The Impermanancy of Color Print Film

[mfunnell]

controlled orbital bombardment.

One of my favourite activities! And, as Dave Barry might point out, an excellent name for a rock band 🙂

...Mike

 

[Sparrow]

Comic radiation is a real danger to your negatives, as time goes by they go funny.

... steal my punch line why don't you?

 

[Sparrow]

On a serious note as I understand it there are two c41 process, one that "proper" labs use and one that those little auto machines in chemists or supermarkets use, I believe the latter "short" process is known to have longevity problems

 

[mfunnell]

On a serious note ... the "short" process is known to have longevity problems

Just can't help it, eh? 😀

...Mike

 

[joeswe]

A few months ago, when we were packing to move, I went through my "photo box", a very large box full of negatives and 4x6 prints. The stuff from our Hawaii times, which was when I really started photography as more than an occasional thing, was mostly cheap color film from Walgreens.

I was taken aback at how much the negatives had faded in 7 years! The few boxes of Kodachrome slides I'd taken looked as good as the day I'd made them. Fortunately, most of the color negs were really of little value so I threw them out. The box was nearly always in a dark closet at normal room temperatures, but I'm sure there were times it had seen 90 degrees or more at odd times. Just thought I'd mention this to others. Might be a good idea to scan color work if it means anything to you.

If yours have really faded prematurely (compared to slides, it's difficult to judge fading in color negatives by just looking at them), this could be for a variety of reasons: a processing error by the lab (unfortunately not unlikely nowadays) or storage under detrimental conditions, as exposure to light/heat/humiditiy or chemical vapors (negative sleeves with bad archival properties, household chemicals stored nearby etc.) come to my mind.
If you want your negatives to last, use quality material, a quality lab and archive accordingly. Quality C41 film from the 90s/00s should have the potential to outlive you if processed and archived properly. And make sure your Kodachromes are kept in a dark place and only viewed/projected when absolutely necessary, the dyes are very sensitive to light (much more so than Ektachrome dyes).
Storage and Care of KODAK Photographic Materials

 

[Jamie123]

Back when I interned at an agency I went through two decades of some photographer's archives and all of them seemed perfectly fine. Maybe the problem wasn't the negative film but the processing. I hear bad washing and chemical residue can really mess up the archival quality of neg film.
The Kodachrome was probably mail-in so it was most likely processed professionally by Kodak to their standards.

 

[aad]

I have color print negatives from 35 years, they have dirt but no fading. 50 year old slides mostly fine, but some color shift in a few.