The
friend that gave me the out of date colour film did so in part for the removal of a
partly exposed roll of film from her Dads camera a week or so earlier. She was
not sure if it had become stuck or not.
The camera
was an Olympus OM707. The battery carrier lid was broken and held in place with
sticky tape and not working. The batteries were flat, so I tried some new ones
but there was still no life which is a shame as it was in good order otherwise
and had been in regular use up until eight years earlier. I had not come across
this camera before so was not sure if I would be able to unwind the film
manually. I found a re-wind button on the base plate, pressed it and went into
the darkroom and opened the back. I took the cassette out first then gently
pulled on the film and to my surprise it started to unwind. Once the film was
fully removed I wound it back into the cassette.
A couple of
weeks later I found out that the film had been developed and to her surprise it
had produced some excellent results. It just goes to show even with a partly
exposed colour film that has been sitting in a camera for eight years and
extremely out of date, it can still produce some unexpectedly good results!
Yes I will
admit that it is a risk when using film well outside the bbd; even more so with
colour but I do not believe, like some, that you should only use this film with
a so called toy camera as it suggests that if it goes wrong then it's “OK!” You
just have to look at the lomograph site to see some excellent photographs.
Personally you should have the courage of your conviction, use the best camera
you can lay your hands on and embrace the results no matter what!
The colour
pictures attached to this post were taken on my F5 on Agfa vista neg film that
could have been out of date by fifteen years or so and kept in “iffy”
conditions. So I walked into Lincoln on a warm sunny day with this film and an open mind. If I had listened to the doom and gloom
merchants it was likely a waste of time! As it happens it was a good result
even though I would have liked some colour shift to the pictures.
Related Posts:
Mitch, last year I successfully used AGFA film with a BBD of 1974 (nearly 40 years out of date!). Not only was is very old, it was processed (by Snappy Snaps in Lincoln) with C41 chemistry instead of the chemistry intended in 1974. It was as good as a modern in date film.
ReplyDeleteHi John, It is nice to know that I am not the only one to take a risk with old film. What is a surprise we use the same shop to process out of date film.
DeleteThumbs up to snappy snaps Lincoln
They were even nice enough to return the Agfa Karat film cassette to me. Excellent place.
ReplyDelete