Old old OLD Film

[Larky]

Hello. I have a couple of rolls of Velvia sat here, they've been sat in my old camera case for about, erm, 7 years!

How 'off' do you think they will be? Shall I rate them lower, or chuck them, or use them for 'art'?

A.

 

[Anupam]

Don't use them for serious stuff without testing before. A lot dpends on the condition in which they were stored - I'd expect them to be okay if frozen and some degree of color shift if not.

 

[FallisPhoto]

Hello. I have a couple of rolls of Velvia sat here, they've been sat in my old camera case for about, erm, 7 years!

How 'off' do you think they will be? Shall I rate them lower, or chuck them, or use them for 'art'?

A.

I'd have to know a lot more before I could make a judgement, and I expect the same holds true for anyone else answering this question. In your favor is that color slide film is considerably more stable than color print film. Still, 7 years is a long time. If it was frozen, I wouldn't expect to see any difference from new film. You might not even have trouble with it if it was kept in a cool room. If it has seen much heat though, if your thermostat is set for over 70, I'd expect to see some color shifts.

I just bought some 6-year old Fuji slide film. However, it has been kept frozen since it was bought new.

 

[Larky]

Hello. It was stored in it's plastic tub in a metal case, never seen a fridge. House thermostat in the winter months is set to 20 degrees C at most, we hardly use it. I reckon I will use it for fun, not for anything serious.

 

[keithwms]

Who knows, maybe it's a treasure. Try it out and maybe think about cross processing if you have no use for it in straight E6 .

 

[George S.]

You have to sacrifice 1 roll as a test to see how off its going to be. It will be off, count on it. I have had very good luck with frozen and even refrigerated film past its expiration, but just this week I shot a roll of 2-year expired, refrigerated print film, (Kodak High Def) and it developed with a reddist cast to the negs, and the drug store printer gave me green prints. Had them re-do it and they came out worse. Had them redo it again, and I'll know in about 1 hour how they did this time. You never know how it will age, but in a bag for 7 years, good luck!