Question on Outdated B&W film

I just found 2 rolls of Forte Fortepan 400 B&W print film I had ordered

from B&H in 2004. They are dated as expiring in July 2005. The film has
been
stored at room temperature since I received it. Does anyone have any
ideas on whether it still would make decent prints, or should I forget
about it? Thanks

esb100 wrote:

I just found 2 rolls of Forte Fortepan 400 B&W print film I had ordered

from B&H in 2004. They are dated as expiring in July 2005. The film has
been
stored at room temperature since I received it. Does anyone have any
ideas on whether it still would make decent prints, or should I forget
about it? Thanks

While there are some people in this group who would tell you that it NEVER
would make decent prints, I expect that you will find no noticable difference
between it when you got it and now.

There might be a little fog, but I doubt that you would notice it. As ever
with film of unknown quality, don't use it for those once in a lifetime shots.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/

Geoffrey S. Mendelson spake thus:

esb100 wrote:

I just found 2 rolls of Forte Fortepan 400 B&W print film I had ordered

from B&H in 2004. They are dated as expiring in July 2005. The film has
been
stored at room temperature since I received it. Does anyone have any
ideas on whether it still would make decent prints, or should I forget
about it? Thanks

While there are some people in this group who would tell you that it NEVER
would make decent prints, I expect that you will find no noticable difference
between it when you got it and now.

There might be a little fog, but I doubt that you would notice it.

I doubt that there would even be any noticeable fog. I've developed
25-year old film (exposed that long ago) with no problems with fog.


--
Save the Planet
Kill Yourself

- motto of the Church of Euthanasia (http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/)

On Sun, 2 Apr 2006 19:51:04 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:

esb100 wrote:

I just found 2 rolls of Forte Fortepan 400 B&W print film I had ordered

from B&H in 2004. They are dated as expiring in July 2005. The film has
been
stored at room temperature since I received it. Does anyone have any
ideas on whether it still would make decent prints, or should I forget
about it? Thanks

While there are some people in this group who would tell you that it NEVER
would make decent prints, I expect that you will find no noticable difference
between it when you got it and now.

There might be a little fog, but I doubt that you would notice it. As ever
with film of unknown quality, don't use it for those once in a lifetime shots.

Geoff.

One thing I noticed when developing some extremely old and foggy PXP
was that the grain was incredibly coarse for what is normally a fairly
good film.


==
John S. Douglas
Photographer & Webmaster
www.legacy-photo,com
www.xs750.net

With filim stored at room temp I've had mixed results.
The Ilford that I've used has been good. Little if any fog.
Plus-X hasn't generally worked out well. Gets fogged quickly.
TMax 100 & 400 have been ok.

It may depend on what "room temperature" really means.
Did it get *any* direct sunlight.
What were the temp variations or seasons?

I've bought a lot of film from a local camera retailer. It's been kept
at *store temperature*, slightly cooler than many homes. It's worked
well for me.

Collin

John wrote:

One thing I noticed when developing some extremely old and foggy PXP
was that the grain was incredibly coarse for what is normally a fairly
good film.

A few months back, M. Scarpitti asserted that aged film would
be grainier, and when I asked why, explained that smaller
grains lose both pre-exposure sensitivity and post-exposure
latent-exposure-ness (whatever the word for that is) faster
than big grains. That seems reasonable.

I recently developed some Tmax 400 that had been sitting
in a camera for a long time and it was awfully grainy, more
so than I expected for 10 year old film. The developer was
some D-76 that had been sitting around in a full plastic bottle
for a while and I wonder if some of the sodium sulfite had
started to break down, since my understanding is that the
sulfite retards graininess. Call it a learning experience...