Expired film, storted at room temp, for bin?

[mitrajoon]

A friend gave me several rolls of Fuji 135 Sensia slide film, 20 years old. Had not been refrigerated. I shot two rolls using auto exposure. Not really paying attention because I thought they'd be crap. Slides came back with a magenta cast but after scanning them and applying WB in photoshop they came out great. You can see them here if you want:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/79977169@N04/

[r.e.]

A friend gave me several rolls of Fuji 135 Sensia slide film, 20 years old. Had not been refrigerated. I shot two rolls using auto exposure. Not really paying attention because I thought they'd be crap. Slides came back with a magenta cast but after scanning them and applying WB in photoshop they came out great. You can see them here if you want:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/79977169@N04/

That's impressive. I have some 10-year-old 4x5 and 8x10 colour film, reversal and negative, and you've inspired me to give it a go. How much work was involved in "fixing" your scans?

[AnetteB]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I've shot one of the 120 rolls, a TMAX100, also to test a very old camera I got from a relative and which has not been use in.. probably 30 years ... a rolleicord from around 1958-1961; had no idea if it would work. Perhaps not a good idea to test both old film and a camera-not-used-for-decades at the same time, but there you go. Without having scanned the negs I can see that the backing paper has left an impression on the film - text clearly visible. Pity. So, film bad, but camera seems to work just fine. Will test some more, and of course the 4x5 sheets in the Linhof MT - at least the sheets will not have such text impressions.

[Jim Noel]

Last year I found a box with bricks of 120 Ilford SFX 200, Agfa APX 100, and Ilford HP5 plus. All the rolls were dated around 2000. The box that I had put the bricks of film in was mislabeled, and I had no reason to open it for probably the past 22 years. The mislabeled box was stored at everything from room temperature to in the attic. I almost just threw the film out, but then had second thoughts. Took one roll of each type of film, shot the same outside scene, and processed the film. Agfa APX and Ilford HP5 plus are still totally usable and put those rolls in the freezer. Ilford SFX totally unusable with base plus fog hovering around 0.50.

Did you even try it with benzatriazole?

[Pat Kearns]

Anette,
IIRC a few years ago there was a manufacturing issue with the paper backing of tmax 120 film and kodak issued a recall of the film. It took quite a while for kodak to replace the film. I would check lot numbers and if you have multiple lots test each lot number. If it is one lot number for all the tmax you may have that bad film. If you do an advance search on the forums here you might find discussions on that issue.

[movida]

Did you even try it with benzatriazole?

I hardly post but the benzotriazole did it Anyway, I shot some 120 EFKE 25 from 2007 that would qualify as grossly abused. Not refrigerated, room temp or higher when I drove cross country with it in the back of the truck.

I shot it at box speed, developed in 500 ml Rodinal 1:50 with about 2/5 ml of 1% benzotriazole (cold, around 18 C or so) with 10% additl dev time. All my chems are seriously expired so I used the Ilford Rapid fix straight, rinsed the Ilford 5,10,15, then soaked 15 min x3 cold water.

Gorgeous negatives *g*

[movida]

Here's one of them. Slightly buckled on the light table, not sharp I was standing on a chair *g* it's just the tonality I was interested in.

[abruzzi]

when I first moved up from 35mm to medium format, I was given a bag of expired film--about 40 rolls. The expiration dates ranged from 2004 at the newest back to 1987. Fromm what I can tell, it was't cold stored in a any way. I've shot about most of it. Surprisingly the old Ektachrome didn't lose much speed, but as the oldest film in the bag, it did experience some funky color shifts. The newest--also E6, I think it was Provia--from 2004 shot pretty normally. The C4 stuff was all over the place, but I was able to get some decent image through scanning (I can't print RA4 at home). The only roll that had "print through" from the backing paper was a roll of Kodak C41/B&W film--T400CN I think--that I cross processes in E6 chemistry to create B&W (actually green and white) slides. Most of the B&W was more predictable--the faster the more degraded. The old TMY wasn't terribly usable (for someone without special chemistry tricks), but the TMX only had a tiny bit of fog. The PXP was much older and did have a noticeable fog. I haven't shot any of the Techpan yet, but I'm told that can last for a very long time.

[movida]

Benzotriazole 1% soln is easy to make: https://stores.photoformulary.com/benzotriazole/ the small package (10 Gm) is 4.95 and will make 1000 ml of 1% soln. You have to use distilled water as it keeps forever and heat it up to 125 to 150 or so use 900ml to dissolve it then top it off to a total of 1000 ml - the benzotriazole won't dissolve in room temp water. You'll still have to stir it, I think mine took around half hour. Label it, cap it and you're good to go. For measuring syringes maybe your pharmacist will sell you some of the
10 ml plastic baby dosing syringes (they don't use needles) and they're good or you can order a box from Amazon. Then there's this guy: https://www.instructables.com/How-to...-Good-Results/

The reason I tried this was that my first 2 rolls of expired were horrifying - I almost wept *lmao*

[jnantz]

have fun, I haven't shot cold or in-date film in 20 years ... I get no adverse effects.
what developer are you using ? if you can make/use D72 ( I'd suggest Ansco 130 but glycin is hard to get in Europe )
dilute it 1:6 and develop for 6 1/2-8 mins depending on your taste. ( the magic formula is 1:time for Time minutes so 1:10 10 mins &c )
I split process all my film with d72 ( or a130 ) and caffenol C spiked with a little bit ( 20cc/L ) of whichever developer I am using .. 5 mins in D72 ( 1:10 ) and 5 mins in caffenol
sometimes 6+6 depending on the light..

have fun!
John