This is what happens when you use BAD FILM

<p>I took these photos earlier in the week with a Canon EOS-1N, Canon EF 35-70 f3.5-4.5 and EF 20-35 f3.5-4.5 and Fujifilm Superia X-tra 400. This is what happened when I used film with an expiration date of 10-2005. I found the film in a old camera bag that I found in the garage. Obviously the heat did something to the film.</p><div></div>

<p>House for sale.</p><div></div>

<p>House for sale converted to black in white.</p><div></div>

<p>Pepsi truck seen through the windows.</p><div></div>

<p>I actually quite like the look that "bad" film can give. It is not always a good look but sometimes it is fun to play around with expired film. </p>

<p>Black and White conversion. Anyone need some old expired film...LoL</p><div></div>

<p>The film isn't as bad as your B&W conversions make it seem. There is a lot of detail in the color photos not showing up in the conversion, which means it is a bad conversion, regardless of the film used. </p>

<p> Are you sure it was the film? Looks more like bad chemicals to me. Hard to find a local C41 shop with reliable processing these days.<br>

Chris</p>

<p>All of the photos are either of a white subject or have backlighting. I would shoot the flm at 200 and add exposure for white and backlit subjects. Th shots mainly look underexposed. Fresh film will give you more lattitude but you still need adequte expoure to get he best out of the film. </p>

<p>Run another roll and try cross-processing. A friend of mine does that and gets interesting results. But a good black and white conversion wouldn't be a bad use for the film, either.</p>

<p>And besides, here is what just "autocolor" and "autolevels" does in Photoshop for the first image.</p>

<p>I've used lots of old films older than 2005, and even heat tends to 'lose' only some dyes, usually easily tweaked in post-processing.</p><div></div>

<p>I've got one more roll of dated Fujifilm left and I'll shoot it at ISO 200 and hope for better results. I get my film processed at my local camera shop, Camera Castle. They are the only game in town that will process your film and give you the negatives back. Everyone else gives you prints and a low res CD. I like getting my negatives back so I can scan them myself with my CoolScan V. Hopefully iso 200 will do the trick. I was playing with the b&w conversion to see if I could save any of the images.</p>

<p>JDM, it looks great. Maybe there is hope for the other images. I'll see what I can do with this one. I use Nikon Capture NX2 and Photoshop Elements 8.</p><div></div>

<p>I think it all depends on what you want to get out of it! I am using a lot of expired film in my old Rolleiflex and a lot of the time portraits come out rubbish but I manage to tweak everthing else to keep myself happy!</p>

<p>53 Chevy after adjustments. Why are my photos so underexposed? Me or the processing or a combination of both?</p><div></div>

<p>With color film each color sensitive layer can age at a different rate. That's why results can be unpredictable (but still interesting). Post processing can often do a lot.</p>

<p>I was going to say also that scanning can be a little bit of a crap shoot. It is not uncommon to need a little "post" even for fresh film, freshly scanned.</p>

<p>I posted some time back about the effects of age on dyes in color slides, and the "restoration" process ( http://www.photo.net/film-and-processing-forum/00a5Jt ).</p>

<p>I agree with you Les even with fresh film. When I bracket negative color film, I'm not really sure which is the best from the scans. I scan flat and then try to see which scan is in the middle somewhat of the histogram in post and figure that's the best. WIth slides of course it's easy to tell which is why I usually shoot slides.</p>

<p>it's one of those things every photographer goes through when starting out. I mostly shoot with 35mm film and avoid using the 24mm because you will be stuck with color negative film. Get 35mm and larger film which typically are E-6 slide.</p>