Safekeeping 35mm Film Negatives

Image courtesy of Picture-Perfect UK (http://www.picture-perfect.co.uk/)

On a previous article, I shared with you how I safe keep my digital photos. Now, let’s talk about a few tips and tricks on how you can safe keep your 35mm film negatives and printed photos.

Most of us know that if we develop exposed film we get negatives. These negatives are our templates and we need them if we want to print copies of our photos. So, we need to take care of them. What I usually do for negatives is to store them inside sleeves. Most film labs will give you sleeves for free but some won’t. What I usually use for sleeves are the pages of an ordinary photo album. I usually buy those that have plastic page covers that statically cling to a page. There are stores that sell this kind of plastic sleeve for about $ 5 -6 per 25 sheets. Good deal actually

You need to have a system in filling your negatives. Don’t just slap them on anyway you like. Develop a system that would allow you to reference through pages easily. What I use is a simple indexing system similar to how I store my digital images. For storage, I usually pack my negative files inside an air-tight plastic box with silica gel packs – like a dry-box of sorts. Once in while, I inspect them randomly and check for molds or milder. If I find any trace of these buggers, I usually get a lens tissue, dampen it with lukewarm water then gently and lightly wipe the film surface in an even, singular directional manner. Wiping the film in a rash manner using random directions could scratch the film surface. Don’t use abrasives, alcohol or chemicals as it could start a chemical reaction on the chemical emulsion of your negative. If you have lens cleaning fluid, you may use it but do so at your own risk. However, I used lens fluid once or twice with no adverse effects.

35mm film sleeves. Image courtesy of Amazon

As I had talked about on a previous article, redundancy is a good practice to have. You can apply the same techniques with your film negatives. How? Simple: have your negatives scanned by a photo lab and ask them to save the resulting images in digital format. This service usually comes cheap, about $ 0.20 – 0.32 per frame. Some, offer bulk scanning e.g. about $ 10-12 per 10 frames. Check your local vendor for price details.

Canon Canoscan 8800f. Image courtesy of Canon US

If money is no object, you can buy flatbed scanners that have the capability to scan negative film then output the resulting images in digital format. The Canon Canoscan 8800F retails for about $ 180-200. If you have a flatbed scanner lying around and have time to kill, you can scan your printed images and save it in digital format. Just remember to have a filing system established before you convert to digital.

So there you go. Photos keep memories encapsulated in a medium that can last over a generation. That is, if you know how to take care of them.

Happy shooting!