Film Inventory Project

The Sunday Film Inventory Project – I guess it was Sunday afternoon and I was planning to pursue an indoor photo project in the comfort of air conditioning; the temperature outside was the high for the year so far at 103 degrees. The goal was to complete an inventory of the film stock that is stored in our garage freezer. (Reminder: I need to grab a picture of the frozen films and include it with this posting.)

I spent the next 90 minutes retrieving the film from the freezer and sorting into respective batches for the inventory that followed. There are bags and unopened film packs dating back to 1997, The majority of the film is 120/220 and has been in a frozen state since 2005. The most recent “old” film in the freezer expired in 2018 and I even found a couple of rolls that are still within the current decade, good until next spring (April 2022). All in all there are over 200 rolls of film in my fridge and freezer. And of that, over 150 are medium format 120 and 220.

Let’s shoot some medium format film. I have three medium format film cameras – a Rolleiflex Tessar in great shape, and a Yashica Mat124-G that looks like it is brand new. I also have a Fuji 645zi that has around 1200 shutter actuations, so all is good and I just need to identify some projects and get started. The Tessar has a Rollei 645 adapter so I can get 16 images off a roll of 120 if I choose to shoot that way. But for now I think I will stick with 6×6 for the Rollei and the Yashica cameras. I like the look and feel of square images and the freedom that comes with shooting square.

I am scouting project ideas for the film – especially the MF since I have so much of it and my scanner produces some great, high res photos. Later, I will put up some pictures from a recent roll of Portra 400 that I shot. The colors from the 15 year expired film were full and rich beyond my expectations. So I am not discouraged by the fact that I have film that expired many years ago. I am anxious to get started. See you soon.