Once in a while when I get tired of shooting in the city I take a day trip or weekend trip to the Inaka (countryside) to shoot landscape or random stuff in old towns. On my trips out there I noticed all the expired film they had in the stores. In the 90s and early 2000s basically every store was selling film. Flower shops, supermarkets, convenience stores and of course camera stores. When I saw Neopan 400 on the shelves, long after it was already discontinued, I asked them how much it was. They gave me all the rolls they had for free!
After that, every every time I saw a "Fujicolor" sign outside of a store I just asked them if they had black and white film for sale. Long story short, every time I asked I got a bunch of free Neopan 400. In Japan it's called Presto 400. The oldest rolls expired in 2006. The best ones are expiring sometime now. I wasn't sure how to shoot or develop them but gave it a shot anyhow.
Fujifilm Neopan Presto 400 expired in 2006 - Yoyogi Koen, Shibuya, Tokyo
I started with the older films first. 2006 being the oldest one. 10 years expired at the time of writing. Film that old must be dull and fogged and grey I thought, but it worked out pretty well. I shoot them at box speed and overdevelop by a stop or two depending on the light I shot them in. Fujifilm Super Prodol (SPD) used to be the standard developer for all 400 and higher speed Fuji films. Even thought the films are discontinued the developers are still for sale, and they are cheap! 260 yen for a liter of SPD. That's half or even less of what I pay for D-76 here. It only has development times for Fuji films unfortunately. It's a pretty strong soup, too. Dev times are shorter compared to D-76.
I have about 30 more rolls to go through. Since I'm fed up with the purple Tri-X anyhow I am gonna shoot through the Neopan stash and then decide if I wanna move to Ilford or not.
Some more photos for fun!
Expired Neopan 400 - Yoyogi Koen, Shibuya, Tokyo after the cherry blossom parties
Expired Neopan 400 - Rainy morning in Shibuya, Tokyo - April 2016
Expired Neopan - Shibuya, Tokyo - April 2016
Expired Neopan - Shibuya, Tokyo - April 2016