How expired is too expired?

How expired is too expired?

  • No more than 1 year

    Votes: 18 7.4%
  • 1-2 years

    Votes: 31 12.8%
  • 3-4 years

    Votes: 37 15.3%
  • 5-6 years

    Votes: 35 14.5%
  • 7-9 years

    Votes: 19 7.9%
  • 10+ years (please specify)

    Votes: 102 42.1%

  • Total voters
    242
What about this?

What about this?

I'm shooting with my Kodak sensored Olympus E-1 and the colors are as good as when I bought it in 2003. And I have not frozen it, or even kept it refrigerated.

Oh my??? Was this a film thread. I've a fridge full of 120 and 4X5 with expiry dates back to the late nineties. Always refrigerated, and/or frozen. My luck is good on all this and I routinely shoot ten year old color, and much longer expired B&W.

Film reliability is a PITA.... I prefer the occasional surprise. I buy expired film on eBay all the time, from high volume, high feedback sellers.

My per shot cost only on keepers is minimal and often fortunate.

One point I make... I will not shoot medium or large format hand held. Film has become too expensive, even though my eyes and arms are relatively steady.

So, out of date film. Yes, to ten years mostly reliable, cooled and frozen, and never hand held!
 
Orwo NP don't remember the DIN/ISO or maybe that Ektar25
I also shot and cross processed some 20+ year old E6. With a little over exposure most things work.
 
It depends on the film. Colour film doesn't age well, especially slide film. I got funky green colour shifts before.

Black and white film can be well past expiry date and still work ok.
 
this year to celebrate my 40th birthday I decided to shoot 1975 style.

Olympus Trip 35 (from 1975 according to its serial number)
Kodak Tri-X (exp. 1975)

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I'm going to find out this weekend. I'm planning to go shoot an ice festival with my Bessa R, a 50mm lens, a yellow filter, and a roll of Shantou ERA 100 B&W film that expired in 2007, which had been stored in my garage for at least six years in non-optimal conditions (excessive heat and cold). I have no idea what will happen. I ordered some Diafine this week and I plan to soup the film when it arrives, then I'll scan and see what I get. I will try to post my results here, good or bad.

I am hoping for good results. I have quite a bit of this film remaining, so if it's OK, I'll be shooting with it for some time to come.
 
I believe that we have software and know procedures that can save the results from very expired film, but the results may not be identical to what we could get from fresh film.
 
After acquiring the Wanderlust Travelwide 4x5, I discovered two unopened boxes of Tri-X Pan Pro (ISO 320), with an expiration of 5/1982. They had been in my basement for most of it's life, with moderate temperatures. Last weekend I exposed at 200 and used Rodinal 1+25.

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Well, pretty expired as it turns out...

Well, pretty expired as it turns out...

Oldest I've shot successfully-- i.e. no more duds than on any other roll I shoot-- was some 828 SuperXX from 1956. I have great luck with Panatomic-X but not at that age. PanX is still usable at its box 32asa with expiry from the 70s to the 90s.

My favorite is some 12 Tri-X 320 from the 80s that someone spool-shaved to fit in a 620 camera and then forgot about. I got it in 2009-- the mold on it is amazing. Here's a rail yard panorama, stitched in DoubleTake but otherwise unprocessed. Expired in ~1985, shot in 2011, processed in Caffenol in Dec. 2015.
 

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