiya]

Are you talking about using home food vacuum packers? Yes, I've tried it - actually more than one kind.

These, combined with bags made for them doesn't create that good of a vacuum and the seal isn't all that great. They evacuate excess air but that's about it, and over a course of few days, they do leak enough to lose the vacuum "look".

I wouldn't worry about it and I wouldn't even bother with it.

I keep my film in freezer zip loc bags and just remove excess air by flattening it by hand. Then place it in the refrigerator. (I do not freeze my film)

 

[wildbill]

the canisters are air tight, no need for anything more than that except maybe a lead jacket.
I use a vacuum sealer for all my sheet film, opened or not and it works great. No leaks or loss of seal as described above.

 

[benjiboy]

I just seal my film before I put it in the freezer in ordinary kitchen cling film.

 

[Dan Williams]

I scored some boxes of 5x7 and 5x12 film a few years ago. I used my vacuum sealer on them and stuck them in the freezer. - No leaks and no problems - I don't know that I have gained anything by doing this but it seemed like a good idea at the time. 35mm and 120 film I just take out of the box and put in zip-lock bags before storing them in the freezer.

Dan

 

[wildbill]

ziplocs and other freezer bags aren't all that airtight. you wouldn't put your camera in one for underwater work (okay, holga), would you? kitchen cling film may keep frost off but not air in/out.

 

[M.A.Longmore]

.
When I store loose film in the freezer I put some uncooked rice in the zipper bags.
Hoping that any condensation that forms while it's thawing will be attracted to the
tasty morsels of rice grains, instead of the film. But, then again I've got a ridiculous
amount of rice so it comes in really handy around the house.


Helpful Hint:
Before using the coffee grinder for pulverizing my vitamins, and minerals.
I put some uncooked rice inside, and give it a whirl to remove any coffee residue.

Next Week I'll Share My Recipe For Baked Clams !
Especially For Long Islanders That Aren't Too Far
Away From The White Cap Fish Market, in Islip.

Enjoy The Weekend !

Ron
.

 

[hrst]

I strongly recommend to study a little bit of thermodynamics and properties of water vapor.

For some mystical reason, it is often suggested to store moisture-sensitive products in air-tight packaging for cooling in a freezer, but this is completely wrong and absurd if not done right.

Use a dew point calculator (e.g. at http://www.dpcalc.org/ ) to see how the relative humidity goes up when the temperature goes down given that the absolute moisture content stays constant -- which is EXACTLY what happens when sealing the warm, possibly humid air inside that package. Reducing the volume of air trapped by using a "vacuum" packaging helps but does not solve the problem.

The absolute moisture content of the air inside the fridge of freezer is always lower than outside, because condensation occurs at the coldest point, namely the evaporator plate/coil, drying the air, so by sealing the package, you are always making the air inside MORE moist than it would be without any package.

On the other hand, watertight packaging helps with accidental exposure to melted condensate which can happen at power shortage etc.

So, as to provide a simple solution, get some silica gel from Ebay and place a few bags inside that airtight packaging before sealing it! It is dirt cheap and you can regenerate it by heating in oven at about 150C for an hour.

So, why are films originally packaged in air-tight packaging? Just for the same reason. The difference is, they do the packaging on a very dry environment! It has to be done right. You will fail if you have a hot, moist rainy summer day when sealing the packages, and there will be a lot of condensation inside the package on all surfaces when cooled down.