My Journey Into Photography: Using Expired Film

I have been shooting a lot of black and white film over the last few months, some of it fresh, new film and others expired film I was given. My posts about the FP4 Party was done with expired film and it taught me a lot about the quality of Ilford film if kept refrigerated and I learned how to develop film with that expired film. Recently I have been learning how to alter film speeds, development times and chemical dilutions to get the best out of old film stock and It is quite an education. The Ilford FP4 was not the only expired Ilford film I was given, in the consignment was several rolls of Ilford HP5 and a solitary roll of Ilford Delta 400. This gave me the opportunity to extend my developing skills and a great excuse to experiment.

Ilford HP5 is noted for it's exposure latitude, ie the amount of under or over exposure it will handle and still give you a usable image. From talking to friends online about shooting expired film, I was encouraged to try a roll at 200 asa, one stop below box speed. The reasoning being that as film ages, it's sensitivity to light degrades over time. Keeping film in the fridge for several months does extend it's life and carefully freezing film can extend that life indefinitely. However, it must be done properly. If you do try keeping film in your freezer it is important to keep moisture out. Placing the film in a zip lock bag, squeezing the excess air out and then putting it in a tupperware box or an old ice cream tub will do this. I also learned that allowing the film to acclimatise for an hour or three before loading it into my camera would remove any condensation that would inevitably form if I just popped the can open and chucked it in my camera.

Armed with this information I set about working my way through my stash of expired film with varied results. One roll was seriously water damaged, but I managed to salvage a couple of images. Other rolls were pretty much ok and gave me a lot to work with. I was nervous when I developed my first few rolls, but with increasing experience I can develop 2 rolls in my Paterson tank without any bother. As well as using Ilfosol 3, a one shot developer that produces fine grained images, I also invested in Kodak HC-110, a popular developer that has a lot of information on the "Massive Dev Chart" website. This is an invaluable resource for various dilution ratio's and development times for just about every film available today and several that were discontinued years ago, but have been hoarded in freezers by folk saving it for the future. HC-110 is also re-useable and I have been getting several films from one mix. Film photography isn't the cheapest hobby, but with reusable chemicals it becomes less of an economic burden over time. You really do get your money's worth.

I am well aware that using expired film can, and frquently does, disappoint, but it does take away the horrible feeling you would get if you shot a fresh roll then made a pigs ear of it during developing. Having this film has helped me more than hindered and I'm growing as a photographer because of it. I think I have mentioned previously that a bad experience of developing film in my youth led me to resist doing it again for three decades. I must admit I was never the most attentive to details back then. Coming back to film has given me a lot of joy over the last few years and with maturity has come an appreciation for doing things right. The next logical step is to give printing in a darkroom a try, but the expense of second hand equipment means I will have to save up for a while before I can go down that particular rabbit hole. In the meantime I will enjoy scanning my negatives and printing images from my computer. There is a still much to learn, but I'm getting there.

Here's a few images from the expired Ilford HP5 and the solitary roll of Ilford Delta 400 that I have shot over the last few months. They may not be the most technically perfect images I have produced, but they taught me a heck of a lot.