Film - Used and Unused, How to Store?

Forkbeard

Forkbeard

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Does it need freezing or putting in the fridge? It's all 100 to 400 c41 colour & b&w if it makes any difference.
 
If you are going to store it for years I would put it in the freezer, pro film which should be used fresh you could put in the fridge to extend it's life if going to use under say a year...mind you all debatable.
 
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If you plan on using it within it's expiry date, you can get away with storing it at room temperature. Obviously, don't leave it in direct sunlight. If you want to keep it after the expiry date, and you are concerned with the accuracy of the colours produced, then you should keep it in the fridge, which is generally understood to approximately double it's lifespan on the assumption you bought it fresh. Personally, I think about in the sense that the length of time between when it goes in the fridge and the expiry, is the amount of time after the expiry date that will provide essentially unchanged results.

Freezing I understand to approximately double this total time again. So in other words, if you had 2 years between now and the printed expiry date, refridgerating it will give you 4 years, and freezing will give you 8. This is all very ballpark, and in reality, most that freeze their films use them well beyond 10 years after the expiry and the results are fine.
 
Sectionate said:
Mines scattered about the house in various drawers etc. I probably should store it correctly
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Well I found some 120 colour film in a cupboard stored at room temp for 12 years, and used some of it, and only one roll was unscannable i.e. couldn't get all the colours right, but probably to Joe public they wouldn't notice or care.
So you could be lucky (y)
 
Me too, I've moved everything into the freezer now as I just don't get through it quickly enough. It makes loading up for a spontaneous shoot a bit more difficult, but in reality it's not normally a problem
 
I store mine at room temperature. With one exception, I do not buy so much at a time that it is going past its use-by date before I use it. The exception is Agfa Vista+ of which I still have 50-odd cassettes - I bought as much as I could afford while Poundland still had it. That is also stored at room temperature.

The main problem of long term storage is colour balance. When you think that the colour balance is fixed at the design stage (unlike digital which is continuously variable) and is designed for either studio use with professional lighting or for outdoor use at a particular time of day and latitude, all our colour film photography ends up with an incorrect colour balance . Close enough is good enough with colour film and you put the colours right at the printing stage (or scanning stage). Some films are worse for colour balance - one Fuji film (Velvia?) was designed to give the colours people remembered from their holidays - ie over saturated.
 
Oh, and in answer to the point about used film, it's best to get it developed as soon as possible. If you can't get it developed straight away, I'd most certainly store it in the fridge.
 
Right, thanks for the replies. I think I'll leave a few of each out and freeze the rest. I don't plan on leaving any undeveloped rolls lying around so that shouldn't be much of a problem really.

If I do freeze them, how soon are they usable again after getting back out?
 
Forkbeard said:
If I do freeze them, how soon are they usable again after getting back out?
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Well to be safe at least an hour, but I've used 35mm about 15mins from the freezer with no problem Ok I got away with it maybe not next time o_O
 
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