Old film, Old Slides....kept in freezer...?

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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I have about a few rolls of films, ifford, Fuji, Kodak, in slides, B&W, colour films in the freeze for what must be 20 or close to 20 years now.

I know chemicals on them degrade over time and the only way to find out is to use them....but am I wasting my time? would you even bother?

EDIT - I just checked prices....£20 for a roll of Velvia 50? :eek:
 
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I'd certainly use it...

And as to prices, $215 for 10 sheets (that's ten exposures!) of Portra in 10x8 at BHPhoto...
 
If they've been frozen for the whole time they should be fine.
 
There is a smaller choice of slide film, and prices have risen a lot. Fuji appeared to take the view that they'd be better to freeze film and release small quantities at inflated prices to convince people that they were still making it. Kodak just took the view (apparently) that people will always buy their film, and priced it accordingly (i.e. exorbitantly).
 
StephenM said:
Kodak just took the view (apparently) that people will always buy their film, and priced it accordingly (i.e. exorbitantly).
Click to expand...

.....and a thought:- they could blackmail filmies "pay our prices or well close down". Fuji doesn't care either.
 
We're just used to the rock bottom prices of 2005 to about 2015. Film is a niche, boutique product now and so it's priced accordingly.

silvergrainclassics.com

Film Prices Analyzed: Is Film Too Expensive?

In recent years, film has become considerably more expensive. Many think that it has even become too expensive, and feel ripped off by manufacturers like Kodak and Fuji. But how much did prices really rise, and why? Are we paying too much? A look at film prices in perspective.
silvergrainclassics.com silvergrainclassics.com

@Raymond Lin Your film should be fine if frozen, I've shot colour negative that's about 21 years old and it turned out fine, rule of thumb is to overexpose colour neg/B&W by a stop per decade, slide film just expose at box speed.
 
Well, I still have it firmly in mind that in the mid 1960s, when all cameras used film, Kodachrome cost £36 in current money for 36 exposures, and still think film is cheap compared to those days,
 
FruitFlakes said:
We're just used to the rock bottom prices of 2005 to about 2015. Film is a niche, boutique product now and so it's priced accordingly.

silvergrainclassics.com

Film Prices Analyzed: Is Film Too Expensive?

In recent years, film has become considerably more expensive. Many think that it has even become too expensive, and feel ripped off by manufacturers like Kodak and Fuji. But how much did prices really rise, and why? Are we paying too much? A look at film prices in perspective.
silvergrainclassics.com silvergrainclassics.com

@Raymond Lin Your film should be fine if frozen, I've shot colour negative that's about 21 years old and it turned out fine, rule of thumb is to overexpose colour neg/B&W by a stop per decade, slide film just expose at box speed.
Click to expand...

Funny I stopped shooting film around 2006 wheni bought the Canon 30D lol Film was basically a means to an end for me. I much prefer digital for its ease of use when i switched over. I am not a newbie to film, even did a B&W developing course at the local colleage one summer to learn how to develop and print B&W film on a projector, dodgy and burn etc.

Yeah, 100% frozen, never been defrosted. I basically started out shooting film, EOS30, still have it. When I bought my Canon 30D I put everything in the freezer, there are even a few only shot mid roll (should have a piece of paper telling me how many shot I've shot up to).

There are various, Astia, Provia, Velvia, Iford, Kodachrome. Most are 100-400 ISO.

The over expose 1 stop per decade is interesting, never heard of it before. Is that for colour film or all film?
 
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The 1 stop per decade rule applies to colour negative and B&W negative only, but since you know it's been stored properly you can probably get away shooting it a stop over or even just at box speed. I've been working through a few boxes of Fuji 160S negative film that expired in 2007 and they look great at ISO100. Slide film you have to expose at box speed though.
 
I concur with the slide film advice. I shot a roll of 10 year out-of-date Provia 400X earlier in the year at E.I. 200 rather than box speed, E.I. 400, and it was disastrously over exposed. It had been frozen for part of its life but not recently (I ran out of freezer space). I thought extra exposure would compensate for the film's age and I was wrong. This after attempting to recover as much detail as possible in Lightroom after scanning. By the way, the blue cast is characteristic of the film when it is past its best.

1661_002 copy 2.jpg
 
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