As with the expiration dates on many products, the date on a film box
is not an 'absolute'. It is a guideline.
I have used a lot of (b&w) film that was at, or just past, its
expiration date, and not had a problem. On the other hand, I've had
someone give me 10-years-past-its-expiration Plus-X and had great
loss of speed and some fogging.
The storage conditions of a preishable product are critical. You can
store film at freezing (or near-freezing) and have it last for years.
Keep it in the glovebox of your car for a couple of weeks, and you
may as well throw it out.
Most reputable photo stores at least refridgerate their film.
I've been thinking about Dan's idea of the "end of the silver era" hypothesis about inconsistent results with TXP. I just looked at the two boxes of TXP that I have. One was bought at a local camera store and has an expiration date of 2/2008. I used this film a couple of weeks ago in New Orleans and it performed perfectly. The other came from BH PHotovideo and has an expiration date of 3/2006. It seems that this box from BH is two years older than the other box! I have not used this film yet.
That got me wondering: how is film dated? How long is it expected to last? That is, when a sheet of TXP is absolutely fresh, right out of the factory, how much into the future is it dated? And why would the camera store have much fresher film than BH?
--shannon
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