I thought expired film was just a gimmick until I shot a roll of Fuji Superia from 2004

Picked up a 10 pack of expired 35mm at a thrift store in Portland for $8 and figured I'd just be wasting frames. The colors came out with this weird pastel look and some heavy grain that actually made my shots of the waterfront look like they were from a 70s postcard. Now I'm hunting down old film on eBay to see what other surprises are out there. You ever get lucky with an old roll or did you just get muddy results?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisa_murray25d ago

Right, that "weird pastel look" you mentioned is actually the film reacting to age in a specific way. Most people don't realize that expired film can shift the color balance depending on how it was stored - like, if it was kept in a hot attic versus a cool basement, you get totally different results. I had a roll of Kodak Gold from 1998 that came out looking almost like a watercolor painting because the emulsion had kinda separated and the green layer was super strong. The thrift store find is the real gold mine though, because you never know what random processing quirks you'll get, and it's way cheaper than paying collector prices on eBay.

danielmartinez23d ago

Did you ever try shooting that roll at a higher ISO to compensate? I had a similar thing with some ancient Agfa that came out all green and grainy, but then I realized my camera's meter was way off, so I just played with the settings until it looked half decent. @lisa_murray is totally right about the storage thing though, I got a roll from a garage sale that sat in a hot van for years and it came out looking like a faded dream.