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Poor 16mm Care


Jonathan Bowerbank

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I was just curious if anyone on here has any experiences of their virgin raw stock or exposed stock being subject to the least ideal conditions, yet still turning out alright after processing.

 

We all know to take special care of our stock, but I was curious to know really what kind of hell film can go through before totally getting ruined. As the technology of film emulsions advances, I'd like to know if its durability is increasing as well.

 

Let me know if you've ever:

 

Loaded a Daylight Spool in broad daylight and your film survived.

 

Kept your exposed film stored at room temp for an extended period of time, and yet it survived.

 

Had your film scanned by Airport X-Rays, and yet it survived.

 

Loaded and shot a roll of film that was removed from a freezer and not given enough time to thaw, and yet the footage came out alright.

 

Any other examples would be great as well. I'm looking for firsthand experiences, please no "My friend...", or "I heard that..." stories.

 

Thanks!

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I was just curious if anyone on here has any experiences of their virgin raw stock or exposed stock being subject to the least ideal conditions, yet still turning out alright after processing.

 

We all know to take special care of our stock, but I was curious to know really what kind of hell film can go through before totally getting ruined. As the technology of film emulsions advances, I'd like to know if its durability is increasing as well.

 

Let me know if you've ever:

 

Loaded a Daylight Spool in broad daylight and your film survived.

 

Kept your exposed film stored at room temp for an extended period of time, and yet it survived.

 

Had your film scanned by Airport X-Rays, and yet it survived.

 

Loaded and shot a roll of film that was removed from a freezer and not given enough time to thaw, and yet the footage came out alright.

 

Any other examples would be great as well. I'm looking for firsthand experiences, please no "My friend...", or "I heard that..." stories.

 

Thanks!

 

I first started shooting 16mm when I was living in Hawaii where every one gets goose bumps if the temperature drops below 70. I never even thought about keeping the film cool. Then again I was processing in buckets so it would have been hard to detect any difference in quality.

 

As for 100' daylight loads, I usually use a dark bag but if one isn't available :o I just go ahead and load then burn 5-10 feet before I start shooting something important, and so far I haven't had any major fogging.

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when shooting reg 16mm I find daylight loads can be done in full daylight, though I still hold it perpendicular to the sun... I use a Bolex and it wont register at 0 feet in the counter until you have pulled though more film than you need to anyway...

 

Super16 is a different story.

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>Loaded a Daylight Spool in broad daylight and your film survived.

 

no problems (not even on edges) you loose about 1-2m of film though

 

>Kept your exposed film stored at room temp for an extended period of time, and yet it survived.

 

Black and white for a year, turn out good.

 

>Had your film scanned by Airport X-Rays, and yet it survived.

 

it changed a roll of Svema 50 I had, it ended up full of low/high contrast areas

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Loaded a Daylight Spool in broad daylight and your film survived.

 

Kept your exposed film stored at room temp for an extended period of time, and yet it survived.

 

This sounds like someone new to this with a lot of worries, but hey we all did at one time! I used to have to freeze every stock I had, why I don't know. But hey some "bad" mistakes could be good too!

 

As stated by everyone before, it doesn't matter if you load in broad daylight that's what the flanges on the side are for and yes you lose some and they give you some more to load.

 

I've actually shot a film that was 20+ years old, black and white more than less likely just left in someones closet for that amount of time and it came out alright.

Edited by ryan_bennett
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Ryan is right, I particularly like to experiment with very old stocks. The only thing one would keep in mind if experimenting is that having a developing tank allows you to try many many things instead of being afraid due to the lab costs (also, some old emulsions do not survive modern high temp developing)

 

 

This sounds like someone new to this with a lot of worries, but hey we all did at one time! I used to have to freeze every stock I had, why I don't know. But hey some "bad" mistakes could be good too!

 

As stated by everyone before, it doesn't matter if you load in broad daylight that's what the flanges on the side are for and yes you lose some and they give you some more to load.

 

I've actually shot a film that was 20+ years old, black and white more than less likely just left in someones closet for that amount of time and it came out alright.

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I helped a friend shoot some Kodak VISON 250D that he got for free from his college. He'd been told it was a few years old and never frozen/refrigerated. We overexposed it by a stop or so, and it came out fine, though maybe a little grainier than I would have expected.

 

I've also had a couple of daylight spools of Eastman 50D run through the airport x-ray machine with no obvious problems.

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I dropped off a roll at Delden Film Labs (Minneapolis) for processing today and asked the technician about modern film stocks and their ability to survive being stored at room temperature, and he shrugged and said not to worry about it... in his opinion, even a month isn't too long to let a roll sit around at room temp, exposed or raw.

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I've always loaded and unloaded Ektachrome 100D in more or less bright light, and I've never had problems, except for fogging at beginning and end.

I've also carried my film around for a few weeks, sometimes at temperatures around 30 to 35ºC (That must be about 85 to 100ºF), getting it X-Rayed uh... about six times (all with E 100D) and it turned out just normal.

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This may be a strange kind of analogy but I think of treating film stock like a candy m&m. If you leave an m&m out in a candy dish for a few weeks or maybe even a month or two you would still eat it and probably wouldn't even know that it was not fresh out of the bag. If that candy sat out for several months or even a year, I guess you could still eat it but the overall quality of the candy would not be as good. It would be noticeably stale. You would still be able to tell it was an m&m when you put it in your mouth but it would not be nearly as good as a fresh one. If you found an old m&m that had been laying around for a few years you could probably identify it as candy but it would not be much fun to eat, unless your into that sort of thing.

You all should know that I have never been brave enough to eat a 1year+ old m&m. I have however, shot plusX that was six years old. It lost a little bit of the dynamic range and was grainier than fresh film but it worked for what I needed if for, but I would not try to use it with fresh stock cause it would not match.

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This may be a strange kind of analogy but I think of treating film stock like a candy m&m. If you leave an m&m out in a candy dish for a few weeks or maybe even a month or two you would still eat it and probably wouldn't even know that it was not fresh out of the bag. If that candy sat out for several months or even a year, I guess you could still eat it but the overall quality of the candy would not be as good. It would be noticeably stale...

 

Excellent analogy, i love it.

 

Mmmm, not quite Ryan. I've just never gone about the "dangerous" ways of loading, caring, storing and neglecting my films. So, I was curious what others had experienced first hand.

 

Come on, have some fun, you have to have once just been a bit miscaring! Thats why I assumed you weren't experienced just because you never did or tried these things. I hope you understand now. Film is great, it's a lot of experimenting and mistakes. Go out and have some mistake and to some experimenting.

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One of the great things about film is that it can be mistreated. After all film cameras by definition change the light sensitive material after each roll :D I love digital cameras too but if you mistreat the chip it's time for repair :o

 

I know of filmmakers who purposefully flash there film to fog the base just for the effect of it. I always liked how the head and tail ends of kodachrome would turn wonderful colors from getting flashed as the film was changed. By the same token I thought some of the early video cameras had some interesting "flaws" like the way a cars headlights or taillights would leave an oscilloscope like trace on the screen. It seems like I like all the wrong things about every thing LOL

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Film is great, it's a lot of experimenting and mistakes. Go out and have some mistake and to some experimenting.

 

Perhaps if one of my future films calls for fortuitous mistakes such as this, I'll go for it. In the meantime, I'm happy with taking careful precautions :)

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By the same token I thought some of the early video cameras had some interesting "flaws" like the way a cars headlights or taillights would leave an oscilloscope like trace on the screen. It seems like I like all the wrong things about every thing LOL

You have reminded me of the appolo mission where they acidentaly pointed the camera at the sun, and got a half black half white picture. Seems they burned a streak right through the target on the vidicon, and so half the image was not available, BUT the camera being auto exposure adjusted itself to over expose the rest. The camera was suposed to stay behind but they had the crew cut the wire so they could bring it back and figure out what went wrong.

 

Talk about an expensive mistake on location!

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