Freezer

[chacabuco]

With the continued downward spiral of Kodak news, it seems like it might be a good time to stock up on some Portra. The few boxes I have stored in the freezer at any given time are the source of enough strife as it is, so it's time to get an additional small freezer, probably off of craigslist.

Are there any particular features that are recommended for film storage? Is frost free something I should be looking for?

Thanks


Rob

[Michael Clark]

Freezers new are pretty cheap, check out Costco,Lowe's,Sears,Home Depo.


Mike

[Larry Gebhardt]

I avoid frost free since it heats up a little every day to keep the frost down. chest freezers are more energy efficient, but less convenient to get to the bottom of. However my chest freezer makes a fairly good counter in the darkroom. Also, newer freezers use much less energy than the old ones, so factor that into cost of an ancient one on Craigslist.

[Larry Gebhardt]

Also, the freezer will be the cheapest part of your Portra stash if you fill it. :)

[jp]

I have a $200 7cu ft Holiday chest freezer from Lowes. I made a divider out of a scrap of plywood to keep the film separated from the food. Newer freezers are going to be more energy efficient than a cheap or free ancient one, and that's important to me.

Boxes of 10 sheets of 8x10 were opened in the darkroom and combined to take half the space. a couple boxes of 4x5 go into gallon ziplocks. 6 or so propacks of 120 film per gallon ziplock. I spend money on film and freezer and my wife saves some of it back by stocking the freezer with food when grocery bargains are to be found.

[johnielvis]

I got a 5 cu foot for like 160 bucks to augment an existing one...I'djust keep film freezers as film-only--then you don't go in there too much and no frost will result....they are cheap cheap cheap these days....buy an extra for film...then you'll have redundance if one breaks....I was gonna double up a bunch of boxes to make all I got fit in one freezer but it's easier and more reliable to have 2 freezers filled with single-fill boxes...redundancy...and cheap freezers (and cheap energy--relatively speaking)...

[chacabuco]

Thanks for all the freezer knowledge. Sounds like a new one is the way to go and will probably cost marginally more than 10 sheets of 8x10. Since it will be dedicated to film, I can probably keep it pretty small. Combining boxes seems like a smart idea too.

Thanks again

Rob

[John Brady]

The Freezer is the cheapest part of the equation!

I just spent $1900 on 200 sheets of Astia 8x10 this week, Ouch.
With many of my favorite films becoming extinct or difficult to obtain, you have to load up when you can.

I sell my work so my hope is always that I can turn this frozen stock back into money when the time comes. Thats getting harder to do these days too.

I really wish someone would make a 4x5 ccd sensor that would be in the 100meg range. Life would be much simpler.

www.timeandlight.com

[photobymike]

You have to wonder how much your film is actually costing you after say 10 years of freezer storage. My freezer keeps some strawberries and some veggies cold for later consumption. if i unplugged my freezer it would save about 20 bucks a month. It really does use the power and it is a new one.... soo 120 months X 20 bucks thats 2400 dollars for ten years of storage.... and thats assuming that electricity does not go up. Then figure the money for the actual investment in film put in an investment account say an average of 10 percent per year return... the space your freezer takes up ... well i am hoping that someone will be making the film as i need it......

http://www.mikepic.com

[jp]

Power is worth considering the cost of, but WAGs for power consumption aren't needed with the advent of $30 testers. Power use tags are on new freezers if you're shopping.

You need to put a kill-a-watt on it Mike instead of guess it takes $20/month.

Before a year ago, I didn't stockpile film, other than 35mm because it was cheaper to get 20-packs and I was too lazy to roll my own. Now with Kodak up in the air, many people are getting Kodak while it's not either special order or disappeared. If kodak were in better shape, I might have a little as a convenience and hedge against silver prices, but it wouldn't involve anything more than displacing a box of ice cream in the kitchen freezer.

[photobymike]

I researched freezing and storing film.... wrote in past thread

If you want to keep film for longer than ten years, then I would consider freezing. When film is manufactured the emulsion has a relative humidity level standard that has to be maintained. Too low and the emulsion cracks and to high it rots and excepts gasses that interact with the emulsion. There is a whole list of gases that really are quite common, if you want a list email me. Basically everything in the kitchen and the garage will effect the emulsion if the emulsion humidity gets to high. So seal your film no matter how you store it. Then the type of base is also consideration, acetate film base, emulsion cracking can occur but not so much of a problem. Estar or polyestar based film, well have you ever developed a roll of film that looks like a spring that cannot be straitened? well that means too dry or low humidity. Freezing very much can change the humidity level of the emulsion of your film emulsion, which you really want to avoid.

go here for a little freezer education http://www.green-energy-efficient-homes.com/energy-efficient-freezers.html

LOL.... kill-a-watt ... It looks like the average energy efficient freezer is between 300 and 400 watts per/hour like 3 or 4 light bulbs burning all the time.....

The wife insisted on a good freezer from Sears and the sales guy said it was efficient so .... i know my electric jumped about 20 bucks....

http://www.mikepic.com

[jp]

The energy label on my freezer said $30/year, which really means $45/year to me as our electricity is higher priced than average.

I'm sure it draws 3-400 watts when running, but it's a very small duty cycle of running.

There is no such thing as watts per hour, as watts are an instantaneous value rather than a consumable energy unit value like BTUs or calories. watts multiplied by hours is how electricity is metered/billed. A kill-a-watt can measure watts instantaneously, or log watt hours over a time period like your utility meter.

If your wife insisted on the model that draws more, then it's OK as long as you don't mind paying the bill.

[ndrs]

My 10 months old Liebherr GTP 2356-20 chest uses 48 W with compressor running. I've just connected it through a logging device to see how much it eats in a day. It's a 200 litre A+++ device dedicated to film and paper, and the door would be open only a few times a week.

[photobymike]

The kilowatt-hour (symbolized kWh) is a unit of energy equivalent to one kilowatt (1 kW) of power expended for one hour (1 h) of time.
Inversely, one watt is equal to 1 J/s. One kilowatt hour is 3.6 megajoules, which is the amount of energy converted if work is done at an average rate of one thousand watts for one hour.

i am just guessing on the power consumption cuz i pay the bill