HP5+ Longevity

[sepiareverb]

I've just sleeved up some HP5+ from a very unscientific test. I set an unexposed roll of 135-36, in the black plastic film can, in my car for about two years. I live in northern Vermont, so air temperatures ranged from -20 to +98°F (about -28 to 36°C). With the car outside lots of freeze-thaw cycles and much higher temperatures on sunny days (black interior). Pulled it out of the car a week or so ago and shot it as I normally would, at ISO 400. Just ran it with three other rolls in my usual R09 Spezial. Other than the film having more curl than my fresh HP5, there is hardly any other noticeable effect upon visual inspection. Perhaps an extremely little bit of fog – but I can't be sure by eye – and perhaps an equally insignificant loss in contrast.

Going to shoot half a roll and rewind it to leave in the car for another year, to see what happens to latent image. I'll shoot the second half before developing.

 

[xayraa33]

I've just sleeved up some HP5+ from a very unscientific test. I set an unexposed roll of 135-36, in the black plastic film can, in my car for about two years. I live in northern Vermont, so air temperatures ranged from -20 to +98°F (about -28 to 36°C). With the car outside lots of freeze-thaw cycles and much higher temperatures on sunny days (black interior). Pulled it out of the car a week or so ago and shot it as I normally would, at ISO 400. Just ran it with three other rolls in my usual R09 Spezial. Other than the film having more curl than my fresh HP5, there is hardly any other noticeable effect upon visual inspection. Perhaps an extremely little bit of fog – but I can't be sure by eye – and perhaps an equally insignificant loss in contrast.

Going to shoot half a roll and rewind it to leave in the car for another year, to see what happens to latent image. I'll shoot the second half before developing.

That is good to know, as last week while searching inside the back of my car trunk I found a small photo gear case behind the first aid kit and the case had a long forgotten Zorki 2C camera loaded with HP5 film inside it. This film must have been subjected to very similar Ontario Canada temperature ranges in the 3 years it is been there .

 

[John Bragg]

That is good to know. HP5+ has a very long use by date on fresh stock and by your arbitary test, I would say that even that is erring on the conservative side.

 

[sepiareverb]

I was very pleasantly surprised!

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Not surprising as it was formulated as a direct competitor to Tri-X,
with its renowned keeping characteristics in adverse conditions.

Chris

 

[presspass]

Thanks for the information. Few people have the patience to do this.

 

[DoxLeica]

Black and white film is far more robust than we have been told by manufacturers! One of my favorite films has been Panatomic X. I bought a box of it from a chap who had it in his van for some time. Where it was before than who knows! Most of the boxes were crushed and covered with grunge. A few weeks ago I shot a roll of 20 at ASA 32 and developed it in D-76. Everything was fine! And, yes, it expired 32 years ago!

 

[bobby_novatron]

FWIW I purchased a few rolls of Soviet-made 'SVEMA 130' black and white 35mm film from a fellow in Russia. The expiry on the box says mid-1986. I purchased them more as a curio to sit on my shelf than to actually use them. I had no idea how they had been stored -- for all I knew, they could have sat in a dank Moscow flat on a shelf above a steamy samovar.

I thought, what the heck, I'll load up one of my cameras and try a roll. Surprise! The film wasn't fogged at all, and the overall image quality was quite acceptable. Apart from some curl after drying, the film was fine. Svema 130 -- the ghost of USSR lives on!

 

[benlees]

Good intel. All my HP5+ is out dated!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Hi sepiareverb,
That's an interesting subject, and thanks for sharing your information...
I've been reading around here but not posting for these last years, and your thread just made me want to log in again: as you said you're shooting half the roll, and keeping the other half for shooting in the moment you develop in a long time, I just remembered a parallel subject you might want to include some way in your test: last month I was reading different sources about latent image, and it seems there's a small part of every latent image that vanishes... The weakest parts obviously, the darkest ones in the print... Not considerable when we shoot at box speed, but more relevant when we push: no problem if we shoot HP5+ at 400, 320 or 250, but at, say 1600, the amount of active silver that was responsible for the future shadow detail received indeed very little light, so a big part of low zones just stops being latent if the film is not developed soon... I have not done any test on it, but I remember reading if a correctly exposed negative (box speed) can be safely developed months and even years after being exposed, shadow detail (the lowest part of it) on a pushed negative just disappears if the roll is not developed really soon... Although shadow detail has never been really important to me, depending on the subject, keeping all shadow detail can be decisive sometimes... A common situation with dark skins receiving poor light... I think I read there are visible changes after three days (!) if a pushed roll is not developed... Well, it sounds logical, but I was surprised: I guess I had not even heard about it in the past... Good luck with your great idea!
Cheers,
Juan

 

[sepiareverb]

Hi Juan, I'm somewhat recently back here as well.

Just ran some PanF+ today that I had in an M6. Shot half of the roll in maybe April or May, then finished the roll August 5th. Intended to process it that weekend, but never did. So it sat with latent images for seven weeks. I've long known PanF has difficulties with latent image keeping, so I gave the roll an extra minute in the DD-X today. The Springtime images are barely there, some are likely scannable, but certainly not printable in the darkroom. The August 5th images are also degraded, but not as much. I could print these in the darkroom, but not quickly, and yes, it is the shadow detail that is worst off in the August frames.

PanF+ is a very different animal from the faster HP5+ cousin!

 

[Steve M.]

I don't think you would have wanted to try this test here in Florida :]

Heat is a big factor in fogging, along w/ UV and light of course. If anything, being up in a cold weather climate helped to preserve your film.

Generally speaking, heat is where I've had fogging problems, especially w/ colour films. They just don't like it, and photographic papers are even more sensitive (along w/ the darkroom chemicals).