Question on 35mm Film expiration!

Scarlett68

I was cleaning out some of my mums old stuff today and came across an old film camera and 5 rolls of ISO 200 film. The expiration on three of them is 1982 and on the other two is 1993. Being of the digital persuasion normally (and knowing nothing of film!) Ive been thinking it might be fun to use the camera and film but is it too late to use these??

Id love to see what might result from them!

Thanks.

Heebie

The film will probably still work, but there will probably be issues with the colors of the photos etc.. It definitely won't be "normal" but you should get pictures.

It would definitely be an "art experiment" so shoot a roll & see how it comes out!

dazftw

Im so jealous you have those roll's of film :P

Seriously shoot them and post your results

Slidinginfinity

dazftw wrote: »

Im so jealous you have those roll's of film :P

Seriously shoot them and post your results

Ditto!

Scarlett68

Well once I figure out the camera I'll give it a go then! Im kinda all buzzed about it now (The camera is a mint condition 1978/79 Olympus Trip.).

What can I expect though: mad vibrant colours or insipid colours or what??

Heebie

You could get some of each.. but usually you'll get muted tones, and contrast a bit lower than "normal" Besides being muted..the colors will be a bit "off" you won't get things like green skin or anything like that.. but it will be "different"

It's always fun to take old, expired slide film, shoot it & get it cross-processed in C-41 chems.

Do you know what the room/container the films was stored in would be like? If it's someplace that gets excessively hot, or has wildly huge temperature variations, you could end up with heat-damage to the film, which will render it pretty much useless. (This is why I recommended shooting *A* roll to see what happens first.)

Scarlett68 wrote: »

Well once I figure out the camera I'll give it a go then! Im kinda all buzzed about it now (The camera is a mint condition 1978/79 Olympus Trip.).

What can I expect though: mad vibrant colours or insipid colours or what??

Scarlett68

Heebie wrote: »

It's always fun to take old, expired slide film, shoot it & get it cross-processed in C-41 chems.

Oooh...its whole other world Heebie!!...is this beyond "normal" chucking it in somewhere or I can I ask for this??

It was kept in the back of my mothers wardrobe at normal room temperature, so I guess I should be good to go........ and one roll it is Heebie:D

DaireQuinlan

Might be a good idea to shoot it a stop over. Mostly what happens to expired film is that they lose sensitivity and pick up base fog. Shot at box speed you'll get underexposed and muddy looking negatives with loads of grain.

magicbastarder

yep, don't shoot them all at once. use the first roll, and bracket madly, taking note of the exposure; i got film with aBBE date of 1973 from john gunn a few years ago, nominally 80 ASA, and the actual ASA was somewhere between 10 and 20 from the results i got. once you know the actual speed, shoot the rest.

i have a few rolls which have been sitting in a shed for a few years - so temps varying between probably -10 and +30 degrees. must take a roll out and see what's happened to it.

artyeva

Scarlett68 wrote: »

(The camera is a mint condition 1978/79 Olympus Trip.)

this is the bit i got excited about - been looking for one of these for ages, i borrowed humberklog's for a while and fell head over heels in lurrrrve with it. fab wee thing altogether

once you shoot off a roll do come back here and post the results!!

duffarama

Where are you looking?

There are hundreds of trips on ebay but if I was buying one I'd go to this guy

http://www.tripman.co.uk

Heebie

You might find some labs that will do this. (I know the lab I used to work in over in the US would do this.. although we limited the number of rolls we would cross-process to something on the order of 1 per every 100 rolls of processing in order to minimise the effects to the chemistry.)

Some people might look at you like you're from outer space when you ask. If you got the chems yourself you could (in a 7-step process.. doesn't work in a 4-step process) skip the reversal bath and get really funky results as well. (If you can locate a lab that uses a Phototherm... they can accomplish this by attaching a bottle full of water instead of reversal bath during a run.)

Suggestions of shooting over by 1 stop.. or even better doing like a 2-stop (5-shot) wide bracket for 1 roll are both really valuable.

Scarlett68 wrote: »

Oooh...its whole other world Heebie!!...is this beyond "normal" chucking it in somewhere or I can I ask for this??

It was kept in the back of my mothers wardrobe at normal room temperature, so I guess I should be good to go........ and one roll it is Heebie:D

artyeva

duffarama wrote: »

Where are you looking?

There are hundreds of trips on ebay but if I was buying one I'd go to this guy

http://www.tripman.co.uk

tbh if you're gonna pay £50 or £60 for a trip just cause it's covered in synthetic snake skin or whatever then you've got more money than sense or taste :eek:

i periodically bid for them on e-bay but they usually get snatched by people using auction snipers. besides, my budget is lower than a belly of a.... well... snake

i much prefer the OP's method of aquiring gear - ie - FREE!!!

katiemaloe

Hey Scarlett, Like the other guys have said, the colours will be a bit muted but it should still work fine. I work in a photo lab and have printed lots of very old films that people have found. Sometimes there is a beetroot pink cast but I can usually do an ok job of colour correcting them. When you get them developed, get a cd too so you can mess about with the contrast and saturation afterwards. Use them up and have fun The trip is a fab little camera too. A very nice find for you!

Scarlett68

Thanks everyone for the great advice. I had my first play with the trip today (with the 1982 film) so heres hoping.........! If theres anything of merit that emerges from my "art experiment", Ill post it.

And artyeva, if me and the trip dont get along you'll be first on my donation list;)

P.S this film thing is kinda addictive!!

artyeva

:):):):):):) yay!!!! thank youuuuuu!!!!!

but seriously though - you'll fall for it. i was a film user for years before digital and am now getting back into it and you're right - it's addictive. i had forgot just how much more fun it is than digital

humberklog

Gorgeous isn't it?
I've got 15 year old 25iso b+w in mine at moment (a big thanks to Chorcai for that) and I'm mad to see what it comes out like. But as I need loads of light for that film I'm only half way through it. I've been spinning the iso dial around with gay abandon while it's in it too. Just to see what happens.

Scarlett68

Ok I meant to come back to this thread for some time but such is the way of things! Anyway, heres some of the results from the 1982 film in the Trip! So lets bypass any compostional info:o and move straight to the hard facts: more than 8 of the 24 were so "muddy" as to not have anything usable.. the remainder were like the ones below; and turned out very grainy! I kinda stuck to Humberklogs advice of turning the ISO dial with gay abandon but seems to have made no "real" difference to them individually overall so maybe its just down to the film age! Anywayz Ill persist and do some more as it was a lot of fun!!:)

Heebie

Were those commercial scans, or scans you did yourself? (carefully.)
They look tome like scans done on commercial equipment..which would have a limited ability to compensate. (and much of that ability would probably not have been used, as most techs won't bother in order to speed production up.)
It looks like it's very grainy, and the "standard" sharpening filters sharpened the grain & made a mess.
I'd be really curious to see what the negatives themselves actually look like.

Scarlett68 wrote: »

Ok I meant to come back to this thread for some time but such is the way of things! Anyway, heres some of the results from the 1982 film in the Trip! So lets bypass any compostional info:o and move straight to the hard facts: more than 8 of the 24 were so "muddy" as to not have anything usable.. the remainder were like the ones below; and turned out very grainy! I kinda stuck to Humberklogs advice of turning the ISO dial with gay abandon but seems to have made no "real" difference to them individually overall so maybe its just down to the film age! Anywayz Ill persist and do some more as it was a lot of fun!!:)

Scarlett68

Yeah, you're absolutely right Heebie... they were indeed commercial scans. Had a quick look at the negs and they certainly dont seem anywhere near as bad in terms of the grain!

Heebie wrote: »

Were those commercial scans, or scans you did yourself? (carefully.)
They look tome like scans done on commercial equipment..which would have a limited ability to compensate. (and much of that ability would probably not have been used, as most techs won't bother in order to speed production up.)
It looks like it's very grainy, and the "standard" sharpening filters sharpened the grain & made a mess.
I'd be really curious to see what the negatives themselves actually look like.