The way you store your films (from fresh) is crucial. Technically you cant but you can minimise the effects of ageing without the help of Q-10. I’ll be coming back to this and an expanded expired film assessment a bit later. 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. Low-speed black and white films degrade slower than low-speed colour films.Medium-speed colour films degrade slower than high-speed black and white films.High-speed colour films degrade faster than high-speed black and white films.Colour films degrade faster than black and white films.High-speed films degrade faster than slow films.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: Regardless of film type, faster (higher ISO) films will generally degrade faster than slower films (lower ISO), as the arbitrarily constructed graph below demonstrates. I should mention another factor in film expiry: speed. 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. Now, where have we heard that before? □Īll 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. 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.įor film, these changes are best characterised as “crazy color shifts and unexpected effects”. This isn’t a phenomenon limited to just photographic film. The dyes break down pretty quickly in comparison to the silver halides and sometimes, pretty quickly in relation to themselves as well. We generally refer to the effect as fogging.Ĭolour 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. Together they cause changes in the silver halides making them less or unpredictably sensitive to light. Time, heat, humidity, nuclear fallout, even the afterglow of creation all have a hand in this. Photographic film has an expiry date because – speaking to black and white film – the halides lose their sensitivity over time. Please be aware that this is not an exhaustive description and is meant only to provide a broad brush of context for what follows. 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. What is photographic film and why do film stocks expire? I’ve made mistakes, some of which, through trial and error have been corrected and others which were completely unrecoverable. 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 should also say that I thoroughly enjoy shooting expired film. Here’s what I cover:īefore we get onto all of that, here’s something super-important: photographic film is chemical not magic. This article was originally to be a quick rant but as usual, has turned into something a little longer and I hope, more useful. 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. How to shoot specific types of expired film based on age and storage.How to shoot expired film in general terms based on age and storage.What photographic film is and how film ages.To understand the absurdity of “the rule” and to try and add some sense to its meaningless equation, I’ve put this article together. How to shoot expired film or, no you do not need to add one stop per decade - EMULSIVE Close Search for:
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