Anyone Want Return of Panatomic X?

[darkosaric]

Panatomic-X is really cool name for a film .

 

[paul ron]

it was a great film for its day but the new t-grain films are so wonderful I doubt I'd want to switch back.

 

[Cholentpot]

Panatomic-X is really cool name for a film .

It's timeless like Stratocaster or Hydrox.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Panatomic-X has a long toe and a long straight line.

Really, Bill? You describe that as a long toe? Looks pretty short to me, but then I regularly shoot 320TXP.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

B+F is pretty high... is that because it's been in storage for decades?

 

[nosmok]

I'd buy and shoot it if Kodak brought it back, but then I'm buying and shooting it right now (well, more shooting than buying these days but I tanked up staring in 2010). I love the look, it has good latitude; it's the easiest film to develop of all that I shoot. Maybe the Achilles' heel of it from a marketing standpoint is it keeps forever-- the last PanX made (expired in 1991 or so) still shoots like new. I would also be chuffed for Verichrome Pan to come back-- but I'm also still buying and shooting that!

 

[trendland]

I may be wrong, but I thought T-grain films required less silver than conventional films for a similar speed. If true, it would seem to be a smart financial decision by manufacturers to move to T- grain emulsions. If I recall, the push towards T-grain occurred close to the time the Hunt brothers were buying up silver.

The silver in a film is with an amound that it is less to 7% of the full production cost.
It is strongly depending to the silver market price rating.
The most factor in costs with new designed emulsion is the research depending to the rate of sale for the new films. Example : costs of research 1 Mill. $ / total amound of sale = just one single film.
So one saled film has internal costs of imense 1 Mill. $ each film (just one is saled)
If you just can sale 10.000 films of the same new emulsion the internal costs should be $ 100,- each film for research.
(without any costs of production)
Kodak calculate to sell 10 million of the
new Ektachrome as I understand correct
within one year.It must be a little failure in their statement or a missunderstanding
in the interview with the journalist.
It should be 10 million within the first produktion time ( 3 - 6 ) years.
Do they have $ 4 - 5 million costs for research and the total amound of sold films including the last produced single Ektachrome will be indeed 10 million -
they would have $ 0,45 priced to each single
Ektachrome roll.
The price is on $ 4,50 - when they can only sell 1 million films !
Coming to full costs of production it will
be the same.
If a manufacturer is able to sell 1/2 billion
films of the same emulsion within one
year and he is able to produce this amound within one year (Kodak Gold 400) the internal costs of production and
research each roll is only some cent !!!
In this case the silver price is indeed a factor of more that is today.

with regards

 

[sepiareverb]

...It gave ultrafine grain without the hideous contrast that seems to be the trademark of every slow film on the market today...

+1. Taming the contrast of RPX25 and Ortho 25 is a constant game of fine-tuning for me. Panatomic-X is my favorite of my old favorites. Never liked the T-films.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

I still use Panatomic-X 120. But there are only 18 rolls left in my freezer. I expose at ISO 25, and the film seems fine so far. I most certainly would buy more if it were made again, but sadly, it will not happen. Years ago, I experimented with Ilford Delta 100, which looked very nice, but I need to seriously test it again. Some examples:

https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2017/05/panatomic-x-best-black-and-white-film.html

 

[GRHazelton]

Pan X was a beautiful film, fine grain with a wide latitude. When Kodak discontinued itt here was really no replacement. A wonderful pairing with Beutler formula.

That's true! My Father and I mixed up Beutler and used it with great success with Pan-X and also with Plus-X. Plus-X was my general use film, with Pan-X for special projects.

 

[Bill Burk]

Really, Bill? You describe that as a long toe? Looks pretty short to me, but then I regularly shoot 320TXP.

I'm comparing to TMAX-100 which drops like a rock (TMAX-100 takes 0.22 LogE to go from 0.10 to 0.02 while Panatomic-X takes 0.36 LogE )

 

[Bill Burk]

The gray antihalation base is over 0.20 - This stuff has very little fog

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Before Kodak puts out any old films of yore, they first have to get Ektachrome on shelves. Once they do that, and it's a success then maybe...just maybe...we'll see the introduction of another older emulsion...like HIE.... HA HA I couldn't resist!

 

[Bill Burk]

HIE would indeed be cool. Anyone who wants to shoot Panatomic-X could get some and it will work. Problem with infrared is that it goes bad.

 

[Bill Burk]

By the way I did switch to TMAX-100 and am happy with it. I just use Panatomic-X when I feel like it.

I was really surprised with the low fog and matching grain (vintage negs match modern negs).

I always kind of knew slow film kept well but I thought I was being romantic. Nope - this stuff is still as good as it ever was.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

HIE would indeed be cool. Anyone who wants to shoot Panatomic-X could get some and it will work. Problem with infrared is that it goes bad.

Well, I'm shooting some 4x5 HEI that expired in '67 and it looks great.

 

[Bill Burk]

Well, I'm shooting some 4x5 HEI that expired in '67 and it looks great.

Happy to be proven wrong!

 

[zanxion72]

People that cannot tell the distinct look of Pan-X from others definitely cannot tell the difference between the silver rich TX and the mixed almost silverless new TX.

 

[Lachlan Young]

People that cannot tell the distinct look of Pan-X from others definitely cannot tell the difference between the silver rich TX and the mixed almost silverless new TX.

No. 'Silver-rich' is a canard that has been dismembered here multiple times. Modern films actually make use of a vastly greater percentage of the silver they contain than the ones you are extolling. Grain size would be the main place you'd actually be able to tell a difference between generations of TX. What I've seen of FX has generally been in the same vein as TMX - funny that!

 

[mhanc]

just curious... what currently produced film do people here think is most like panatomic-x?

can't think of anything similar to FX that i have used that doesn't have really high contrast... but then maybe it is my developing.

 

[paul ron]

I hear alot of people refer to "silver rich" emulsions...
I wonder, how much silver is actually used in each emulsion/liter in the various films, old vs new?

 

[removedacct1]

You've said you don't like TMX but that's really the closest thing. And regardless of what some people are saying here (mostly regurgitating nonsense from the Cookbooks) nobody would be able to tell the difference. As for the guy who said tabular films have a flat look, take a look at prints by people like Mark Citret or John Sexton.

Yup. Totally.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Yup. I've been very happy with TMX and TMY.

 

[Jarin Blaschke]

You've said you don't like TMX but that's really the closest thing. And regardless of what some people are saying here (mostly regurgitating nonsense from the Cookbooks) nobody would be able to tell the difference. As for the guy who said tabular films have a flat look, take a look at prints by people like Mark Citret or John Sexton.

Obviously, Sexton's work speaks for itself, and the process at which he arrived looks the very best to his own taste. It's all taste and subjective. It would be like telling Michael Kenna to shoot 10x10" film to make it "look better." He'd have every right to tell you to go f- yourself. It's his process. But for some (or many), tab grain films do convey a different look. Not better or worse, just different. As far as the very last 2% of an image, for my tastes and experience, it's cleaner but also less dimensional, and dare I say sterile by comparison and that's why I don't shoot tab grain film for what I do anymore, and would personally welcome something like Pan-X. I can still rapturously enjoy a well printed, wonderful photograph made from TMax film.

-Jarin

 

[Down Under]

The new(er) T-grain films are exceptionally good but they are NOT the same as the old Panatomic-X.

As jnanian said (#56), the grain in Panatomic was greatly different from the TMax films - I too found Panatomic super easy to print in the darkroom, and my first time print results were always (well, usually) satisfactory enough that I didn't have to reprint, as I nowadays often do with my TMax and other T-train negatives.

Someone else asked what currently produced films most closely match Panatomic. Sadly, the only film I found that ever came close to it was the now-defunct Efke 25, and even then it had to be processed very cautiously. Ilford Pan F has too much contrast for me, and my tests proved that whatever I did to it in the darkroom, my end results were inconsistent even in the same batch of films processed with the same developer. Usually I find I can easily lower film contrast by using D76 1+1. but even this oft-tested combo failed me with Pan F. Even Thornton's (= Leica) two-bath also gave unsatisfactory results with this tilm.

mhanc (#76), the best ever developer I found for Panatomic was Agfa Rodinal Special, which vanished from the Australian retail market around 2000. Last week someone I often email for darkroom chat and advice commented that Rodinal Special is again being produced, perhaps under a new label and a different name. I will look into this and try to get some from Vanbar when I am next in Melbourne.

I still have about 40 rolls of frozen 35mm Panatomic-X, and am saving it to shoot with during our gala return visit to New Mexico and Eastern Canada in early 2018. We plan to drive across the continental USA from California to Maine and I hope to revisit many of the Confederate battlefields I saw and photographed in 1979. For me, to shoot all these places again with Panatomic will put me into a state of nostalgic bliss, even if my images end up matching those I took 38 years ago.