Topic: Expired Ektachrome advice

[hookstrapped]

I recently got a box of 5 rolls of Ektachrome 64 (daylight) 120, expiration date of 06/2001. I have no idea of how it was stored.

I was thinking of using the first roll as a test roll where I'd bracket shots, shooting at 64, 32, 16. Any other suggestions or things I should consider? Thanks, I'm new at this old film stuff!

[Bryan]

I would be surprised if it worked well at box speed.  You could just do 32 and 16 and get more shots in different lighting situations, maybe one shot at 64 and one at 8.  If it was a 36 exposure roll of 35mm film I would do more speeds, if everything is over exposed or under exposed that will tell you something. 

[Francois]

One thing's for sure, shooting it at box speed is bound to be a bad idea.
While slide film likes to be underexposed a bit if you want to get super saturated colors, box speed on something this old is bound to be a bit too much.
At 1 stop per decade, the film would be close to EI 15 if it were negative film... probably isn't much different for this one.

[Indofunk]

How are you going to develop it? If it's gonna be in anything other than C41, I know nothing about that. If it is going to be in C41, then I'd rate it at +1 and go with it. Negative film is very forgiving. And ... [dons flame-retardant suit]ALL film is negative film in that it reacts to light, so the part of the exposure with the most light rays is going to react the most. "Reversal film" just goes through an extra step where the negative is turned into a positive (which is why you can create positives from "black and white negative" film). It's that extra reversal step that makes the film more finicky to EV...

[can I doff my flame retardant suit yet? keeps it on to be safe]

[Indofunk]

(ok, maybe bracket at +1 and +2...)

[Sandeha Lynch]

How are you going to develop it? If it's gonna be in anything other than C41, I know nothing about that. If it is going to be in C41, then I'd rate it at +1 and go with it. Negative film is very forgiving. And ... [dons flame-retardant suit]ALL film is negative film in that it reacts to light, so the part of the exposure with the most light rays is going to react the most. "Reversal film" just goes through an extra step where the negative is turned into a positive (which is why you can create positives from "black and white negative" film). It's that extra reversal step that makes the film more finicky to EV...

[can I doff my flame retardant suit yet? keeps it on to be safe]

Good point. A friend recently home-developed (C41) some 4x5 Kodak Pro 100 colour neg that was dated 2001. It came out perfect.
He knows about the 1 stop per decade so he may have used that, I forget. I'd more than likely shoot it at EI 32 in brightly lit and 16 in dim light scenes, and rebalance as necessary with with curves.

[hookstrapped]

I'm gonna develop it E6. If it has weird color shifts I'll probably do the other rolls in C41.

[MiguelCampano]

The one I have expired in 2007 and I shoot it at 50. I develop in E-6, though.

[Francois]

I'm gonna develop it E6. If it has weird color shifts I'll probably do the other rolls in C41.

Or just use it in a setting that already has weird colors. It's called film camouflage 

[Moto-uno]

  Certainly you know it's gonna have strange colours if you develop it in C-41 !  Peter
ps; Is there an easy way to correct the colour shifts if E-6 was developed in C-41 ? Put
an emphasis on "easy " .

[hookstrapped]

  Certainly you know it's gonna have strange colours if you develop it in C-41 !  Peter
ps; Is there an easy way to correct the colour shifts if E-6 was developed in C-41 ? Put
an emphasis on "easy " .

I think late Ektachrome (E100 VS) is the easiest to get close to true colors when cross-processed in C41. When I was planning my Cuba series

https://www.hookstrapped.com/album/before-the-flood.html

I looked in Flickr for cross-processed film that had a different, maybe aged, color palette but that wasn't overwhelmed by green as is often the case. I found these portraits by an English photographer that had really nice blues and cyans and oranges, and that was with Ektachrome E100 VS. I used to follow this Tumblr blog of vintage National Geographic photos, scans from old magazines some of which were faded and color-shifted. I think they were mostly originally shot on Ektachrome.

Anyway, I use the three color sliders in Photoshop to get the color balance dialed in. And I overexposed 1 stop.