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Working with expired Kodak 7245 EXR 50D film.


Owen A. Davies

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I've been seriously considering working with this stock in an upcoming project of mine. I may be able to get access to a good deal of film which has been stored in a dark, dry, temperature controlled closet for the past twenty years. I know that's not as good as a freezer, but I'm wondering how affected the film will be. My question is simply, do you guys believe it is worth it? How do you believe this stock will hold up compared to something like Vision1 200T if I overexpose two stops? Does anyone have any footage taken on this stock they wouldn't mind sharing? All in all, is the gamble worth it? Thank you. 

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11 hours ago, Pablo Cruz Villalba said:

I would recommend buying just one and making a test at ASA6. I usually overexpose 3 stops very expired vision stock. However EXR is older ?

Whilst that is true, it was my understanding that the lower ASA the stock is the slower it decays. I’ve been told that the oldest can of EXR 50D should decay slower than the newest can of Vision1 200T.

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The only way for you to know how the film is is to try it. Even when someone tells you it was stored properly you don't really know. 

As @Pablo Cruz Villalbasaid - buy a roll and shoot tests at 50, 25, 12, 6 and see how it looks. Make sure you slate all this so you know what you're looking at.

50asa stocks hold up really good - same with black and white stocks- all lower speeds extend well when properly stored. the higher you go the worst it gets but then it's also cool because of the funky look you can get.

I have a lot of frozen 5248, 5247, 5293 and they all look stunning 2 stops over, the 47 is also nice +1 stop only. I shot snippets of all my expired batches and cataloged the results in a spreadsheet so I know what to shoot at when I take out a can from the freezer.  I also have really badly stored 500T 5298 that looks very cool even though it's totally blasted. Fun as an effect for special projects.

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Last year we developed some EXR ECN film for a museum that was shot in 83-84 and most of it turned out remarkably well.

We also see older 50D semi regularly at the lab and it holds up ok when shot with the age in mind.

Expired film stocks can and do look great and you can get a look from them that you otherwise would not be able to, but they will have more grain and some anomalies. For example almost all the Fuji we still see come in has issues with the Rem-Jet backing staying on the film to some degree.

 

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19 hours ago, Robino Jones said:

The only way for you to know how the film is is to try it. Even when someone tells you it was stored properly you don't really know. 

As @Pablo Cruz Villalbasaid - buy a roll and shoot tests at 50, 25, 12, 6 and see how it looks. Make sure you slate all this so you know what you're looking at.

50asa stocks hold up really good - same with black and white stocks- all lower speeds extend well when properly stored. the higher you go the worst it gets but then it's also cool because of the funky look you can get.

I have a lot of frozen 5248, 5247, 5293 and they all look stunning 2 stops over, the 47 is also nice +1 stop only. I shot snippets of all my expired batches and cataloged the results in a spreadsheet so I know what to shoot at when I take out a can from the freezer.  I also have really badly stored 500T 5298 that looks very cool even though it's totally blasted. Fun as an effect for special projects.

Excuse my ignorance in this matter, but do 5247, 5248, and 5239 also extend to 16mm film, or do those codes only refer to 35mm stocks? 

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12 hours ago, Owen A. Davies said:

Excuse my ignorance in this matter, but do 5247, 5248, and 5239 also extend to 16mm film, or do those codes only refer to 35mm stocks? 

yes - 52XX is 35mm and 72XX is 16mm and all stocks above were originally available in both formats.

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I actually bought about 11 100ft spools of 7245 about 2 years ago, still have some, I use it intermittently. About exposing, 2 stops over usually is the best spot to expose it, sometimes 1 stop works, sometimes I should have gone 3. That’s the issue though with my film at least, it’s not predictable. The guy I bought it off shot surfing about 2 decades ago, he said it had been in a case in a closet most it’s life and he lived by the beach so temperatures are relatively cool and consistent. Another issue with mine but is easily remedied is the remjet is a bit tougher to remove, I don’t know if that’s all old stock film. I wouldn’t use the film on any serious projects that didn’t seem fit to have a slight experimental look.

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