17 year out of date Ektar 25 examples

T

timmyd18

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Hey y'all

A few weeks ago, I bought some Ektar 25 that expired in 2/1991 off of an ebay auction. I have an old Argus C3 Matchmatic, and its metering system and controls really only work great with slow films. Even 100 ISO can be too fast for a bright sunny day in the Oklahoma spring.

Anyway, I wanted to give the thing a chance with color print films, so I gave this long expired film a try. Not expecting much, I just brought it to a CVS for processing. Aside from the fact that they lost my negatives (grr...) I think the whole adventure went pretty well. I'm amazed at how well the old film still renders color, although the grain has increased (this was expected, based on the following blog post.)
http://www.apug.org/forums/forum40/18242-kodak-ektar-25-a.html


Anyway, I'm going to have to save my other roll for something really special. Then it's just slides and black and white for the old Argus.
I really wish there was a slow color print film around, still.

church.jpg


lonewolf.jpg


courthouse.jpg


machine.jpg


wells.jpg
 
Ektar 25

Ektar 25

I've got some Ektar 25 and Royal Gold 1000 that was given to me some time ago and I have kept it in the freezer. from the looks of your photos it has
kept pretty good. I sure hope mine will look as good as yours. Those are some
great shots also.😎
 
Sorry, maybe it's my laptop monitor at work but except for the last one I think it looks pretty awful, grain- and color-wise.
 
Hi Timmyd18, I can see the extra grain but somehow I would have expected the film to look worse after so many years past the expiration date. By the way, I live in Norman, just wondering where you are and where you shot your pictures. I know there is a RFFer who works for a tv station in OKC...be funny to have enough people to have a RFF meetup for Oklahoma. --John
 
timmyd18 said:
Hey y'all

A few weeks ago, I bought some Ektar 25 that expired in 2/1991 off of an ebay auction. I have an old Argus C3 Matchmatic, and its metering system and controls really only work great with slow films. Even 100 ISO can be too fast for a bright sunny day in the Oklahoma spring.

Anyway, I wanted to give the thing a chance with color print films, so I gave this long expired film a try. Not expecting much, I just brought it to a CVS for processing. Aside from the fact that they lost my negatives (grr...) I think the whole adventure went pretty well. I'm amazed at how well the old film still renders color, although the grain has increased (this was expected, based on the following blog post.)
http://www.apug.org/forums/forum40/18242-kodak-ektar-25-a.html


Anyway, I'm going to have to save my other roll for something really special. Then it's just slides and black and white for the old Argus.
I really wish there was a slow color print film around, still.

church.jpg


lonewolf.jpg


courthouse.jpg


machine.jpg


wells.jpg
Click to expand...

Timmy,

Ektar 25/Royal Gold 25 was a GREAT film, I used it heavily in Germany in the early 1990`s - these rolls seem to have held out nicely, the color is very nice and the grain is enough to live with.....would be perfect for what I shoot which is Retro PinUps, the colors and feel are very "vintage film" like

Happy Shooting!

Tom
 
Interesting experiment

Interesting experiment

I'm trying to figure out what sort of "happy accidents" expired film can create. I just shot a roll of Ektachrome 64 that I bought as surplus from the Los Alamos National Lab from a guy called Atomic Ed. The stuff expired in 1987.

I'm quite convinced that I will be reshooting everything with fresh Provia. Can always muck it up in PS. Fun to ride the mystery though.

Anyone interested in some "vintage" Velvia 50 from LANL? I'm pretty sure the Sr-90 has half-lifed...

I really like the grain with the sewing machine, BTW.
 
thanks for the comments!. i think the colors look really nice, but i really do prefer the films that give punchy colors rather than more neutral ones. i know that's not everyone's preference.

if CVS would just find the darn negatives they lost!!

anyway, i think the film is part of the vintage look, but so is that argus lens. i'm starting to become a big fan of that c3, especially for interesting buildings on a sunny day. in my gallery i have a photo of the tecumseh opera house, shot with kodak gold 100 and the same 50mm cintar. it has the same vintage feel

i live in norman, too. these pictures were taken in southwestern oklahoma. The red brick building and the statue are in Hobart (the seat of Kiowa County) and the church and the sewing machine are in Hollis (the seat of Harmon county.) The tanks and the tracks are in Snyder, which is in Kiowa county east of Altus on highway 62 (and since it was my second time there i guess it was highway 62 revisited)

tim
 
For slow color negative film: have you tried Fujifilm Reala 100 at 80 or 64? Or is that not slow enough? Maybe Reala at 50 would work? Reala seems to tolerate overexposure quite well. The grain is almost nonexistant.
 
Timmy,

These look amazing. Not the greatest photos, but as an experiment I think they look incredible. I love the muted color, and the grain. It really has a few nostalgic qualities, and the ides of the snapshot aesthetic, that is impossible with modern day films.

If you have a few rolls of film left, maybe get your family and friends to dress up as if it were the 50's or 60's, do a little research to what is around you to find a suitable backdrop--Grand Canyon, or Niagara falls might be the place. A few other ideas, could be old Las Vegas or cheap motels as your backdrop.

Good luck--when you finally decide what to photograph--please post them.
 
I'll try that Reala! I've had not the greatest results with Kodak Gold 100 (it overexposes) but maybe a different film would work well.

I'm lucky I love shooting Kodachrome, so for now I won't run out of film for the camera, but if Reala is a print film that works I'll welcome it.

Sisyphus, you're right- I'm going to think long and hard about what to use my last roll of Ektar for. These shots come from my wandering around the state, and there's 33 others. I'll try to get some of those up. I'm still waiting for my slides and black and whites from the same trip (in my Kiev 4am and Fed 2 respectively) to come in.
 
Tim, it sure preserved OK for such old color film, but looks like it lost some speed. Maybe try exposing it as ASA 12, it should decrease grain and perhaps recover some color.
 
i'll definitely try that Eugene, thanks!

the loss of color is especially evident on the church and also the back of Chief Lone Wolf (the Native American statue)

i'm still amazed at how it rendered the odd colors that I threw at it, though. the lone wolf statue really is that honey color, and i guess when i took the picture of the brick building i didn't realize how much moss was growing on the white parts. i'd say both of those pictures were much more interesting than i thought they'd be

so maybe the answer is to bracket shots but veer on the side of overexposing
 
I also like the color pallete of your shots. I love the Singer shot. I like film grain and shoot high speed films at times just for the obvious grain.

I agree that to compensate for the loss of speed over time to increase your exposure. I also believe that Reala 100 is the best color negative film you can buy today and you can rate it as low as 50 which can increase it's contrast.

Reala in my opinion is a low contrast film and I love that I can shoot it on those bright sunny high contrast days and get excellent negatives.
 
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