Expired Film

I’m not one of those film photographers that go around looking for and shooting expired film on purpose. It just happens sometimes. This shot of Merlin was taken using Kodak UltraMax 400 color film (Pentax ZX-7 with 28-80 zoom) that expired in 2009. I don’t even know why I had a roll of old film unless someone gave it to me. In any case, no harm done! The pictures came out about as expected for this film and since I’ve shot it and it’s gone I don’t have to “worry” anymore about what to do with it.

Now I know there are folks that look for expired film. In fact, there are online stores and ebay (of course) where expired film is big business. …and I’m not talking about film that expired in 2009. There are folks eagerly buying and selling stuff that expired back in the 1970’s.  That’s just crazy! 

…or maybe it’s art! I know some the pictures I see that was taken with expired film are certainly interesting, one-of-a-kind photographs. Of course, I get the impression that the folks taking these photographs would produce that kind of photo no matter what they were shooting.

AS for me, I’m not that creative. I just try to make the best photographs I can and once and a great while I get lucky and capture something someone else might want to see.

Shooting expired film can be tricky. I’m told that for every ten years you have to compensate by dropping the ISO by one stop. For instance with an ISO 400 film from the 1970’s you would have to drop the rated speed 4 stops (40 years) which would give you an effective ISO speed of 25. There are also thing you can and should do in the processing so if you decide to do this don’t just drop the film off at Walgreens. Send it to a lab (like The Darkroom) that knows what they’re doing with this kind of thing.

So there it is – everything you’re likely to hear from me about expired film.