How many unprocessed rolls do you have?

[Jamie123]

I just realised that I have 20+ rolls of 35mm and 120 type film laying around in my bedroom. Some of them are in a designated box but a lot of them are just scattered around on bookshelves and tables.
There are several reasons for this. The ones in the box are actually quite recent and I'm just too broke at the moment to get them processed all at once so every now and then I grab a random couple and bring them to the lab. But the ones scattered around have been sitting there for ages and it never occured to me to have them processed (or process them myself for that matter) for the simple reason that I *know* that they're crap. Mind you, I'm not saying that all my current stuff is good but I do think I've grown in my aesthetic judgement in the past years and I dread the thought of looking at the terrible stuff I shot when I just started getting serious about photography. However, at the same time I realise that some of those rolls must be close to 9 years old so it might be time to face the past. At least it'll revive some good memories!

I wonder, am I alone in this? Or does anybody else keep unprocessed rolls around for ages? If so, how many do you have?

 

[enochRoot]

There's an older thread and/or poll about this. Sad to say, I've probably got 50 or so rolls laying around. I've got no excuse. Just laziness.

 

[jsrockit]

No, you're not alone. I do it as well. Everyone I know does it as well.

 

[Out to Lunch]

I am guilty as charged but as long as I don't end up like Garry Winogrand -upon who's untimely death thousands of unexposed rolls of film were found in his office, I feel like I'm in control...

 

[John Elder]

I am in the best position I have been in over a decade having less than 10 rolls to process. Last fall I was more than a hundred behind. All B"W and I do my pwm processing. Now I am way behind in printing.

 

[TaoPhoto]

I have one roll of Fuji Pro, one of Kodak Gold, and two of Tri-X laying around. They'll all be developed by Saturday morning. I hate leaving undeveloped film around.

The color will be scanned for me at the lab, but when I'll get around to printing the black & white is anybody's guess. Not much undeveloped film here, but tons of unprinted negatives. 🙂

 

[sepiareverb]

Zero at the moment. Not counting the three incomplete rolls in cameras. I spent a few days getting caught up recently, I usually have anywhere from three to ten.

 

[shyoon]

As long as I have an even number of rolls, I try to get mine developed same-day or within the week. I used to be pretty lazy, but I'm not going to improve as a photographer if I wait a few months in between seeing results.

 

[oftheherd]

Sadly, I also have many that need developing. I hope the US Government doesn't shut down, but if it does, I know what to do.

 

[xwhatsit]

I have maybe 15-20 rolls of colour film sitting around -- about a year's worth. I do all my own processing, so I've been stockpiling until I got around to ordering some colour chemicals.

These have finally arrived from Macodirect after a couple of months, and I developed my first roll last night. I've forgotten what all of them are! So it should be interesting to see what's on them.

 

[raid]

I keep 3-7 usually, before taking them for processing.

 

[rbiemer]

I usually have about a dozen; I mail order my processing and so I wait til I feel like there are enough to fit into one of the small flat rate boxes and I then send 'em off.
But, earlier this week my brother handed me a zip-loc bag full of unprocessed film.
It is from the apartment we shared until a house fire last year. I was away working so he gathered up the cameras I had left at home and the assorted other stuff. This bag was on my desk--I was having troubles with my then preferred mail order place and hadn't figured out who to try next--and he tossed it into a box of sort of random stuff and forgot about it. Until Sunday last when he was finally finishing sorting through that last box.
So I'm now about 56 or 7 rolls "behind"😡!
Ought to be interesting to see what I have when I get these back!

...for the simple reason that I *know* that they're crap.

I have never discarded any of my negatives, Jamie, and every once in a while I look through them and have found a few that I like much better now than I did when I first saw them. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Rob

 

[Particular]

I recently dug out a couple of boxes of 4x5's that have been laying around for a while. They had a note on them saying "may have film in it. Exposed?"
I started developing a couple of them, and then did the whole batch. It turns out they were all mixed up, exposed and un-exposed, as well as T-max and APX-100. The bulk were a series of shots I took in 1999! Some are even pretty decent images, I just totally forgot I had taken these.

 

[softshock]

I don't usually let film get significantly backed up. I use a two reel tank. If it's something I shoot frequently- Neopan 400/Tri X/Plus X/TMZ, I'll wait until I have four rolls and dev it using that old PJ trick. Sometimes I end up shooting four rolls of TMZ, but two at 3200, and two at 6400, then I'll do two at a time...
I had fourteen rolls backed up about a month ago. That was hell...

 

[maclaine]

I'm down to zero at the moment (I think). I moved across the country last summer along with a backlog of about 20 rolls. Then it took me a while to get settled and get back into developing, at which point I had shot a few more rolls. Although they were all black and white, they were all of various types and/or pushed to various exposure indexes, which meant I couldn't develop more than about two at a time. It was a very, VERY tedious task to get them all done, since I really only develop on weekends and didn't feel like standing over a sink all day. Now I try to never have more than a few, and I'm working on standardizing on one type of film so I never have to go through that again.

 

[Chinasaur]

6 B&W, 3 C-41. Pandalabs ain't cheap, so I'm in no hurry to go up there with my Neopan 😉

 

[paulfish4570]

None. but i shoot, usually, no m0re than a roll a week, maybe two. i process a roll at a time. if c-41, i take it to walgreens pretty quick for negs and cd ...

 

[Jamie123]

Just did a bit of calculating and it would run me about $200 to process all of the rolls at once. Ouch!

 

[njos]

now i have 4-7 unprocessed rolls (B/W), for color i will keep it until 7-10 rolls or when i'm going back to my hometown, then i will send it to the lab.

the reason i'm lazy to process is i live in tropical area, the weather is kinda warm/hot. It's hard to stabilize the chem.temp , if i'm doing with room temperature the result would be a bit grainy (but sometimes i love it).

 

[uhligfd]

zero = zero = zero

(Site does not allow "Too short messages"; zero = 0 unprocessed films is my answer, though)