Freezing color film.

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Has anyone placed film in the freezer and used it long past the expiration date? If so, how did the slides/prints turn out? If you had a year left on the exp. date, then froze the film for a year, would that extend the expiration date another year? Of 150 threads in the archives, I don't see anything about frozen color film.

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), May 10, 2002

Answers

Basicaly, yes you can extend the life of the film as you suggest. I don't know if there is a critical temperature that has to be achieved. Possibly someone else can address that point.

-- Ian MacEachern (iwmac@sympatico.ca), May 10, 2002.

I've used frozen Velvia eight years past its expiration date and it looked good, with no obvious color shift. However, you would do far better asking this question at photo.net where there are people with quite a bit of expertise in this area.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), May 10, 2002.

I buy film in professional quantities (although I'm not a pro) and keep it in the freezer well beyond expiration without a problem. According to the best advice I've received, the freezer turns off the clock.

-- George L. Doolittle (geodoolitt@aol.com), May 10, 2002.

Frank,

I routinely store Kodachrome 64 slide film and Kodak Gold 100 print film in the refrigerator freezer compartment indefinitely. Then I use the film without regard to expiration date, with normal exposure and development. Have done this for many years and have never seen any indications of problems whether film was fresh purchased or used from refrigerator storage. LB

-- (lberrytx@aol.com), May 10, 2002.


Frank; the films I have frozen/hidden away have mostly been Black & White films such as Royal-X 120; Tri-X 620; Vp-120; Kodak 110 for pentax SLR camera and Color Kodachrome Regular 8mm movie film for my Beaulieu MR8 camera...It has a variable shutter; one can shoot at 1/500 sec when filming at 64fps...The other color films are weird 35mm (normal for me!) preflashed & Hydrogen gas hyped fast films for astrophotography..Also some damn sharp EKTAR 25 color print film.... (Kodak wish you would produce a new batch!) Also I have alot of just expired asa 100 film obtained at the salvage store at 50 cents per roll,,this is for weird lens tests etc..SOME of the frozen film is 30 years old Black & White film!

Here are my observations about freezing and refrigeration:

Cold temperatures slow down the aging of the film...BUT the nasty cosmic rays?; (or maybe Al Goreisms or Right wing politics? ; or Hogwarts spells; or the evil forces of the Metrons) slowly raise the base fog level of the films...the toe of the D-LogE curve raises with time...old film thus requires a tad bit more exposure to get the image above the base fog of the film...Also the film base stock tends to "develop" a nasty curl with time..Maybe only with some films? When loading 4 rolls of 13 year old 120 Ilford roll film; I invented many new swear words...It was an absolute &t%$#)@*%@*^ bear to get the film on the Nikkor 120 reels.... Two of the twelve rolls developed had the outer several 120 6X6 cm frames ruined(on the best shots!); the film curled inward during development and popped off the reel inward; and touched the ajacent film on the next inner spiral......This problem was with Ilford FP4 120 that was 13 + years old

Professional color films are stored properly at 55 degrees F ..These films shift color more with temperature than amateur flims..Kodak/the other guys ships the film close to best color; one should keep these films at 55F...Kelly (Ok I place my Flak jacket on to here from the older group that has 40 year old film; and differs on their results) have fun Kelly

-- Kelly Flanigan (zorki3c@netscape.net), May 11, 2002.


it must go cold tones dominant, what else?

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), May 11, 2002.

I had some of the HP5/72 exposure stuff up till about 1995 or so. Never saw a problem with it. It was in my deep freez at about -10.

I've also frozen film when I get a deal on it (sometimes short date).

One thing I should add though, when tempted with a greate "buy", test a roll first. When film is close to expiration its prior storage may make it more expired than its age indicates. Once you know the batch is still ok, then freezing it will make it last a loooong time.

And... proper, and slow warmup is a must!

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), May 11, 2002.


I've used Kodachrome 64 that had been frozen for 10 years with no apparent loss of quality, but Kodachrome 200 frozen for for 6 years looked like it had been fogged a bit. It's probably safer with slower films than with faster ones.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), May 11, 2002.

You may encounter problems if you remove film from the freezer then refreeze it at a later time. I had a problem with red spots on processed Fuji RSP a few years ago, and although they couldn't give me a definitive answer, Fuji thought it may have been a result of refreezing the film.

-- Steve Wiley (wiley@accesshub.net), May 11, 2002.

I have also used film which was frozen for 5-7 years with no problems. In fact my "professional Ektachrome" is none other than Elite which was stored at room temp until 6 mo's before expiration then frozen. If I come back with unexposed film, back it goes into the freezer. Never a problem. Some if it ends up passed through the airport hand-baggage (carry on) x-ray up to a dozen times, also no problem.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), May 11, 2002.


Frank: Living in the Arctic regions, I use film that may freeze and thaw many times in the body. I find when normal Kodak films (tri-x, plus- x, K64 etc) are repeatedly frozen and thawed the base material gets brittle. I did not find this true with the estar based material. This occurred with film from the 70's and 80's. I do not know on the current material. I also have film in the freezer from 20 years ago. It does need an little more exposure to match the current stuff. It looks like the frames were shot 20 years ago (age of the film). Cheers and keep your batteries in the freezer also.

-- Mark Johnson (logical1@catholic.org), May 11, 2002.

I also have cold-stored black and white and color film for a long time with good success. I kept some Velvia and some Provia 100 for six or eight years beyond expiration with no problems that I cold detect. I have found storage in the refrigerator compartment at around 40 degrees to be sufficient. The warm-up time from the fridge to room temp is of course faster than if the film were to be kept in the freezer. I do store films in the freezer when I've lost interest in a given emulsion (in this case, T-Max) and don't expect to need it for a long time. I have found no harm in freezing film, but I find that above-freezing temps are adequate even if the film is kept for some years that way.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), May 12, 2002.

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