The internet is awash with ‘how to’ guides, on shooting with expired film. In fact, it wasn’t until today, I realised just how much. I have read none of it, there isn’t really a right lot of point. If you are shooting with out of date film in the first place, then the results will without doubt, be unpredictable. But, that is half the fun and interest surely? The main point I would suggest to remember is that after a film is manufactured, then it’s sensitivity will decrease over time. The older a film is, the more light it will need exposing to to achieve a picture from it. Such is the unpredictability, in my view, there is little point in trying to predict the effects of time, certainly for the 10 years or so most of my film stock has expired by, I may as well just go out and shoot it.
The pictures below are a selection of the 38 frames which I got from an expired LOMO 400 ISO film. Lomography have been going since 1991, and I bought these films when I purchased Lomography 360° Spinner. I have no idea where the other films are, maybe one is still in the Spinner 360°? I must check. The film was exposed in a Olympus TRIP 35. This again adds further to the unpredictability, particularly in my hands, as I still haven’t mastered the art of remembering the focus. Still, sometimes photography is too perfect, and having photographs with movement in them, or off focus can sometimes add to a photo? Occasionally though, I do get the focus on the Olympus just right, and hopefully with more use, I will get better? This does have the downside of making my photographs more predictable though.
These photographs are primarily straight scans using an EPSON Perfection 4490. This is by no means a professional scanner, but I am by no means a professional photographer. On exporting the photographs, I have limited the quality to 75 in Lightroom, and also the file size to 800kBytes so not all of the quality is down to my limitations.
