Shooting 41 Years Expired HP-5

I recently acquired a bunch of rolls of Ilford HP-5 that expired in Sept. 1980. Now, you know that I like testing the limits of what one can get from expired film, and a black and white 35mm film that's that old probably is going to be disappointing, right?  Well, follow along and see.

In 1980, I was working on my Master's degree in Entomology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY.  It was the year that I spent over 2 weeks on the road to the Southwest on a field trip.  I used a Pentax Spotmatic that I borrowed from my advisor, and shot Kodachrome and Ektachrome along that journey - and I still have those slides.  It was my first experience with the wide open West, and I learned quite a bit on that trip.  I am sure that I did not know a whit about Ilford film back then, as I was so used to the ever-present Kodak, though I know I did shoot some awful GAF slide film prior to 1980.  

In 1980, Jimmy Carter was in the last year of a pivotal presidency.  In 1980, PacMan appeared as an arcade game, and Post-it notes were sold for the first time. That was also the year of the fantastic "Miracle on Ice in lake Placid, NY, as the under-dog USA Hockey team beat the Soviet Union in the winter Olympics. Believe me, that was an exciting game.  It was also the year that Mount St. Helens erupted, causing significant destruction and altering the regional climate for a short time. It was the year the 7 rolls of Ilford HP-5 "expired," locked away in someone's closet or camera bag to resurface 41 years later in a donation of photographic equipment.

As I examined the boxes of film, I realized that Ilford had done some things with the packaging that I had not seen before.  Each plastic canister was sealed with a plastic strip that has to be torn away to open it and remove the film. The film has the typical long "Leica leader" that used to be on 35mm films, but probably stopped by the early 1980s.  The film cassette is reusable, as the ends can easily be removed.  Of course, the box also housed printed instructions on a sheet of paper. Interesting note, is that the instructions tell you to expose at 1/250 sec at f/16 under a full sun.  That's overexposing the film by a stop if it is rated at ISO 400. Also, the film is HP-5, not HP-5+, still rated at 400 ASA.  

At first I thought it would be stupid to test the film, but then I realized it would be a good opportunity to see just what I could do with it.  I have shot long-expired Kodak Verichrome Pan with good results, as well as Kodak Panatomic-X. However, they are not fast films, and age better than a 400 ISO film.  Using my rule of thumb of losing a stop every decade, and factoring in that the film is black and white, I decided to shoot it at ISO 50.  I loaded a Vivitar V3800N SLR with the film and shot it all in one day in Weaverville. The V3800N is one of the cheaper SLRs that appears as many different brandings, but it's certainly capable enough for this simple test. I didn't bracket any of the shots, and used sunny-16 and the camera's meter to adjust my exposures.

In the afternoon, I developed the film in HC-110B for 5 minutes. I chose HC-110 because it seems to limit fogging on old films.  As I pulled the developed film off the reel to hang it to dry, I was really pleased to see that I had images. The film has significant base fog, but I knew that it would scan pretty well.  

I scanned the negs with my Epson V700 scanner, and the thumbnails of the pre-scan looked really good. The film has a slight cupping, like Kodak Tri-X, making the center of the scan a little less sharp. There are some blotchy lines across the length of some of the frames - and I don't know what they are due to.  Here are some of the scans below.You can see that they are little grainy, but overall, not bad.  My guess of shooting it at ISO 50 was correct. I certainly did not expect that the results would be as good as they are.

It's hard to judge the results without knowing the history of how a film was stored over its lifespan.  It could have been in any number of places, and I doubt that any of them would be a freezer.  The exciting fact is that this film, probably produced in 1978 or 79 is still usable (with some adjustment).  

I know that some people wonder why in hell anyone would use long-expired film. I certainly would not use it for anything critical, but part of the fun is seeing how much life that old roll of silver halides still has after all these years.  It's also a of a treasure hunt - sometimes one can find some film that will really amaze with its staying power. Other times, it's a dud.  These rolls of HP-5 are usable, but not without some minor flaws.  However, one person's grainy negative is another person's art niche.  I may put the remaining rolls up on Etsy, so check it out soon.