Was given some expired film, thoughts?

Klainmeister · May 5, 2013

So I was given some old equipment, and in the box I found some Kodak Vericolor II (1994) and Provia 100 (1996). These have not been stored in a freezer or anything.

What I am curious about is would it be worth the E6 processing costs to shoot these films? I was thinking I'd get some interesting shots with the pinhole, but what ISO?

Thanks in advance!

K

131802 · May 5, 2013

They _might_ work, but why take the chance?

ntenny · May 5, 2013

I've been shooting some Provia 100 of similar vintage, at box speed, and the results are quite good except for a significant magenta shift. It's not a big deal to correct in digital post, though it would make projection sort of weird.

On the other hand, I once had a roll of an old consumer slide film (I don't remember exactly which flavor; I think it was an older Fuji brand, and it was probably about 10-12 years out of date in a non-climate-controlled house) come back with essentially no images at all, just a uniformly faint-green strip of film.

I'd say it's worth a try, but I wouldn't bet the farm on the results or anything.

-NT

winger · May 5, 2013

I've used some older (similar vintage) E6 in my Holga and other cheap cameras and then had them cross-processed. They worked fine for that (especially since I didn't have high expectations).

Klainmeister · May 5, 2013

I don't really have any expectations, but wasnt certain if either has good keeping characteristics. I've experienced dated Velvia before, and that shifted nearly before the date on the box (go figure). Since 4x5 projection isn't in the bag, it would be for digi-workflow afterwards (blasphemy!). My GF has never seen 4x5 slides before, so that should fun.

MattKing · May 6, 2013

The Vericolour II is negative film - C41 process.

So I definitely wouldn't pay to have someone else (cross) process it in E6.

I shot a few weddings on Vericolour II - when fresh it was great for that.

heterolysis · May 6, 2013

SHOOT!

If it works, it works. If not, oh well. Have fun, and don't get too hung up on the results. I've shot old Vericolor and rated it a stop slower than box, but the negatives came out very dense so I might not have needed to! I've never shot expired slide film, but I imagine that rating it is a little trickier.

Tom1956 · May 6, 2013

I've been given old color film like that before. It's worthless. Life is too short to waste time on such a bad bet as that. B&W, maybe, that old, but color? Nahhh

Poisson Du Jour · May 6, 2013

Klainmeister said:
So I was given some old equipment, and in the box I found some Kodak Vericolor II (1994) and Provia 100 (1996). These have not been stored in a freezer or anything.

What I am curious about is would it be worth the E6 processing costs to shoot these films? I was thinking I'd get some interesting shots with the pinhole, but what ISO?

Thanks in advance!

K

Stuff convention. Have fun and put it in your pinhole and go feral. I wouldn't particularly be fond of using long-expired Provia 100, especially for landscapes given that this film can cast quite easily, in and out of expiry, chiefly a pinkish hue but also paleness in blue and loss of contrast. I'd be happy exposing 30 year old film in my pinhole just for the effect. You're not after perfection with those sort of cameras, remember.

BTW, Vericolour was a print film; unless you fancy cross-dressing, you might be up for even weirder results dunking it in E6. As I said, stuff convention and have a bit of fun, just like Instagram and other pardodies. Besides which, you're going to learn something about what happens to long-expired film when you actually expose it in conditions of your choice.

Dr Croubie · May 6, 2013

I see two options:
1 - Shoot a roll of each to test them, maybe even split 1 roll into a separate blank canister and test a half a roll of each. If it works, it works, if it doesn't, you've lost what, $10 and a few hours? (then you can still do option 2 with the leftovers).
2 - Don't bother with it, just flog it off on fleabay with 'Lomo' and 'Expired' and 'Great for Cross Processing' written all over it, and then go buy some fresh rolls with the proceeds...

pentaxpete · May 6, 2013

Here is some 1987 dated Kodak Vericolor III 160 ASA I was given -- it HAD been refrigerated by a Pro photographer who was Emigrating. I rated it at 32 ASA with my PENTAX 6x7 MK II and processed for 30 seconds longer in C41 chemicals -- they came out well .

Weald 7 by pentaxpete, on Flickr

Weald 1 by pentaxpete, on Flickr
Here is some outdated Fuji Provia 100 I keep in the 'fridge

Barbie by pentaxpete, on Flickr
Here is some 2005 dated Fuji Provia 100 CROSS-PROCESSED in C41

XPro Telephone by pentaxpete, on Flickr

Klainmeister · May 6, 2013

Oh wow, those did turn out well. I feel stupid for not knowing that Vericolor is C41, but hey, I was 6 years old when it was manufactured...

Dr Croubie · May 6, 2013

Klainmeister said:
Oh wow, those did turn out well. I feel stupid for not knowing that Vericolor is C41, but hey, I was 6 years old when it was manufactured...

That's not the most confusing part about Vericolour, the worst thing is that there were a few things that used the same name. Some of it was iso160 C41 regular film.
But there was another type that was iso3 or something stupidly slow, called 'internegative'. Basically, it was for making slides out of negatives, on a macro-duplicating setup (or 'contact-printed' on an enlarger). You put a processed negative in one end, this vericolour in your camera, and snapped. Processed it in regular c41 chemicals, and you got slides out of it (negative of a negative is a positive). But because regular negatives are orange, to make a clear-base slides out of all that orange, the slow vericolour was green base (green-orange=clear, or something).
Anyway, long story short, I got a dayroller off ebay, and it had something left in it, the extremely old sticker said 'vericolour', so I put it in 3 canisters and shot one, thinking it was the iso160 regular vericolour. Turns out it was the slow one, all I got was a totally underexposed roll of green out of it... (and I've got 2 rolls left over, not sure what to do with them)

removed account4 · May 6, 2013

make solar graphs / lumen prints from them !

i saw some over on flickr that were fixed + developed and fixed again
color film ... some of the most beautiful photographs i have ever seen !

MattKing · May 7, 2013

Dr Croubie said:
That's not the most confusing part about Vericolour, the worst thing is that there were a few things that used the same name. Some of it was iso160 C41 regular film.
But there was another type that was iso3 or something stupidly slow, called 'internegative'. Basically, it was for making slides out of negatives, on a macro-duplicating setup (or 'contact-printed' on an enlarger). You put a processed negative in one end, this vericolour in your camera, and snapped. Processed it in regular c41 chemicals, and you got slides out of it (negative of a negative is a positive). But because regular negatives are orange, to make a clear-base slides out of all that orange, the slow vericolour was green base (green-orange=clear, or something).
Anyway, long story short, I got a dayroller off ebay, and it had something left in it, the extremely old sticker said 'vericolour', so I put it in 3 canisters and shot one, thinking it was the iso160 regular vericolour. Turns out it was the slow one, all I got was a totally underexposed roll of green out of it... (and I've got 2 rolls left over, not sure what to do with them)

Internegative film was used to make printable negatives from transparencies. You would essentially take a photo of your slide using the internegative film, and then print from that negative. S

A properly prepared internegative made it possible to obtain very high quality prints from slides.

Was given some expired film, thoughts?

Klainmeister

131802

ntenny

winger

Klainmeister

MattKing

Moderator

heterolysis

Tom1956

Poisson Du Jour

Dr Croubie

pentaxpete

Klainmeister

Dr Croubie

removed account4

MattKing

Moderator

Was given some expired film, thoughts?

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