Film Storage

Julian Fletcher · January 7, 2016

Hi All,

I am a casual film shooter, about 1000ft or so of super 16 from my bolex each year to capture family holidays and Christmas etc.

I usually do the shooting and then store the unexposed film in the fridge until I amass a few hundred feet, before I then send it off for processing and scanning. This is purely to save money.

I then store the exposed film in its canister in the coolest room of the house.

Is this the right sort of practice? What does everyone else do? I realise that I should really process it immediately, but it comes down to money at the end of the day. Plus I don't see that I can ever install a temperature controlled film vault.

So just reaching out on the forum to see how everybody else does it, and what the best advice is here? I'd obviously like to keep the films themselves in good condition for the future.

Cheers

Julian

Bill DiPietra · January 7, 2016

I usually store unexposed film in the fridge. I also wait until I have 200-400 feet of film due to fees, but I have a cool, dry basement. I used to store the exposed film in the fridge after I took it out of the camera, but I then read that you run the risk of moisture forming on the film when doing that. So I just keep it out in room temperature, provided it won't be too long before I get it processed. After processing, I keep it stored in my basement in either metal cans or the boxes the labs send it back in. In reality, the negatives should be stored in metal cans, but I've never had any issues with my current practices.

Take a look at this document. It tells you all you need to know about film storage.

By the way...I don't know anyone who has a temperature-controlled vault.

John E Clark · January 7, 2016

Is this the right sort of practice? What does everyone else do? I realise that I should really process it immediately, but it comes down to money at the end of the day. Plus I don't see that I can ever install a temperature controlled film vault.

We have a number of rolls of unexposed still film in our refrigerator... been there for years now... who shoots film...

Anyway... I've noticed 'wine cabinets' which have fancy temperature control and depending on price, humidity control as well...

I've actually never worried about this... since for still film we would process almost immediately... well... there's this bag of B&W film we shot on a vacation about 20 years ago... but I digress...

If you live where there is no such thing as a 'basement'... like California... and it can get very hot... or weirdly cold and damp... then perhaps one of these will serve for storage. Probably get something used.