I Shot a Roll of Expired Kodak Portra 160 on Xpan

Jul 19, 2017

3 min read

Today I’m taking you with me to shoot a roll of Kodak Portra 160 that expired in 2007. I got it from Sina Farhat who kindly sent me a few expired rolls some time ago. He’s a film freak too and if you’ve been following the blog, chances are that you read his article where he explained to us how to develop E6 film at home.

Until last weekend, I never had the opportunity to shoot with the rolls he sent me so when I went for a walk in the beautiful Killarney National Park here in Ireland I decide that it was time for this expired Portra 160 to be exposed.

To shoot this roll, I used my loyal Hasselblad Xpan with the 45mm lens and I was also trying the 90mm that I received recently. You’ll see later two portraits of my girlfriend Sofia shot with this lens.

Shooting expired films was a first time for me and I wasn’t really sure how to proceed. For what I know (correct me if I’m wrong) you have to add one extra stop of light per decade.

The results are not too bad even though some colours are a bit funky. These colours may also have something to do with my C41 Tetenal kit which is getting a bit old and should probably be replaced.

I’ve done a bit of colour correction to get rid of the greenish colour cast most of the pictures had. For more info about the technique, I used to do that you can refer to the video in this article.

Nevertheless, that was an interesting experience and I’m looking forward to seeing which surprises I’ll get with the other expired rolls I have in stock!

There’s a unique atmosphere created by this film (and/or my exhausted developing kit!) that makes these images special. Some of them almost look like a painting.

At first I was a bit doubtful of the results when I saw the scans for the first time but after some colour correction they came to life and started to think that there’s indeed something to do with those old rolls of film.

This last picture if probably my favourite from the whole lot. I love how the light pass thought the trees and lighten the ferns and grass. Sofia wasn’t really happy at first to go walk through but I’m glad she did so I could get this shot!