Exposing expired Kodachrome

[Nrk]

Am due to shoot a live music performance video on friday and am going with expired KC as my main stock. I was originally going to use 200t and expired ektachrome but have chosen the expired KC because I think the grain and colours will work well with the piece and it will allow me to work with a shallower depth of field without having to use nd filters.

The film expired in 97 but was cold stored by the original owner. I was going to overexpose slightly but Lealer (who regularly shoots expired stocks) has said that the he always meters the stock at it's original rating and seems to get good results.

I shot some early 90s Moviechrome and Ekta recently and exposed both (using an external lightmeter) without exp compensation and they turned out fine for the most part.

have others here used expired KC (pre-2000) and if so, how did they expose it and how did it turn out?

thanks

[Freya]

Hiya!
It's reversal, so you want to get it on the nail regardless of how old it is. No overexposure. Kodachrome 40 is very slow anyway and deteriorates extremely slowly so I suspect your film being not all that old will be fine.

love

Freya

[MIKI-814]

Overexpose it about 1 stop. Kodachrome film looses a lot of it's ASA when expired. I shot "normal" (and correctly) some K40 expired three years before and came out clearly underexposed, and I was not the only one. 1997 was long ago...

[nickrapak]

If it was freezer stored, I would shoot dead on. Kodachrome loses its speed very slowly. Color change comes first. If it was only stored in the refrigerator, I'd give it 1/2-2/3 stop, but no more than that.

[super8man]

Be prepared for PINK overtones if not completely pink results. Probably not but prepare yourself for at least hints of pink.

[Nrk]

Hints of pink? sexy. Not quite in keeping with the music track but should be grand as I have had to remove some pretty extreme colour shifts recently though I like colour shifts as well.

The pink lurve can be seen in Lealar's film below which apparently was shot with no exposure compensation - is this what you are referring to? The film below that was shot recently by Lealar who again used no compensation.

pink;
http://vimeo.com/2685208

recent;
http://vimeo.com/17120168

[winbert]

Hi,

Last month I just shot severaal K40s from 1991 and 1992 batch. I didn't do anything special with my camera (Minolta 64XL). I only used automatic exposure and all come fine just like fresh film.

I can say the result just similar like this:

http://vimeo.com/16722385

The films were bought second hand from Ebay but the seller say they were stored in fridge for the entire of their lives.

I also just shot one sound K40 from 1998 batch although the color is fine but a little bit fogging (??)

regards

winbert

[MIKI-814]

http://vimeo.com/16722385

To my eyes this K40 is a bit underexposed, despite the high contrast.

[aj]

Comparing to other people's films using different hardware is not a very serious method. Far too many factors which can all be different.

The lealar film looks good to me on a Samsung screen with PVA technology. Lealar should know what he is doing The highlights of white painted objects are a bit bleached out. Not strange on a sunny day. This could also have been caused by the camera in the transfer machine. Bled out on the CCD chip

To be clear. Underexposing on a reversal film would make the image too dark overexposing makes it too light.

[BK]

have others here used expired KC (pre-2000) and if so, how did they expose it and how did it turn out?

Had a half exposed roll of freezer stored K25 slide film from 1987 finished and processed, Exposure wise I did not compensate when I shot the rest of it in my camera. Came back with no magenta cast, only very slightly under ( 1/4 of a stop ) and the colours are not as vibrant compared to fresh film.

You can tell how much the Kodachrome film has deteriorated by looking at the colour of the emulsion, from my observation--fresh or still good it's pinkish, very old not stored in freezer--dark grey with a greenish tint.

Bill

[MIKI-814]

Comparing to other people's films using different hardware is not a very serious method. Far too many factors which can all be different.

The lealar film looks good to me on a Samsung screen with PVA technology. Lealar should know what he is doing The highlights of white painted objects are a bit bleached out. Not strange on a sunny day. This could also have been caused by the camera in the transfer machine. Bled out on the CCD chip

To be clear. Underexposing on a reversal film would make the image too dark overexposing makes it too light.

Totally agree. I correct myself: "To my eyes this video is a bit underexposed, despite the high contrast."

When you telecine underexposed shots, due to the compensation the highlights tend to be even higher, and I bet this is the case why they appear a bit bleached out. Watching the normal shots with no highlighting, the regular image with no whites is clearly darker than it should be. Also some little grain and very saturated colours are another clue to this.

Of course we could always blame the monitor adjustment (even for correctly shown videos) but this is Internet and we have no possibility to see direct projections