Using out of date ?

[Scott Lovejoy]

I searched but didn't find anything specific:

 

Is there a good rule-of-thumb when buying out of date stock from a company that stored it correctly? How old is too old? How bad will an out of date, discontinued stock (ex: Kodak Vision) be?

 

Any information or resources would be great.

 

Thanks.

[Charles MacDonald]

Is there a good rule-of-thumb when buying out of date stock from a company that stored it correctly? How old is too old? How bad will an out of date, discontinued stock (ex: Kodak Vision) be?

It depends, and is a bit subjective..

 

Rules tend to be

 

1) the faster the stock, (higher the ISO) the faster it will deteriorate. Expect ISO 500 Stock to change even after being frozen, while ISO 50 stock may be fine after 5 year in the fridge. Film that is frozen lasts longer than it does in the fridge, but only factory packed film is safe to freze, ends and re-cans may have picked up extra moisture, which will cause ice damage when frozen.

 

2) colour stock will change more visibly than B&W as it is unlikly for all three layers to shift by the same amount.

 

3) the subjective part, if your entire project is from the same batch of film, you may be able to "dial out" the shifts and get something that does not look bad, if you are mixing old and new, the new will have more range available and may make the old look worse.

 

4)no one can tell you what is acceptable, although a lab can run a test to see how much the D-min (fog) level has gone up on a roll of stock. the only way to know if to try one of your setups with the stock and look closely at the results to see if your project can live with the changes and if the fall-off is less than the cost savings.

 

5) be careful you don't get yourself a deal on something like Ekatachrome VNF where the processing support is officialy ened and the labs that are still capable of ptocessing it are few and far between.