Infrared

In early October I processed two batches of Infrared film.  This was all Kodak High Speed Infrared, in 4" x 5" sheet format.  Kodak stopped making this film in the late 1990's, and the last batches had expiry dates in 2000 and 2001.  I still have quite a bit of this film in my freezer, but I'm not sure how much longer I can keep using it.  Most of the images were fairly badly fogged.  I suppose this is to be expected, given that the film expired 20 years ago.

I think part of the issue is that I leave this film lying around too long.  I load film holders and then sometimes don't get around to shooting the film for a year or two.  If it is stored in my basement until I get around to shooting it, that's probably not too bad.  But some of it ends up riding around in my camera bag for weeks or months at a time, sometimes during very hot weather.  Then the exposed film sits in my fridge, sometimes for extended periods of time, before I get around to processing it.

In an effort to make something of the sheets that I have left, I'm going to change my ways.  I won't load the film into holders until just a day or so before I intend to shoot it.  It will be loaded right from the freezer, and the holders will be stored there until I venture out on a shoot.  And, I'll make a point of shooting a little more of it, and processing it promptly when I get ten or more exposed sheets.  This time around some of the exposed film dates back to 2017.

The ten scans below are the ones, out of those batches of 40 sheets, that turned out with the least amount of fogging.  Hopefully I can do a little better with the sheets that I have left.