Today I was filling my cart on The Impossible Project Shop (hey, if you think to register to the shop, would you mind sending me an e-mail first? So I will send you the invite, that way I can acquire points for bonuses reserved to Pioneer accounts. I would appreciate it a lot), and while looking at the latest Cool film editions description I though that if that film would be better to be kept cool in the fridge then probably EVERY Impossible film would better to. I’ve been keeping in fridge only original Polaroid expired films, darkroom chemicals and for some reason the Dry Age Kits containing some photographs I wanted to prevent from turning orangish or some other surprise. So I took all the film packs from my film drawer and – woa! – I didn’t notice I had so many film packs in there! In particular I have 8 packs of PX600 UV+ Black Frame Poor Pod, a very popular and totally sold out edition because sold in very cheap combo-packs since their “poor pod” is cause of defective pictures. I had those from the official store in Vienna last summer and I’m using those mainly for experimenting. I went to the fridge where I store film and chemicals, it was a total mess in there, so I wanted to clean it up a little. In that moment I realized that I shouldn’t be buying any more film for a long while.
Sorry for the bad cellphone snapshot. On the back of the stack there are around a dozen of Polaroid Type-100 expired film packs (Chocolate, Sepia and Blue) and a bunch of expired Polaroid Softtone. I have one single pack of expired Polaroid 600 film that a kind friend of mine gave me, I’ve never shot on that film and I feel nervous about it just as I felt when shooting on TZ-Artistic. The green one in the middle is a pack of Fujifilm FP-100C, found out it expired a couple of months ago but that shouldn’t be a big trouble. It’s the contemporary choice of color film for cameras such as Polaroid Automatic 100, Polaroid 600 SE and many Polaroid back for different cameras (see my SL66 post). It’s a bit expensive but the color and sharpness of the picture is excellent. There’s one pack of PX100 test film left (that one without outer box and with a raw label on it, pretty underground huh?), PX70 color shade and its special edition NIGO which features borders with different colors, PZ600 Black Frame that I never tried and – that makes me laugh – the PX600 Gold Edition: black and white high-speed film with golden border. When they came out I though “oh man, this is trash” but I wanted to shoot on them anyway, I’m still waiting for a special occasion though.
Now all these film packs are stored in the fridge along with darkroom chemicals, my suggestion is to always keep film packs in fresh and dry environment (around 5-7°C I guess) when you are not using them, never freeze them and before use wait a few minutes until their temperature is back to normal. If you have any question or suggestion please, don’t hesitate to leave a comment!
