There is a “rule” for shooting expired film. This “rule” states that when shooting expired film, one should add one stop of exposure per decade it has been expired. The rule is wrong and by blindly following it, you are doing yourself, your film and your subjects a disservice.

No-one knows where the rule came from, no-one. Perhaps it was always there, lurking, waiting. Somehow, every expired film shooter I’ve met over the years has either heard or repeated “the rule” at least once in their lives but they all have a hard time telling me where they learned this magic equation. It’s the devil’s work, obviously.

To understand the absurdity of “the rule” and to try and add some sense to its meaningless equation, I’ve put this article together. In it, I explain:

  • What photographic film is and how film ages.
  • How to shoot expired film in general terms based on age and storage.
  • How to shoot specific types of expired film based on age and storage.

The contents of this article come with a 100% money-back guaranteed that they will better inform your approach to shooting expired film than “the rule”, which is ultimately best described as the film photography equivalent of trying to eat a big bowl of soup using a single chopstick.

This article was originally to be a quick rant but as usual, has turned into something a little longer and I hope, more useful. Here’s what I cover:

Before we get onto all of that, here’s something super-important: photographic film is chemical not magic.

I should also say that I thoroughly enjoy shooting expired film. It accounts for about a 20-30% of the film I shoot and varies from stocks that have just hit their expiry date to stocks that have been expired for 50 years or more. I’ve made mistakes, some of which, through trial and error have been corrected and others which were completely unrecoverable.


What is photographic film and why do film stocks expire?

Let’s begin with a highly simplified look at why film stocks have an expiry date and what happens to photographic film as it ages. Please be aware that this is not an exhaustive description and is meant only to provide a broad brush of context for what follows.

To make photographic film, layers of gelatin, some of which are packed full of silver halides (the combination of silver and halogens) are coated onto sheets of flexible plastic. The silver halides are the light sensitive bit of photographic film and react to exposure to light. Anyway, these coated sheets are dried, cut into smaller pieces, put in boxes and sold to people like you and me who go and expose said pieces of film to light before dunking them in chemicals. Brilliant.

In the form of two highly simplified illustrations, here’s the end result:

Remember: highly simplified.

Photographic film has an expiry date because – speaking to black and white film – the halides lose their sensitivity over time. Time, heat, humidity, nuclear fallout, even the afterglow of creation all have a hand in this. Together they cause changes in the silver halides making them less or unpredictably sensitive to light. We generally refer to the effect as fogging.

Colour film adds a bit more complexity into the mix with its use of dyes and masks, which sit with/between the silver halide layers like a harlequin lasagne. The dyes break down pretty quickly in comparison to the silver halides and sometimes, pretty quickly in relation to themselves as well. This isn’t a phenomenon limited to just photographic film. Probably the most famous and well-documented example of changing nature of dyes and pigments is Van Gogh’s painting, Sunflowers, which started becoming discoloured during the painter’s own lifetime.

For film, these changes are best characterised as “crazy color shifts and unexpected effects”. Now, where have we heard that before? 😉

All these problems with sensitivity loss and relatively short-lived colour dyes, etc., are known to film manufacturers and as such, all films have an expiry date — actually, a best before date — normally 2-3 years after it left the factory. You may continue to use the film after this date but the company wants you to know that you will probably need to think about how you expose it.

I should mention another factor in film expiry: speed. Regardless of film type, faster (higher ISO) films will generally degrade faster than slower films (lower ISO), as the arbitrarily constructed graph below demonstrates.

The three factors – lower silver halide sensitivity, dye ageing and original film sensitivity – provide the beginnings of a method to assess how a specific expired film stock could be shot:

  • High-speed films degrade faster than slow films.
  • Colour films degrade faster than black and white films.
  • High-speed colour films degrade faster than high-speed black and white films.
  • Medium-speed colour films degrade slower than high-speed black and white films.
  • Low-speed black and white films degrade slower than low-speed colour films.
  • …and so on and so forth.

Thus, we arrive at the point of this article: just because a film is expired, it does not automatically mean you need to add a stop of exposure for every decade. In short: know your film.

I’ll be coming back to this and an expanded expired film assessment a bit later.

Stopping film expiring

Technically you cant but you can minimise the effects of ageing without the help of Q-10. The way you store your films (from fresh) is crucial.

If you have a roll of expired film that was cold stored (ideally in a freezer) from brand new, you can go ahead and shoot it as if it just came off the production line. Even if the film expired a decade or two ago, you’ll still likely get a result that’s 95-100% that of a fresh roll. Different considerations need to be made for true black and white infrared films like Kodak’s HIE, Konica Infrared and Efke Aura but I’ll get into these further down.

So, that’s frozen, perfectly stored film. What about the other storage methods?

Truth be told, film that’s been refrigerated from fresh won’t deviate too much from the above. Go ahead and try it out for yourself. For film stored at room temperature (not exceeding about 25C), your results will vary based on location. Film stored in the tropics will have likely aged wildly differently to film stored in temperate climates. Bear this in mind when you’re testing out your film but do test your film if you can.

There is (in my humble opinion) no point buying film only to leave it in a sweaty drawer for a few years before deciding to pop it in the fridge until you want to shoot it. The damage has been done. Leave it in the glove box of your car over the height of Summer and that fresh film could be dead in a few days or weeks.

How to shoot expired film

The most important advice I can give you: Know. Your. Film.

Where did it come from? How was it stored? What kind of film is it? What’s the native speed (ISO) of the film? Answer some or all of these questions and you’ll be better equipped to do your expired film justice.

Some food for thought, starting with the most general advice I can give you on shooting any well-stored (frozen or chilled) expired film. Details plus some of my own expired film photography follow.

The sections below are broken into (1) general advice for all film types depending on their storage condition and (2) advice for specific film types – black and white, colour negative, slide, etc.

You’ll see a number of photographs peppered through this article. Each was taken with expired film. Some frames were intentionally overexposed and/or cross-processed for a specific look, some were not.

General advice

This section breaks down my advice for well stored expired film, expired film with uncertain/no storage history and poorly stored/damaged expired film.

Shooting well-stored expired film

Generally speaking, for all ISO 200-400 film that’s been cold stored and expired anything up to 10-20 years, go ahead and shoot your film it at box speed (its native ISO). That covers colour negative, colour slide and black and white negative and slide film. See further down for black and white true infrared film.

Other interesting reads

For film that’s 20-40 years expired, I would recommend adding half a stop of exposure. For example, instead of f/8 and 125 sec, shoot at f/8 and 1/90 sec (or set your aperture to a half value, if you can).

For film that’s 40-60 years expired, add a single stop of exposure (although it’s perfectly possible that the same ½ stop extra exposure 20-40 year expired film might work).

All film over 60 years past expiry might well be a crapshoot, especially if it’s 120 or another paper-backed roll film format. In these situations, I would recommend starting with 2-stops of overexposure and bracketing a few exposures on the roll. There’s a great recent example of this in practice with ~100 year old Primor B2 film right here on EMULSIVE.

In any case, if you happen to have multiple rolls of the same expired film, my advice to you would be to experiment with a full or partial roll FIRST. Make a few bracketed exposures and develop the film to directly understand the results from there. You might want to start with something like this:

  • Shot as per the meter reading, eg f/8 + 1/125
  • Shot with the next faster shutter speed or next smaller aperture, eg f/8 + 1/250 or f/11 + 1/125 (less light).
  • Shot with the next slower shutter speed or next larger aperture, eg f/8 + 1/60 or f/5.6 + 1/125 (more light).

This basic +/-1 stop bracketing will give you a baseline to better understand your film, and you can go ahead and use +/- 0.5 or even +/- 0.3 for your baseline. It’s your film and your choice but understanding what you have will be a massive help.

Shooting expired film with no storage history

Things get difficult here if you’re shooting film with an indeterminate history but with a bit of sleuthing, you can inform your decision. First, you’ll need to figure out where it came from. This will help you understand how it’s likely to have aged. Was it from a local friend? Did you buy it from a local store? Did you get it from an eBay seller? If so, where are they based?

Assuming the film was from somewhere in this planet’s temperate zones, you can assume you’ll need about ½ a stop of overexposure for every decade after its expiry date. If you purchased the film with no box and no expiry markings, a quick Google search will let you know if the film’s packaging design is current or not and you can start making slightly more informed guesses from there.

If the film was from the tropics or sub-tropics, you might be lucky and be able to use it based on the “½ a stop of overexposure” for every expired decade suggestion above. If the film’s coming from a store sale, you can be pretty much guaranteed that the location was at least air-conditioned but as this is all potentially a total crapshoot, I would go with the +/-1 stop bracketing described in the previous section.

Shooting poorly stored/damaged expired film

Honestly, don’t. At least not for critical photography or a situation where you’re documenting an important milestone. It’s not worth the heartache and THERE WILL BE HEARTACHE.

By poorly stored, I mean left in the car, flood-damaged, kept in a garden shed, rolls from a shop’s window or display cabinet above a photocopier. Nothing stored in a restaurant kitchen. The last example might be a bit out there but these are all examples I have personally come across and kicked myself every single time. I’m obviously a glutton for punishment.

Specific film type advice

This section breaks down my guidance for shooting different expired films by type – colour negative, colour slide, black and white negative and slide film, as well as true black and white infrared film and colour infrared film.

Let’s start with black and white negative.

Shooting expired black and white negative film

Follow the examples in the “Shooting well-stored expired film” section. To summarise:

  • If it’s been cold stored and expired anything up to around 20 years, you can probably go ahead and shoot your film it at box speed (its native ISO).
  • Older than that and up to 60 years old, I would recommend adding half a stop of exposure. For example, instead of f/8 and 125 sec, f/8 and 1/90 sec (or set your aperture to a half value, if you can).
  • Black and white film over 60 years old might well be a crapshoot, especially if it’s 120 or another paper-backed roll film format In these situations, I would recommend starting with 3-stops of overexposure and bracketing a few exposures on the roll.

ISO 100 and slower film will need much less in the way of overexposure and I would encourage you to shoot at box speed for any film up to 60 years expired.

By the same measure, if you’re trying to shoot that expired (old) Kodak T-MAX P3200, you might not be in for a great time, regardless of how you expose it. I sadly speak from experience here.

Shooting expired colour negative film

Frozen/chill stored ISO 200 and slower colour negative film usually reacts somewhat more true-to-the-original-rating than not (in my experience). ISO 400 film will likely need to be rated at 320 or 200 if older than 15 years expired. Test (bracket) high-speed (>800 ISO) colour films regardless of storage for critical work.

Shooting expired black and white or colour slide film

Again with the assumption that the film was well stored:

  • Frozen/chilled from new and up to 20 years expired: shoot it at box speed.
  • Frozen/chilled from new and 20+ years expired: overexpose ½ a stop, bracket important shots, prepare yourself for a slight colour shift.

Shooting expired true black and white infrared film

True infrared black and white films will exhibit much more base fog than modern near-IR films such as Rollei Infrared 400 or ILFORD SFX 200. Anything over 15 year expired regardless of storage is going to have quite a bit of base fog.

Even stored in the freezer, true black and white IR film is susceptible to cosmic radiation and anything over 30 years expired might be so fogged that it won’t work. The left image above is from a 20-year roll of expired, freezer stored Kodak High Speed Infrared (HIE). It is one of only half a dozen useable frames on the roll.

Shooting expired true colour infrared film

There are really only two you need to worry about Kodak AEROCHROME and Kodak EKTACHROME INFRARED. You don’t need to worry about these films as the way they capture and represent IR light is a function of the dyes/couplers in the film and not a sensitivity in the same way as black and white IR film. Follow the same suggestions for shooting expired slide film above.

Final thoughts

Some important takeaways upfront:

  • There is no “rule” to all shooting expired film. There are so many variations in stocks, age and storage that your only hope is to…
  • Know. Your. Film. I cannot overstate the importance of this. Film photography offers opportunities to learn and expand knowledge with every sheet/roll you load and every time you fire the shutter. Understanding what you’re shooting allows you to take control and switch things up creatively. Sometimes that means sacrificing a few shots to give you the information you need.
  • These suggestions are not intended to be new “rules” to follow. All I’ve done it collect my experiences along those of a few others I’ve met over the years and presented them here. Use them to help inform yourself and then go out and shoot!

Finally to the inevitable question some will be asking: if it’s so much trouble, why bother shooting expired film? Shouldn’t we all support the industry and buy new film?

Here’s my answer. Yours might be different. There are certain expired film stocks that while long gone, are still perfectly viable for photography 10, 20, 40 years after they were discontinued. Why not shoot them? Some photographers have large bodies of work dialled-in to specific film stocks and more extensive processes, so why not continue? Some photographers receive expired film as part of a family/friend “windfall”, so why not have a go? Some people just like shooting expired film (which may or may not be cheaper than fresh stock), so why not let them. Some people just like shooting film period and (like me) treat every press of the shutter button and the results that follow as a learning experience, so why not let them learn?


I know this is a little snarky but it’s inevitable that there will be a few people who will only read the article headline or see social media previews and then jump straight into the comments section saying something along the lines of, “this is why I don’t shoot expired film”, or “support the industry by buying fresh film”.

If you see any comments like that, be assured that the commenter has not read this article and will likely be knee-jerking themselves to an early grave.

It seems to me that certain corners of our community turn their nose up at the thought of shooting expired film because of some strange discriminatory attitude towards the “Lomo aesthetic” and what that means to them. Mostly, it’s a diversionary tactic to avoid saying what they really mean: they don’t understand or like experimental photography or photography made by young people. Dig deeper and you’ll find that many of these people strangely also believe that if it wasn’t shot on a tripod at f/64 with the shadows placed in Zone-whatever, it’s not photography. If only Ansel, Picker, et al were alive today to tell them otherwise.

In my humble opinion, while buying fresh film absolutely directly supports the industry and future production, shooting expired film is not going to shift the needle for film manufacturers or the distribution chain in any meaningful way. If you’re not getting your expired film for free – i.e. you’re buying it from another film shooter – you’re supporting someone who’s probably going to use that money to… buy fresh film.

There’s a thought.

~ EM

PS. Now you’ve gotten this far, you might be interested in a podcast I made with Bill Manning at StudioC41 about this very subject back in October 2019.

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40 responses to “How to shoot expired film or, no you do not need to add one stop per decade”

  1. JORGE RESTREPO B. Avatar
    JORGE RESTREPO B.

    Very helpful to me. I have some 100 ft store Kodak roll film purchased on 1983 and I am getting back to analogue photography and using these film. I expect to share my experience to you later. I am grateful to have a space to share our experiences and enjoy mre our passion. Thanks to you. Writing from Colombia, South America.

  2. Good article thanks EM! Years ago I was gifted a stack of expired film that had been in a freezer since purchase. Some rolls dated back to 2005. I always shot at box speed and have had no real problems other than a roll of Fuji Superia 400 go very grainy. I’m getting to the end of that gift now unfortunately!

  3. Tim Stephens Avatar

    Excellent article. Thanks for sharing. I love expired film and your advice, at least for me, matches up to my experience shooting B&W from 1960’s expiry dates to 1990’s dates. Your exposure advice is really key. Hopefully this encourages more people to try some older classic emulsions!

    1. Always happy to receive affirmation for my “system”, Tim. It’s not foolproof but a helluva lot better than blindly following faith in “the rule” 😉

  4. Nicely written and well thought-out article.

    Let me add to the mix, chromogenic B&W films like XP2 and BW400, which (at least in my experience) tend to fall somewhere between your description of expired color and expired B&W. I’ve shot these at box speed and saw a healthy increase in contrast and grain, with sharpness being decreased by some base fog.

    In my camera hunts, I’ve collected quite a bit of expired film, mostly Kodak MAX, Gold and Fuji C200

    I’ve also seen the blue color shift in Fuji, while Kodak tends to go purple. I’ve had my best results with both at +2 stops, which tells me the rolls I’ve acquired were probably stored in Grandpa’s closet.

    Being able to get some expired stocks in quantity was helpful in helping me to dial in where to shoot them, for sure.

  5. Hi, just found this site, so I apologize in advance if you’ve already answered the following question in another post (though I did glance at other post titles to check if something looked relevant):

    Would similar altered stop considerations apply when developing film *already* shot on years ago, that’s been sitting around in a drawer for a decade or two? A family member has some old, used disposables she never got around to developing. (Her husband recently passed away, and the possibility he may be in some of those old shots adds motivation to try developing them.) Of course, one can’t change shooting exposure settings years after the fact, but I came across a local photo development service that advertises they can adjust their process to “push stops” for developing expired film (for an extra fee). Should I ask them to “push” a stop?

    (Hopefully the photos aren’t all irretrievably fogged out by continuing to react in the years after shooting. I recall reading an article about someone with a hobby for developing found, undeveloped film, which included a find of undeveloped shots of the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption, so I’m hoping we could still retrive *something* from these merely 10-to-20-year-old disposables.)

  6. Jay Dann Walker in Melbourne Avatar
    Jay Dann Walker in Melbourne

    Truly good advice here. I have about 200 rolls of 35mm and 120 film in my darkroom fridge, never frozen, including a lot of Kodak Panatomic-X I bought in 1990 after Kodak Australia suddenly discontinued its sale in Australia and dumped a ton of it on camera shops throughout the country. Also a few 100 foot (30 meter) rolls picked up over the years on Ebay. All still giving excellent images – the 120 is being used up on my Rollei TLRs and the ’35 in my Contax G1, all as EI/ISO 25 on sunny days and 20 on overcast days. Which makes handholding the cameras rather an ergonomic experience…

    I process all my films either in Thornton’s two bath developer (the Ansel Adams version which gives slightly higher contrast and better mid-tones) or Adox MQ borax developer, both home-brewed. The latter is so easy to use and I’m just now getting into two liters I mixed up in June 21, so almost seven months ago – as good as new. But then many of us don’t do our own darkroom work so I’ll say no more as it’s mostly technical.

    I no longer use expired slide film as I found it too fiddly and results were too inconsistent for my liking. C41 is another story – my fridge has about 30 rolls of mostly Kodak 400 but a lot of older Fuji color neg film from the early 2010s. Regular process times in C41 kits (Tetenal’s one liter kits suit me best) but colors can be a little ‘off’ on some rolls, but this can be easily fixed in scanning/post processing.

    The fun of expired film is you never know what you will be getting. For anything that has to be truly perfect, like my architectural work for clients, I use my Nikon D800, prime D lenses and a tripod. They are paying, after all, and I like to give them my best effort. Film is for fun!!

    JD in Melbourne

  7. I photographed using a film expired over 10 years ago using the iso indicated by the manufacturer. Is it possible to fix in the development process?

    1. Yes, you can try to to push it one or two stops!
      or maybe risk a stand developement!
      Don’t give to a standard lab!

  8. Eugene Zagidullin Avatar
    Eugene Zagidullin

    Recently I got a pack of a DDR made ORWO NP27 expired in 1985. It supposed to be 400 ISO but I got it properly exposed at 12 ISO after an unsuccessful attempt at 100. So it kind of works, +- 1 stop.

    1. i have meters of this film, but it was kind of properly stored so u can shoot it with 200ASA
      Important is that you always have bunch to test it in! keep shootin’ film!

  9. That why i…eeh, sorry just kidding!
    Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
    It helps a lot,
    because i heard the 1-stop per decade stuff twiece i guess.
    Once in my lab and from a friend
    who gave me two 30something years old 120s Agafa Pan 100.
    Lately i bought a lovely minolta wheathermatic pocket for my kayak tours
    and the fresh films are not that much and so i started stocking old 110er.
    And i thought it would be wise to learn a bit more about these 1stop per decade b-shit.

    Keep shooting
    stereo

    1. Great article!
      I rarely shoot film nowadays but bought an old Ihagee Exa 35mm last week and had to try it out. Fortunately I had a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 that’s been in the fridge for the last 7 years … best before 2005 (oops). I went out and used it today regardless and its now in the post for processing – will know in a week or two what gives.

      Out of date film has never really bothered me – I’m a lazy shooter and tend to guess light variations based on occasional meter readings during the day (and having messed around with film a lot in the past)
      I also love unpredictability which, in my experience, sometimes leads to results you would be hard pushed to come up with otherwise.

      Photography has always been a weird marriage of Art and Science – and therein lies the magic IMV.

      Keep up the great work – and never stop ranting .. 🙂

  10. Thanks for article. It will certainly help many film aficionados out there.

    Just to add my personal experience (I am still using film for professional work):

    I had Fuji Provia 100F 120 films, expired 9/2008. Exposed them with box speed (100 ASA) and had them developed immediately from a professional lab in 2016. The results had been great.

    Same films shot and processed in 2018 — same good results.

    Now about the storage: I still lived and worked in south Spain back in 2008. Winter temperatures around 5° C / 41° F, in summer 38° C / 100° F, sometimes even higher temperatures. They had been stored in a storage space of a forwarding company, packed in their original and unopened packaging foil and original green card boxes (5 films per box), together with some of my cameras in a large packing case, so I guess the temperature inside the packing case didn’t alter too much on the average.

    Since 2016 the boxes have been stored in my camera cabinet in north Germany at around 18° C / 64° F. Last year — 11 years after expiration — I exposed another film from that batch with the same result.

    However, the same procedure with the Velvia 50 with an expiration date 1/2009 and exposed in 2017 had some weird color shift and could have needed a one stop longer exposure. So I sold that Velvia batch.

    Still have 40 Provia 100F medium format film with expiration dates from 9/2008 through 1/2011 which I will expose this spring. Maybe I’ll give them 1/2 f-stop more exposure…

  11. I use ~3 decades expired Soviet black and white “Svema-64” films bought on local market without any history. Before usage I’ve did bracketing: +0, +1,.. +5 stops and define the best results are with +2 and +3 stops. Thus, the rule “add one stop of exposure per decade it has been expired” works fine for me.

  12. I’ve got a sealed 5-pack of expired 120 format Fuji NPS160 (exp. 2001) that I would love to dig into. I can’t verify how it was stored prior to me putting it in the fridge, as it was purchased off Ebay. I will have to run a test roll to see how it responds to different levels of exposure. Probably will shoot 2 or 3 frames in various lighting conditions at box speed, 1-stop over, 2-stops over, and maybe 1 stop under. I love the look of the images this film can create though. Hoping for decent results.

  13. Very helpful article. Thanks for posting this.

    I used to guess how a type of film was stored by the type of film and who buys that film. For example, someone who bought a roll of Technical Pan 50 would probably treat their film differently than someone who had a roll of Kodak Gold.

    It’s still all speculation because someone could have just as easily placed Grandpa’s film stash in the attic for 12 years. 🙁

  14. I must admit that I discovered the 1 stop per 10 years off YouTube video and used it with my first excursion with some Fuji outdated film, all around 20 years old and I assumed not fridge stored. In my case it worked as all the results were acceptable. Biggest bug was the blue dominance on the slide films, very lomo.

    However I found your article interesting and will probably be a bit more experimental next time. What I have found weird are the silly prices people seem to be willing to pay for out dated film. My batch was buyer collect on eBay only and happened to be a nearby school.

  15. Excellent stuff 👍🏼

  16. Very nicely done article, EM. I like the examples! Some suggestions based on personal experience:

    1. I am still using the superb ISO 32 Panatomic-X in 120 size, with expiration date of 1989. It has been frozen all these years. I let it thaw a day or two before removing from the foil wrapper. No fog or issues at all.

    2. The famous Kodak Ektar 25 (ISO 25) seems to be all ruined now. Even rolls that supposedly were cold-stored have color shifts or mottling. It’s a real shame.

    3. Never buy expired 120 film from eBay where the seller (the idiot) took the film out of its foil package. The foil is airtight (unless damaged) and low humidity.

    4. My experience with expired TMax 100 has also been good. No obvious issues.

    Note, many of the critics of using old film are awfully pretentious, “My photography is too important to trust to expired film.” Sigh….

    Some Panatomic-X examples that may be useful to your readers:

    https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2017/05/panatomic-x-best-black-and-white-film.html

  17. Liked the article 👍 Could have been more ranty, but overall was adequate 😛😜🤪 A minor quibble – the gl… https://t.co/eiB7B1anNc

  18. Interesting read. i read so many conflicting opinions when i found some HP5 that had been in a bedroom drawer long enough that it was 20 years expired. So i just shot & processed at box speed. Bit grainy and slight fogging but turned out fine. As you say there are so many variables unless you know all of its history.

  19. I usually scan my negatives into my computer allowing me to make exposure adjustments there, making expired film even more viable .

  20. Jelte Klas Wijnja Avatar
    Jelte Klas Wijnja

    Hi! There’s one suggestion which I missed but came across elsewhere, which sounds like it would make sense:
    If you Pull old film, you can partly compensate for some of the fogging that occurs in high-speed film, so overexposing a bit more, then developong for shorter. This should increase the signal-to-noise ratio, thereby negating the fogging.
    (of course, the result will also have the characteristics of pulled film- look up if you like that.)

  21. Great article EM.

    I’m just getting into playing with expired film – my attitude to date has been “if I (still!) get unexpected results using fresh film, why complicate things using film with unknown outcomes”

    I was lucky enough to be gifted a few rolls of 2004 expired Kodak TN400 in the ’19 Emulsive Secret Santa.

    Storage & History? No idea, other than my Santa is in the Phillipines (not an overly temperate climate).

    I decided that, as it’s a C41 film that I’d shoot one roll at a mix of 400 (box speed), 200, 100 & 50 – 9 frames for each speed – to see what the ageing effects were.

    I’ll be shooting the other rolls at 50 ISO

  22. As ever 😍 classic rant a thon without sounding too ranty.😁
    If we can change one person at a tikes mind on this….

  23. Thank you for the great article EM! I have loads of expired films in my freezers, and I have always just started with box speed and bracketed my shots. At least now there will be something other than the devil’s work out there when people Google “How to shoot expired film”! Thank you for taking the time to put together so much valuable info in one place! And I agree, buying expired does end up helping the film community as they most likely will go buy fresh film. Whatever you do it really only needs to please one person, yourself and the hell with what others think.

  24. Cracking article. Thanks for sharing your real-world experience. This is a valuable reference.

  25. Reminded me that I have a load of D3200 and TMZ in the fridge which is not getting any younger :/ pro… https://t.co/0WKE14IkoR

  26. EM, first: thanks for the article! Second: here is a Portra800 expired in 2008. I took the pics 1 mon… https://t.co/DnzzaSlA9B

  27. I’m with you on this one Em. I tried the old “one stop per decade” trick on a few shots on some Fuji… https://t.co/HlHgYet2jl

  28. But what chemical is represented in your meme? 🤔

  29. Thanks for advocating for expired film Em! You have some great points, and wonderful examples, and p… https://t.co/AUMwGJ5UId

  30. nice read!! It does remove some of the prejudice I have towards expired film.

    Thanks for that!

  31. One thing that works for me is to shoot very expired (50+ years) film with unknown history at REALLY slow speeds between 0.5 and 8 EI and develop it in cold HC-110, which helps limit fog. There’s still some crapshoot involved but I’ve had great luck with this.

    One thing to note with particularly old paper backed film is that an ounce of prevention goes a long way. Turn out the lights and roll the paper out to where it meets the start of the actual film and make sure that the tape still holds (have a piece ready in case it doesn’t) and also make sure the film and paper are not fused together.

    To those on their own moral high horse who say those who shoot expired film aren’t helping the industry I say it’s entirely possible to do both. Having and shooting expired film actually stimulates me to shoot more film of any kind and as a result I shoot more fresh film than I used to.

  32. Thank you for not making me go on my own rant about old film and stand development. There’s two films… https://t.co/DDqtle9or9

  33. Great stuff Em! Although I did prefer the live rant on @studio_c41 podcast a few months back 😜😂

  34. It’s a great piece. I am formulating a plan for bracketing my HIE in 4×5…

  35. Really enjoyed the article, Em. 👍

 

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