Expired Film

Expired film can be quite the controversial topic among photographers, some love the unexpected nature of it and others won’t go near it. You never quite know what you are going to get when you shoot with expired film, and that is a quality that draws many people to experiment with it.

The chemical emulsion that makes film light sensitive, like most chemicals, degrades over time, which is why film has an expiration date. The film will still be able to produce images for decades after it’s expiration date, but they will look less and less like the film was designed to look. Keeping film in the fridge or freezer will help preserve it for longer as heat is one of the main reasons the chemicals change. As the emulsion degrades, film loses contrast, increases grain, and can have altered colour balance. It becomes less light sensitive the older it is, so when shooting expired film you can compensate by rating the ISO lower than box speed. The general rule of thumb is to lower your ISO by one stop per decade past the expiration date. So for example, if you were using 400 ISO film that was expired for ten years, you would shoot it at 200 ISO for best results.

Black and white film tends to hold up over time better than colour film, since it won’t develop colour casts or changes in colour temperature. It will still lose its light sensitivity, but by adjusting the ISO you can usually still get good contrast. I have had good luck using expired black and white film, sometimes even as old as 20 or 30 years! It will have a bit more grain but if you know that going into it you can use it to make gritty photos.

Things are a little different when you shoot expired slide film. One of the reasons people love slide film is because of its vibrant colours and contrast, so when it expires you loose a lot of that character. One way around that is to cross process the film, meaning develop it in C-41 chemicals instead of E-6. Cross processing can lead to some pretty exaggerated tones, and it will definitely give you saturation. Below are some examples of film that Nicole shot and cross processed.

If you would like to try out some expired film yourself, we put out a basket of miscellaneous rolls on most holidays for $5 each! They are all unknown origin so we don’t know if they have been fridge stored or not, but they’re cheap, so fun to take a risk with. If you can’t wait until the next holiday though you are in luck, we will be doing a giveaway for two people to win two rolls of expired Likon Super 200 35mm! Yes you read that right its Likon not Nikon! We thought it was too funny to just throw into the basket so we’re going to be giving them away for free. Check our social media to enter to win once we open the giveaway!