Best practices for frozen sheet film

[LabRat]

The refrigerator section can be moist, but the freezer is dryer... As the doors are opened and closed in a damp environment, more frost builds up on the condenser... Be aware that auto de-frost units get very damp when they shut down for their cycle, and all of the frost melt has to go somewhere (stay somewhere in that sealed unit), so it can get very wet in there then...

I had a bunch of B/W film in the bottom of a deep freezer for awhile (that was rarely opened), and when used, it was very dried out and developed unevenly... A longer pre-wet bath helped very much...

Steve K

[Jac@stafford.net]

[...] The only addition I suggest is to keep the boxes in ziplock bags while they are in the freezer, since the humidity in a freezer is high.

Typo, I think. Freezers today are very dry. One small point - not all ziplock type bags are impermeable. IOW, some will allow air and water to penetrate, although slowly. In fact, freezer burn is caused when water passes from the product, through the bag, dehydrating it.

[Noah A]

When I buy my film I put the film box in a ziploc back and put it in the freezer. I try to get most of the extra air out of the ziplock.

When I'm ready to shoot it, I take it out and let it sit overnight before removing it from the ziploc, to avoid condensation.

I've never tried to re-freeze the film, but that's mostly because my film only comes in boxes of 10 sheets and I usually load the whole box into holders at one time. I've never had a problem using this method.

[Cor]

Probably over-kill, but works for me:

Have a lot of different film stocks frozen at -20degC, and the of the films I use the most I have a working stock of 10-20 sheets at +4degC, all in Zip-lock bags, when I need film I take it out of the +4degC koelkast and let it warm up for 2-4 hours.

This does means that the stock boxes get thawed 2-3 times and frozen again, never had a problem.

God luck,

Cor