Even though this film expired a long, long time ago, it still shows some interesting results. They look like 40 years old!
Some time ago, I asked all my friends for some old films. The girlfriend of my flat mate brought me from her parents two old films, one slide film (which must be developed in the old Agfa process and therefore cannot be used any more), and one Orwo NP27 rollfilm from the DDR.
The two films spend some time in my film box, before I found them again and took the one of them with me to holidays, where I passed Timmendorfer beach on the north coast of Germany. I did not know much about the film, I even thought at that moment that it would be a color negative film. The only thing I knew, was, that it was expired in August 1978 and that it had an ISO 400. To be honest, I thought from the beginning that the pictures wouldn’t turn out, and just took some shoots without big thoughts of some creative motives.
Back in Düsseldorf, I went to my local laboratory and asked them for developing my film. They looked at it very critical and said that it must be a black and white film. I trusted them and waited for the results.
After getting the negatives back, I was really satisfied with the results! The pictures are looking very old and blurry and have many dots on them, but the motives are really good visible, even though the films hadn’t been in a freezer all the years. Also the ISO seems to be still the same. Happy about those pictures I ordered myself some more Orwo films in the internet, but the oldest expiration date I got is 1992. Such a treasure like I had with this film isn’t easy to find ;)
Orwo is an old company which was founded by Agfa. It had the monopoly for films in the old DDR. In 1990, the company was changed to Wolfen, but got in insolvency some years after. Today, there are no films done under the name Orwo.
23 comments
gvelasco
Love it.
wallflowersforjane
the dots make pictures 1, 4, 5 look like stars!
natalieerachel
I love the spots!
rav_bunneh
Amazing! :3
basho
Beautiful shots and nice article!
roundthings
toradatanglagi
my recently developed kodak bw400cn also have these dots..its fresh film anway.. cant figure y..
mylatehope
Oooooh! I love expired film!!! Great images & write up!
gmjhowe
woosang
Amazing! I have a 1970s film. I think I'll give it a shot. Thank you for sharing
artichekt
Extrem cool!
tallgrrlrocks
Amazing!
tallgrrlrocks
..oh, if I may just add, sometimes the best photos for me are those taken 'without any creative motives' ---a great tribute to the DTJS rule. Great article, photos and film!
mcrstar
Good review!
In Russia we have many ORWO films. From the past.
-a-l-b-e-r-t-o-
old school
woosang
found some 120mm film on ebay that expired in 1966 he had several rolls (I bought one due to your article) If you like I can find the URL and send it to you
crstemple
So incredibly cool, shoujoai. I'm debating over whether to buy a roll of film I say for sale that expired in the FORTIES. Can you imagine that? Shooting a roll that's over 60 years old! Ugh. And seeing this tempts me to buy it even more.
eva_eva
omg, it;s amazing!
scrabbyknees
wow, super!
gatokinetik-o
WOW this is superB!
jover_loint
it's a wow!
sarabbit
It's really beautiful! I love the white dots in the photos, it highlight the whole picture!
warrilow-tong
It looks as though your photos have pixie dust on them :) magical!