I Don’t Shoot Expired Film, Maybe You Shouldn’t Either

by Johnny Martyr

Look, I don’t want to curtail anyone’s creativity, but I think it’s worth rethinking how readily many photographers shoot expired film.

For me, shooting paid work, I never ever take client photos on expired film. And I really don’t use it for personal work either because to me, it’s just not worth it.

Now, if you can save a few bucks on low ISO or b&w film that’s a few months out of date, it’s probably going to be fine. Or if you like learning about chemistry or appreciate the drab, muted colors that often come with expired color stock, I’m not going to argue that.

But if you’re buying more film than you can use in a reasonable amount of time with the goal to save money and you think there are no consequences to shooting expired film, I would like to share some of my thoughts if you wouldn’t mind giving them a read.

Expired Film Curls

The longer that roll film is curled up, the harder it is to flatten when drying for scanning or printing. Some films are worse than others. And some drying environments are worse than others. But the expiration date that manufacturers put on film does not just mean that the images won’t turn out, it also means that the product will become increasingly more difficult to work with just in terms of handling.

Expired Film Imprints Backing Paper Text

Text and icons from 120 backing paper can become imprinted on your negatives when the ink chemically reacts with the film slowly over time. This issue is not a result of light striking the backing paper as many believe and it’s unclear if refrigeration or freezing really stop this reaction from occurring. Composition of ink and paper vary in manufacturing from time to time. So even if you have some rolls of expired 120 that didn’t exhibit this issue, you might encounter some that do simply because of these undisclosed manufacturing changes.

The Higher the ISO, the Faster Film Expires

I shoot alot of 3200 ISO film, both Ilford Delta and Kodak TMAX. And I have seen 3200 speed films show significant base fog just months out of expiration when not refrigerated and within a year with refrigeration. I don’t have exact math on this, because I play it safe and have only seen these issues in rare circumstances where I inadvertently purchased late or post dated film. Don’t forget that even if you freeze film, this won’t stop natural background radiation from slowly degrading your film. While the pace may be acceptable for a 100 ISO, the faster the film, the faster it will degrade. Those claiming their frozen, expired film “came out perfect” probably haven’t actually compared their results to fresh film and are missing issues that would be apparent if they did.

Expired Film Adds a Troubleshooting Variable

When you process expired film and find any kind of issues with it, now you’ve added a variable that must be considered. Are your shots, underexposed for example, because of a metering problem? A shutter problem? Or because your film has lost sensitivity due to its expiration? There are enough things that can go wrong with vintage film cameras, exposing and processing film that I personally don’t need to add anything else! Do you?

Cold-Storing Film Is A Job In Itself

By keeping film in your common-use kitchen refrigerator with off-gassing food and condensation-making beverages, you risk damage to your film. Proper cold storage necessitates a dedicated film fridge. The cost of which could have been spent on fresh film. And this refrigerator uses additional electricity too. Frozen or refrigerated film should also be double bagged in Ziploc’s and silica gel packets kept in them to prevent moisture from accumulating. The plastic bags get brittle over time and need to be replaced. The silica gel packets need to be dried in a microwave occasionally. It all seems cheap and easy enough but costs and efforts add up over time and defeat the purpose at some point. I used to proudly refrigerate my film too, but tending to it was a pain. So I stopped. Fresh film, exposed and processed within the expiration date does not require refrigeration.

Don’t Be An Addict. Don’t Be A Hoarder

For some reason, the film photography community likes to celebrate addiction and hoarding. Addiction to buying and hoarding cameras and addiction to buying and hoarding film. Yet the community doesn’t seem to celebrate addiction to publishing photos or hoarding printed photographs.

Ironically, within groups dedicated to the practice of film photography, digital snapshots of the largest, most embarrassing hoard of unused film seem to win social media competitions for likes.

Film photography is a very physical hobby when you’re actually shooting and processing daily or weekly. You’re constantly going places, working a camera with your hands, and then spending hours on your feet, working with your hands to process and scan the film. It seems strange to me that people who prefer this manual workflow to automated digital ones have time to sit in front of their mini-fridge typing up inventories too. Replace all the addictive shopping and tending to your hoard with the work required to be an active photographer. Submit your photos to magazines. Make prints. Don’t get so distracted by the gear that you forget the point of owning it.

Support Film Photography

When you buy fresh film, you support the manufacture of more fresh film. You also support your own photography with dependable, predictable results. All this adds up to a sustainable and fruitful film photography ecosystem and community.

I Don’t Shoot Expired Film, Maybe You Shouldn’t Either

Even if after reading my arguments for not shooting expired film, you still want to shoot expired film, be my guest. If you are hopelessly addicted to shopping and want to hoard film, refrigerate film, construct The Great Library of Alexandria for Expired Film Archives, please, seriously. Be. My. Guest.

Photography and art are all about diversity, and far be it from me to dictate how people should do things. I just wanted to tell you my reasons for not shooting expired film. If you agree with me, great. If you don’t, all that I can say is that I’m sure I’ll shoot enough fresh film for both of us.

Thanks for reading and happy shooting!

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Or, if you’re all stocked up on film but still have some cash to burn, don’t let me stop you from purchasing unremarkable but necessary domestic junk, shamelessly plastered with my photographs from this REDBUBBLE site!