How about More and more fun with expired film ? (And Experimental)

[MartinN]

When film prices started to rise alarmingly I bought quite a lot of expired film to keep
my film cameras going without the expense of always buying fresh film.

My thought would be to do some interesting experimentation with my films, and
perhaps this thread could be about experimenting with films and cameras.

The results can be unexpected, and not to the highest quality standards, but
at least an economical way to learn and have fun.

My first, worst case, was to use expired fast film. I understand, the fast films suffer
the most from long storage. I don't want to pay for professional development of this
dubious quality film. Also considering we have the Corona virus circulating still this
year 2021, like 2020, I wanted to do the developing at home, myself.

I have had quite nice experience with doing C41 at room temperature, so I wanted
to experiment with E6 at room temperature. No way, would some say, and indeed
my first experiments were not so good. I opted for stand development and that was
causing staining with developer byproducts and bromide drag. Another thing was that
I didn't overexpose the old film enough, and scanning was difficult. The third thing I
learned, with the Tetenal E6 3-bath, first batch, was that I possibly contaminated the
solutions with residues from the previous bath.

Today I started with fresh solutions, and did vigourous agitation. Then I did many
washes in between the different steps.

My timings at 24C were
1st Dev 15min
Color dev 7min
Blix 7min
Stab

My film is Ektachrome EPT 120T tungsten balanced film, expired in 1997. My EI
used was 50 ISO. My scanner is Plustek Opticfilm 120 with Vuescan and slight
color correction in Lightroom. I have to admit this is a worst case film.

Mamiya 645 Super with Mamiya 70mm f2.8 LS

 

[MartinN]

Now, using Tetenal E-6 at room temperature is going more smoothly.
Testing some more films and exposure index.

Agfachrome RSX-II 50 at EI 32 ISO, Expired 2003. This was a nice surprise. So easy and almost no decrease in speed needed. 32 seems good.

Kodak EPY 64T, Tungsten, Expired 1997. This would need more exposure than the EI32.

Fuji Velvia 50, Expired 2003. So nice, but would need more exposure than my EI of 32. Most frames a bit murky this time, hopefully more success next time.

Mamiya 645 Pro, Mamiya 70mm f2.8 LS.

 

[MartinN]

Now, with a bit better Covid situation, I have decided to take my films to a professional lab instead of developing E6 at home. And I am quite sure I will never again use Tetenal E6. I am disappointed with consistency. 0,5 l of solution should develop 6-10 films at maximum. My best efforts were 4-5 films. The results were simply too inconsistent, out of 5 films number 2-4 were acceptable, and often film number 5 quite bad. So, that was my experience with home E6, thinking that the biggest problem is no automatic replenishment, and the other that it is 3 bath which inevitably leads to some traces from the previous solution carried over to the next. And 3bath solution must have much worse mixed shelf life than 6 or 10bath.

Now I love film again with good professional development.

 

[chrism]

I have a large stock of film, and all of it is long expired. Some of it is 30 years old, but the thing is that it has always been frozen and it is as good as new. Better, in the case of emulsions that have been discontinued in the interim! I strongly recommend freezing film that is to be kept beyond its expiry date.
As for home E-6 development, I have used the 3 bath kit from argentix.ca, and washes between each bath are recommended to prevent chemical carryover. It worked fine for me.

 

[MartinN]

I will support my local lab, by bringing them films. They are so few ( the working labs) , and if there is something I find annoying, it is ruining a film by using oxidized chemicals at home.

 

[MartinN]

I have a large stock of film, and all of it is long expired. Some of it is 30 years old, but the thing is that it has always been frozen and it is as good as new.
As for home E-6 development, I have used the 3 bath kit from argentix.ca, and washes between each bath are recommended to prevent chemical carryover. It worked fine for me.

Somebody said film is like fresh food, it ages, even in freezer ?
And, with Tetenal I did extensive washes in between, about 6 times !
But another person suggested he does not ’re use’ chemicals, only for one-shot.
My tank takes 500ml for one roll film (Paterson), so doing only one film with 500ml solution would be damned expensive. He probably had some Jobo system, but I have no intents to buy into that. I tried to do 6 films in 500ml of solution, all in succession one after another. That did not work for me.

 

[chrism]

I've never managed to use any Tetenal kits because they contain liquids and cross-border ORMD shipping seems never to be an option. Dry chemical kits for C-41 and E6 have worked well for me. I keep the solutions in the fridge between uses, and certainly can get six films done with a kit, as long as I don't try to keep the solutions longer than about 3-4 weeks. But if you have a local shop that can process for you I can see why you would want to support them.
I can't tell the difference between frozen film that is decades old and fresh stuff. Same speed, same grain, same colours - if applicable. Again, if you can buy from a local shop that's great. But freezing has let me keep a stock of films that are no longer sold, and you can't do that if you always buy fresh!

 

[MartinN]

Yes, I bought a lot of expired film about 10 - 15 years ago, and also brand new and put that in cold storage. Prices on film had just started to increase alarmingly, and soon manufacturers stopped producing some films. It was the last time to have bargains, and I bought a photo clubs stock of expired film. They had Techpan and interesting stuff like that. I kept buying until expired film also got expensive.

 

[MartinN]

BTW that was the time when film had the right prices, EUR 16-20 for a 5 pack of 120 film, and a few quids for 35mm.
Brand new.