Once in awhile, I’ll buy a batch of expired film. Late last year, I got a bunch of old Fuji Sensia 400 and Sensia 200, which are two slide films that haven’t been produced in at least six years. I got five rolls of the Sensia 400 and five of the Sensia 200 in this batch. I’ve written in the past about what it can be like to shoot expired film, and what factors might come into play. One of those factors is how the film was stored throughout the years since it expired. If the film has been kept in a cool, dry place, the film may suffer less from color shifts and prominent grain. In the case of this batch of expired film, the seller on eBay from whom I bought it didn’t have any information on its expiration date or how it had been stored. That’s why it was important for me to test the batch of film, so I’d know if it “worked” at all. I loaded one of the Sensia 400 rolls in my Kiev 4AM and shot it at 200 ISO to try to compensate for any loss of light sensitivity that the film might have suffered due to age/conditions of storage. Oh, and I bought the film with the intention of having it cross-processed, so that’s what I had the lab do with this roll.
Listening to my prized possession Otis Redding and Carla Thomas duet record <3
Flashback vintage store in Midtown Memphis
Mallory’s apartment
Some shots around the square in Coldwater, Mississippi
(that last one is my FAVORITE shot from this roll!
Kiev 4AM • Helios-103 53mm f/1.8 • Fuji Sensia 400, expiration date unknown, cross-processed
Conclusion?
Look, if you are shooting expired slide film and having it cross-processed, you have to expect some potentially zany results. And the Sensia 400 did not disappoint! I’m glad I’ve got a few more rolls of it to play with!
I didn’t want to put this in the “Forgotten Frames” series, because it wasn’t a roll of film that I forgot about and found years after the fact without knowing what was on the film before having it developed, but it’d been so many months between when I finished the roll and when I had it processed, I really didn’t have a clue as to what I’d shot on it! I kind of felt that the contents of the roll turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
