Back in July I bought several rolls of expired slide film from someone on a forum I frequent. They consisted of Kodak Ektachrome 100 EPP, and Kodak Elite Chrome in 100asa and 200asa variants. The seller was unsure of the age of the film and stated it had just been kept in a box in the house, so no refrigeration. Despite this, having had some results from expired E6 film that I’d been happy with, I went ahead and bought some.
About a month ago I shot one of the rolls of Ektachrome 100 EPP from the batch. I have no idea how old it is as it wasn’t boxed, just stored in it’s plastic container (with a Kodak label on the top). The Elite Chrome is boxed and (IIRC) expired around 2010, but I’ve not idea if the Ektachrome is similarly dated.
Anyway, I decided to shoot the first roll at box speed as a bit of a test – still aiming to make appealing photographs, but just shooting at easy to visit locations. This way I’d have an idea of how the film has stood the test of time and also whether I need to overexpose it or not on future rolls. The results are, on the whole, very nice. There was a bit of a purple / magenta cast to the results, but I’ve been able to remove that using Photoshop. In terms of exposure, I think it needs a little more light – the shadows are a little dark on some frames, especially some that were shot on an overcast day – so I think I’ll shoot the next roll at 80asa to see if that works better.
There’s something very special about E6 colour film though – the bright, vivid look of the colours isn’t something that tends to be matched by negative film. It’s just a pity it’s such a harsh mistress (and so expensive!)…
The three frames posted here today are just the ones I’ve uploaded to Flickr so far, so there will be a bunch more in the coming days.
Olympus OM-2n, Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 / Zuiko Auto-T 135mm f/3.5 & Kodak Ektachrome 100 EPP (expired at some unknown date).
Taken on 17 September 2020
Steel City Snapper photography 