20 year old Kodak Portra Black and White film - what could go wrong?

This roll had been kept in the loft for over 20 years and honestly with all that I have read about expired rolls and my brief experience with Velvia 50 I was not expecting anything to turn out! This particular roll expired in October 2004 packed up and left in the dense heat of a loft. As you will see from the images to come that to my complete surprise it has done quite well.

This roll was pushed 1.5 stops in development which probably aided the image rendition. Portra 400BW was the successor to the BW400CN.  This newer generation of film tabular grain emulsions (or more commonly known as T-grain) was a chromogenic black and white negative. It’s advantage was that it could be easily processed  in C-41 chemistry! Another comparative advantage was this film could be shot from as low as 50 ISO and pushed up to 1600 ISO. 

This wider latitude would increase its versatility allowing photographers to be able to use this in a wide range of varied light conditions. As with other faster film stocks such as Kodak TMax or Tri-X I was expecting to see slightly less or smoother grain being a portrait B&W film stock. What are your thoughts on this? I loaded it on to the little brick Canon QL17 and shot away with it wherever and whenever I got an opportunity to do so. The film was shot over a short period of time at different locations! 

It was a bright sunny day with a few clouds when I took this picture of the countryside. The film has rendered well, although the clouds look a bit washed out they are just about visible.It needs to be taken in to account that the Canon’s old and heavily used lens probably had a significant part to play in the image capture. With bright white surfaces it also performed relatively well, yes those are penguins in frame. Native English ones. With more textures in frame the film performed at its best outside. Here are some native English pink flamingos. 

Every shot I adjusted the aperture and shutter speeds to give the film the best chance to perform indoors as well as outdoors. Unsurprisingly indoors with very little light it struggled although somehow managed to give a haze of an image. You can see from the shot that it performed better with light and my favorite is the shot of this very dramatic looking corridor. 

You might be thinking, dude, this is Portra film stock so where are the portraits! Fear not! In all honesty I really had extremely low expectations of anything turning up on this film so consequently I did get nonchalant with it. Anyway here are some shots I took with Fadhillah, you can check out the full shoot in my previous drops with Kodak Gold, Ektachrome and Provia 100F. 

One of the advantages of the Canon is that you can really get close to your subject so this came in handy to see the comparisons with narrow and wide shots on this film stock. With these shots there were some very tall trees surrounding us with direct sunlight intermittently falling through. You can see in this case the film has rendered well although the shadows are little bit on the darker end. In comparison to these shots where there was less vegetation restricting the direct sunlight there images have been slightly more overexposed. Now this could also be down to the Canon lens which is susceptible to perform less well in brightly lit conditions! This image came out super! This area was far more covered so the light was heavily restricted, the composition and look here is on point! 

This image of Evie was taken with a modelling lamp on which has clearly helped but still the film struggled with the conditions. The one in the corridor with natural light falling through the window fared slightly better on the white dress but struggled with the shadows. This shot of Evie in bright afternoon light fared the best with the contrasts in the light and shadows. She is well lit and with her shadow as well as the window panes adds detail and depth to this image. Outside the film also performed well in lower light afternoon conditions and images came out well exposed albeit the Canon lens probably adding its own influence on the captures. 

I have read quite a bit of literature on film stocks and how to preserve them carefully, particularly over decades. The prevailing consensus is that you must put them in a fridge or perhaps even a freezer for long term storage. Temperature and humidity control is the most important key to minimizing the change that occurs in film. For example, storing any film in the dark under 10C with a relative humidity of 30-50% will see the film preserve its image quality almost entirely for more than 20 years. If you keep the film below 25C with a relative humidity of 30-50% will see the film preserve its image quality for somewhere between 10-20 years. Ofcourse knowing that this film had been stored in absolute opposite conditions to the recommended methods. 

Overall, I am super delighted to have captured as many shots as I did and even more pleased the roll eventually served its purpose!

Love shooting film?  I would love to hear your thoughts on expired film stocks, what have you shot with? What kind of results did you get with it? Let me know in the comments below! 

The summer is coming into full swing and I would love to connect or collaborate with you if you’re in London! Give me a shout! 

Right, I’m off to my next shoot, catch you on the next video or workshop! See you soon!