For today’s Film Friday, I selected Kodak Trix in 35mm, which expired in January 2020.
I originally bought the ten remaining rolls from AllPhotos Ltd. via its eBay shop in January 2020, the same month of expiry. The film has been unused, and quietly residing in the infamous ex-kitchen drawer since.
I have been shooting Kodak Trix for years, as it has always been the film I would use for street or architecture photography. Its punchy yet subtle grain is the ultimate icing on the cake, thanks to the film’s speed of 400. The tones and contrasts are great: the black tones being deep, especially the shadows. The Trix is a perfect choice for making prints in the darkroom, which I have done a few times before.
Trix is great to use on colour filters, in particular the red filter. I love using that colour filter, which often produces sharp and deep contrasts, mainly on blue skies and clouds. Having used both the Trix and red filter, it can achieve crisp and high quality results, very rarely disappoints.
Kodak Trix is also Point and Shoot friendly, having shot with it on my Olympus Mju 1 camera was a breeze. No fussing around with the settings or playing around with various apertures, both the film and camera was a suitable combination for simple shooting. The outcome from the Mju 1 was proven to be successful, still achieving the punchy subtle look.
As there aren’t really many significant changes when shooting expired Black and White film, I can only assume it will come out as similar as it was in date, as I have shot many before in both 35mm and 120. There weren’t any signs of shifting in tones or contrasts from them, unlike some expired colour film where it is noticeable.
Who knows? Trix might be up to its ‘tricks’, and surprise me…
Take care and stay safe
Photographic Jannine 
I think you’ll be pretty safe with film that has only recently reached expiry (unless it’s been stored on top of a heater, or in direct sunlight or something). I’ve shot quite a lot of expired black and white film – some dating back to the 90s – and it’s always looked great. My general rule of thumb for expired B&W film is to overexpose it a stop (or shoot it at box speed and then push a stop in development) for every 20-years of expiry (unless it’s been kept refrigerated or frozen, in which case it’s probably fine to expose normally).
I’ve just developed a roll of Tri-X Pan from around 2003 and it looks really nice. The biggest problem is that the negatives curl up like a spring making it quite hard to get flat to scan! 🙂
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Thanks, I’m sorry for the late reply…
Storing film hasn’t been an issue, I do try to put in places where I can find them for future shooting. I heard about the ‘push one stop’ rule before, I think it was geared towards colour film, or maybe both colour and B&W. I often shoot in box speed, on the rare occasion I would get out of my comfort zone and go above and beyond (no pun intended).
I do have some films expired from a couple decades ago, still waiting for its eventual use which will be soon…
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