I was recently gifted a bunch of expired film that had always been stored frozen. I got some Fujicolor 200 in 35mm, some FP4 in 120, and, most interestingly, some Kodak Vericolor III in 120. Vericolor was the film that Portra replaced, more or less.
I expected that because the film was properly stored that it would perform okay at or near box speed, despite having been expired since July of 1986. When I shot the first roll in my Yashica-12, I made each photo twice, once at box speed of 160, and once slightly overexposed at 125. The photos shot at 125 all looked better to me, but none of them looked like fresh film. I was prepared to say that these shots would have looked even better at 100 or 80. But after finishing this roll, I transferred the battery to my Spotmatic F for a roll — and the meter was all jumpy. A fresh battery corrected that. So now I’m not sure that this battery gave accurate meter readings in the Y-12. This whole experiment might have been moot.
But what the hell, here are some of the photos. Slide each slider to the right to see the EI 160 image, and to the left to see the EI 125 image.
There are three 127 Days each year: July 12 (12/7 in European notation), December 7 (12/7), and today, January 27 (1/27). Last 127 Day I spooled a roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan, expired since 1981, into my Kodak Brownie Starmatic and took it for a walk along Main Street in Zionsville. It’s fitting to share the results today.
Sadly, every shot was badly underexposed. It’s possible that my Starmatic’s selenium meter is finally petering out. It would be understandable, as the camera is 60 years old. To protect the meter, I keep the camera in its case when I’m not using it. And the meter worked perfectly the last time I used the camera, just a couple years ago.
Perhaps this expired film degraded over time. Verichrome Pan is hardy, and I almost always have very good luck with it at box speed (ISO 125). That’s how I shot it this time.
The freezing temperature that day is the most likely culprit, however. It might have interfered with the meter’s mechanical linkage or with the shutter, leading to these underexposures. I kept the camera warm in my coat when I wasn’t using it, but that might not have been enough. I’ll have to try again on July’s 127 Day, when it should be plenty warm. I have a roll of long-expired Kodacolor-X in 127 waiting its turn. I’ll develop it as black and white, as the chemistry to develop that film as color has been out of production for ages.
I developed the film in LegacyPro L110, Dilution H, for 8:30 at 20° C. This is my usual Verichrome Pan recipe. In general I prefer Dilution B. But with Verichrome Pan that yields a development time of just 4:15, which gives no margin for timing error. This film curled tightly, giving me a devil of a time loading it onto the developing reel. The developed film curled badly, too. I had figured I’d scan the film by laying it directly on the scanner’s glass, but the curl made that impossible. I lay the film between the pages of a heavy book for a couple weeks, hoping that would flatten it out, but no dice.
So I ordered a 127 film holder from Negative Solutions. The fellow behind this little company makes film holders for a number of scanners and defunct film sizes. He 3D prints them on demand. My 127 holder is two pieces of plastic, one you lay the film into and another you slide into a channel in the first to hold the film flat. Then you lay the whole thing inside the 120 film holder that came with my Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II. The film’s curl made it difficult to load into the holder, but I managed it. From there, scanning was as easy as scanning ever is.
At least I enjoyed using the Brownie Starmatic. I always do; it’s why it survived Operation Thin the Herd. It’s my only remaining 127 camera. Even though all 12 images were badly underexposed, I was able to tweak VueScan’s settings to scan a usable image from each negative. Here are all of them.
After testing the new light seals in my Nikon F3 recently I wanted to keep going with this satisfying camera. I loaded my last roll of Kodak Gold 400, expired since January of 2008. My previous roll of this film looked very good shot at box speed, so I shot it that way this time too. The results showed greater color shifts and noise than last time, but a little quick Photoshoppery made these images look much better.
I mounted my 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5 Zoom Nikkor lens to the F3 for this outing. Despite its noticeable barrel distortion at the wide end, I really like this lens. It’s small and light, and its zoom range gives me good flexibility.
We met our granddaughter and her mom in downtown Zionsville, where there were gourds and pumpkins for sale. Here are three of Margaret’s kids, our “granddog” Obie, our granddaughter, and her mom.
We see our granddaughter most Sundays now, and it’s been lovely. When the weather’s nice enough we meet in town or in a park.
The used bookstore was open this day, running a clever promotion where they wrapped books in kraft paper, wrote what the book was about on the front, and sold them as book blind dates.
I finished the roll around the house. As the weather has grown chillier I’ve gone out less, but I’ve still wanted to make photographs. That means looking for new subjects, or new angles on old subjects, at home.
The 35-70 focuses from about 13 inches. I enjoy zooming this lens to 70mm and moving in close.
Our last gas grill gave up the ghost last season after just three years of service. That’s the way of $250 gas grills. I didn’t want to blow another $250 that way so I bought a little Weber charcoal grill instead. It’s more hassle to grill on charcoal but the flavor is better. Anyway, I’m pleased that I was able to capture this fire so well.
A law went into effect here this summer prohibiting drivers from holding their phones in their hands while driving.
The only reason I pick up my phone in the car is to skip a song or start a new playlist. I play music from my phone over the car’s Bluetooth link. But my car is just old enough not to have integrated controls. The only way to interact with my playlist is via the phone itself.
I bought a phone holder that clamps to the vent’s louvers. Because the phone is so available, it tempts me more to interact with it. Could Indiana’s new law have backfired?
Kodak Panatomic-X film has developed almost a cult following since it was discontinued in 1987. Look around the forums and the blogs: people call this the best black-and-white film ever made. It’s a fine-grained but slow film at ISO 32.
Mike Eckman of mike eckman dot com sent me two short rolls he bulk loaded, just to try this film. “Shoot it at ISO 20 or 25,” he said, “and develop it in HC-110 Dilution B for 6½ minutes.” I asked him what temperature. He said that it didn’t matter, 6½ minutes just always works. And so it did.
I knew I’d want a fast lens for this slow film, and the fastest lenses I own say SMC Pentax-M on them. So I got out my Pentax ME, set it at EI 25, mounted my 50mm f/1.7, and loaded the first roll of Panatomic-X.
I shot indiscriminately around my yard and within a few minutes’ walk of my home.
For the kind of shooting I do — handheld, outdoors — slow films need great light. I went out with my ME only on full-sun days and I still got shallow depth of field. But if you know that going in, you can work with it.
Mike told me that this stock is at least 30 years old. Yet look how it performs!
This fits Panatomic-X’s reputation: no matter how old, almost no matter how stored, this film performs well. These photos bear it out — they look very good, with creamy middle grays and solid blacks.
My scanner is the weak link in my workflow, as it delivers soft scans in 35mm. Even after heavy unsharp masking, the images still aren’t truly sharp. These negatives scanned as sharp as my tools can manage, and required only moderate unsharp masking.
To wrap up, here’s a shot of my neighbor’s dog, who came out to have a bark at me. I think he wants to be my pal, but his innate skittishness makes him back away whenever I go over to say hello. So I immortalized him on expired Kodak Panatomic-X.
The fellow who gave me the Olympus OM-2n gave me another, so I put a couple rolls through to test it. The first roll was Kodak T-Max 400, which I showed you recently. The second roll was some Kodak Gold 400 expired since January, 2008, that I had lying around. I mounted a 50mm f/3.5 Zuiko Auto Macro lens that the fellow also gave me. This is one generous fellow.
These images look very good for film 12 years expired that was never stored cold. They needed very little post-processing. Color shifts are slight. Grain might be enhanced, but I never shot Kodak Gold 400 fresh before it was replaced by Kodak Ultramax 400 to know for sure.
This 50mm macro lens performs beautifully. I own at least one more of them and have for years. This lens raises any color film above its station. This is also a fine lens for non-macro photography. Leave it focused at infinity for anything beyond a couple feet away. It makes your OM camera almost point-and-shoot simple.
The OM-2n is just a wonderful SLR. I’m smitten. My SLR loyalties have been to Pentax first and Nikon second. The OM-2n threatens to have Olympus usurp at least the #2 position.
