Frozen Film

[Aaron Martin @ OH]

Hello -

 

Today I found seven super 8 cartridges of Kodak 200t in the darkest recesses of my freezer. These cartridges were purchased in 2009 and have been refrigerated and then frozen ever since. I want to shoot a short project with this film, but I'm wondering how much fogging/graininess I can expect with film of this age. Any ideas?

 

I also seem to remember that cartridges manufactured around this time had a defect where the film was improperly wound causing it to stick during shooting. Does anyone else remember that and do you think my cartridges will more likely to stick because they were frozen?

 

Thanks for your help,

 

Aaron

Edited May 27, 2014 by Aaron Martin @ OH

[Andries Molenaar]

I don't know about the winding but the age past 2009 should not be a problem. Fogging doesn't occur theat quickly and especially not when frozen.

[Immanuel Wirt]

When the film has been kept frozen since 2009, it will be ok. 5 years storage in freezer is perfectly fine. The lower the film speed the longer it can be stored.

http://www.frugalphotographer.com/info-using_expired_film.htm

I don't know about the winding problem either but jamming the cartrigde is more likely to happen when the weather is hot and humid because the film gets stickier.

 

Immanuel

[Carl Looper]

The winding problem (as I understand it) was due to insufficient lubrication of the filmstock at that time. The solution I was given was to bang the carts with a hammer for a while. Or shake them vigorously for as long as one might, to achieve the same effect. The idea being to loosen up the film.

 

C

[Joerg Polzfusz]

The only problems that I would expect might be caused by the cartridge itself: Some of Kodak's Vision1/2 200T-stuff wasn't notched correctly. (Correct notch would be 160T, but was 160D or 100D on some cartridges.) AFAIK Vision3 200T is notched correctly.

[Martin Baumgarten]

I still have frozen Super 8mm film from the late 1970s and 1980s as well as later in my freezer. I occassionally get in frozen stored EKTACHROME 160 film for processing and it still looks good, as does the stuff I have stored frozen. There's some contrast loss and some filmspeed loss with film 20 years + stored frozen, but still very usable. With B&W stored frozen, you could most likely use it 50 years from now and get acceptable results, if you had a running camera at the time to shoot it with. Color Neg films cold stored from 2009 will be fine. Back in the US Air Force we had a cold vault for filmstock and tested it annually. Even films set aside for training, camera tests, and machine processing tests, were still fine even after 10 years in the cold. Color correction varied a bit more, which was the only indicator that the film might be older. Go ahead and shoot with confidence. - - - Lastly, I would allow the film to come up to room temp slowly, put it into the fridge for a few hours, then at room temp overnight. Open the film envelope in a non-high humidity are if possible. Tap the cartridge flat surface with label upward down onto a tabletop a couple times. Wipe some silicone (sprayed onto a clean white flannel cloth first and letting the propellant evaporate first) onto the film gate and even the film in the cartridge gate. Also, you can push down the film an inch to make sure it's not stuck, or more if necessary, and takeup any slight slack via winding the film core clockwise a bit. Usually, if the film wants to jam, it's after opening it as the emulsion will swell due to the higher humidity. Good luck!

[Will Montgomery]

A colorist friend of mine often would tell me he didn't care too much about the age of film people shot; he could get decent images from almost any age film within reason. Obviously that's only for transferred film.