Something I noticed about Expired film

I was looking at expired film sales on ebay and noticed something.
Most of the 120 and 220 film that I saw for sale as expired was slide
film. There was very little expired print film for sale. Does anybody
have any clue why..

Interesting. Because just a couple weeks ago, at my local pro lab, a guy
walked in with about 50 rolls of 120 negative film for processing. I
wish I would have asked him what he shoots because that is far more than
your typical wedding!

I was looking at expired film sales on ebay and noticed something.
Most of the 120 and 220 film that I saw for sale as expired was slide
film. There was very little expired print film for sale. Does anybody
have any clue why..

Ric_1492 wrote:

I was looking at expired film sales on ebay and noticed something.
Most of the 120 and 220 film that I saw for sale as expired was slide
film. There was very little expired print film for sale. Does
anybody have any clue why..

Different films have different shelf lives. Professional slide film has a
very short shelf life, although I've shot outdated film without problems.

Paul

Ric_1492 asked:

I was looking at expired film sales on ebay and noticed something.
Most of the 120 and 220 film that I saw for sale as expired was slide
film. There was very little expired print film for sale. Does anybody
have any clue why..

Because negative film is still used a lot, whereas slide film is good for
(almost) nothing, just a pain in the posterior part?

Because color neg films can be compensated during the printing process
for most color shifts that might occur with older film, where a color
shifted slide is a bad slide forever.

wilt wrote:

Because color neg films can be compensated during the printing process
for most color shifts that might occur with older film, where a color
shifted slide is a bad slide forever.


And I think transparency film is made in smaller batches for this
reason, so less of it tends to be left unsold and unused by the time the
expiration date rolls around, although refrigerated slide film seems to
keep almost indefinately.

I've had some real outdated transparancy film that was kept in a
refrigerator until I got around to using it and had no discernable color
shifts.

In article ,
no_name wrote:
wilt wrote:
Because color neg films can be compensated during the printing process
for most color shifts that might occur with older film, where a color
shifted slide is a bad slide forever.

And I think transparency film is made in smaller batches for this
reason, so less of it tends to be left unsold and unused by the time the
expiration date rolls around, although refrigerated slide film seems to
keep almost indefinately.

Getting slides exactly right is important when you want to project them or
when you to use the color balance as reference for duplication. Of course
this also required the use of color correction filters to get the
color balance exactly right.

The alternative is to scan the slide and correct the color balance of the
scan. This way, even major color shifts can be corrected.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Originally Posted by Paul Saunders

Different films have different shelf lives. Professional slide film has a
very short shelf life, although I've shot outdated film without problems.

Paul

Darn! Just as I've started to love the stuff again! Yeah it's harder to shoot, but about the same DR as my 10D so I seem to have a better feel for it now.

Saw a bunch of barely expired print film for sale Saturday at Hunt Photo. Tried to pick up some rolls but the checkout lines were too messed up slow and I didn't really need any...
-Mark

I was looking at expired film sales on ebay and noticed something.
Most of the 120 and 220 film that I saw for sale as expired was slide
film. There was very little expired print film for sale. Does
anybody have any clue why..


Those that shot slide film are the type that were well invested in the
pursuit of quality imagery, had a lot more emotional involvement too. I do
believe that many horded their supplies in face of rumored abandonment of
their favorite stocks.

Volume neg shooters were the first to jump on digital once it became
feasible, and their supplies of film were either already sold or used up.

That said, I have found yet another pro pack of 220 in some long forgotten
bag of spare backup gear crammed on a storage shelf. Having once shown up
for a portrait session without film, I made a habit of squirreling away film
here, there and everywhere just to make sure it never happened again. So
here I have a carton full of what was once over $5-600 worth of 220 and 120
rolls, 160-400 and that tcn stuff, and even a few rolls of slide film

Last week at a pro photog's workshop one of the classmates brought to lunch
a box full of film, hundreds of rolls of 35 and medium format film, here,
take it. only a couple folks took a few rolls.

Had some old 4x5 positive film I left in holders for several years. Film
expired in 2001.

Don't know why I didn't just leave the holders in the fridge where I
usually kept them; think it was 'cause I emptied the fridge out so
nothin' could fester in there while I was gone ...

They got put away in a closet while I was mobilized to deploy to Iraq,
and I forgot about 'em. Should have unloaded the holders and put the
film in the freezer, but I didn't have time before I had to go.

I found 'em recently, and decided to shoot 'em just to see what would
happen. I'm a little bit of a tightwad & hate to just throw away old
film. Took 'em up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and shot a sunrise.

Anyway, they were heat fogged just from sitting around for so long.
Instead of rich saturated colors, I got some interesting pastel renditions.