Freezing 4X5 film: bag the box, or just freeze it?

[Kirk Gittings]

Just chucking the boxes in a freezer might work most of the time,

How about 45 years of doing it?

[Sirius Glass]

Just chucking the boxes in a freezer might work most of the time,.

How about 45 years of doing it?

I have only been doing it consistently for about 15 years.

[Roger Thoms]

Not worth the risk for me, but then I've seen damaged film going in the trash firsthand. Granted if was from a refrigerator, not a freezer. For me it's just a inexpensive form of insurance.

Roger

[Fred L]

last batch of film I bought (bulk rolls of Tri X and some 4x5 TX) I vacuum bagged. Overkill for the bulk rolls but better safe than sorry for the sheets.

[Drew Wiley]

I never re-freeze film once opened. I only freeze new boxes.

[Maris Rusis]

I always bag the film and photographic paper and pack it in plastic food storage containers before freezing. My pessimistic assumption is that the refrigerator or freezer will fail while I'm away on a photography expedition. Everything else can get soggy and or mouldy from the defrost water but, please, not the film, not the paper.

[Sirius Glass]

I will refreeze an unopened package, but opened packages go into Zip-Lok bags and into the refrigerator.

[480sparky]

A huge factor is whether your freezer is self-defrosting. If it is, you'll have moisture issues as the unit actually has a heating unit that's used to melt the frost build-up.

[Noah A]

I always use ziplocks. It's cheap insurance, and they can be reused. I also use them to hold my loaded film holders in my backpack in an effort to keep dust away from my holders.

I never refreeze a box after I open it, but that's mostly because Kodak only sells 10-sheet boxes of Portra, so I just load the whole box into holders at once.