Bad Pan F ??

ME Super · Apr 7, 2013

rules of thumb

My rules of thumb for cold stored 35mm film have stayed the same since roughly 1988: If the film is stored in the fridge, let it warm up for an hour before loading in the camera (I have reduced this to 1/2 hour if I'm impatient with no ill effects). I've never really stored it in the freezer, but have some Rollei IR 400 in the freezer now and will probably let it warm up 3-4 hours if not overnight before loading it.

noacronym · Apr 7, 2013

I never refriged/froze film but once. Never again. Maybe if I lived up North where it's ALWAYS freezing, hence no condensation. Down here you may as well store it in a bucket of water.

Roger Cole · Apr 7, 2013

noacronym said:
I never refriged/froze film but once. Never again. Maybe if I lived up North where it's ALWAYS freezing, hence no condensation. Down here you may as well store it in a bucket of water.

I don't have any problems at all in Georgia. Of course I take it out in the house which is air conditioned in the summer and heated in the winter and not very humid either time, and let it warm before taking it out or loading it.

Steve Goldstein · Apr 7, 2013

noacronym said:
I never refriged/froze film but once. Never again. Maybe if I lived up North where it's ALWAYS freezing, hence no condensation. Down here you may as well store it in a bucket of water.

I've never had the top pop off a plastic canister, but rarely use 35mm nowadays so don't have much of a sample space to draw on.

It gets humid here in the summer, though not as bad as SC, but I've never had problems with my frozen film. It's all in Ziplock bags in the freezer, and I just take out what I need several hours before I'll need it. On those rare occasions where I don't have a lot of lead time I'll stick 35mm or 120 rolls (in the original canisters or foil wraps) in my pockets to help them along.

The pocket trick doesn't work well for sheet film, which is why I always keep a box at room temp.

sepiareverb · Apr 7, 2013

NB23 said:
Film is not food.

Boulderdash sir. Film is indeed food for our lovely devices.

To the freezing to thaw notion I'd be hard pressed to believe that it could thaw in anything close to that, but having shot plenty of film in conditions equally cold or colder than my freezer I'd believe it would function fine. Might get kinda sticky in the machine if it's a warm day...

And to the OP: I would never believe that "Bad" and "PanF" could be in the same sentence.

Roger Cole · Apr 7, 2013

Shoot some Pan F+ and wait, say, eight or nine months (at room temperature is probably worse) to develop it - you'll find out it has a bad trait. It's a great film, I agree, but latent image stability is....quite a bit less than with other modern films.

Jos Segers · Apr 8, 2013

Yesterday I develloped a roll of PanF+ in Rodinal that was exposed end of last year. All images came out in a bad condition so I stopped printing. This had never happened to me before, not with any B&W emulsion.

Dave in Kansas · Apr 8, 2013

Something similar happened to my Pan F last fall. I believe it may be caused by two factors: the age of the film when exposed and the time elapsed between exposing and developing.

Best advice is to shoot fresh Pan F and process promptly. It's a beautiful film, especially in Rodinal.

Dave

NB23 · Apr 8, 2013

Shot 11 Pan-F rolls in Cuba, last month. Expired in 2005. Out from the freezer right into my +35c camera with 80% humidity.
Ilfosol-3 @1:14.
Beautiful contrast. Incredible images. No ill effecrs at all.

Conclusion: to thaw film is like to thaw a sheet of dry paper.

sepiareverb · Apr 8, 2013

Dave in Kansas said:
Something similar happened to my Pan F last fall. I believe it may be caused by two factors: the age of the film when exposed and the time elapsed between exposing and developing.

Best advice is to shoot fresh Pan F and process promptly. It's a beautiful film, especially in Rodinal.

Dave

PanF has less robust latent image keeping qualities than other films. I'm not sure why this is, but you'll often notice very faint edge printing on PanF because of this. I always develop PanF within a week of exposure at the very most.

StoneNYC · Apr 8, 2013

Guys, regarding the latent image failure issues Simmon has said before that Ilford recommends you develop within 3 months of exposure. I always leave it in the fridge after shooting until processing it. I leave it in air tight "snapware" containers. I've waited at least 2-3 months with no issue.

I've never seen an explanation as to why it's an AFTER exposure issue, but I'm sure if they could correct it without changing the image quality and tonality, they would have by now.

Don't you get excited and want to see your images right away anyway??

I can't imagine waiting months and months to expose a roll, the 2 months I once waited was that Rodinal was unavailable for a short time and I ran out. Lol

~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

NB23 · Apr 8, 2013

I have to disagree with this. I've had this happen with pan-f quite a few times but I ruled out the "latent image stability" theory for the simple fact that the markings on the edge are like the exposed image: either well exposed or severely washed out. Bear in mind that these markings are exposed at the manufacturing stage while the image is exposed much later (years, even!). In my experience, I've never seen a difference between the manufacture markings and my images.

By this Logic, my simple conclusion is this: bad film or good film. That's it.

StoneNYC · Apr 8, 2013

NB23 said:
I have to disagree with this. I've had this happen with pan-f quite a few times but I ruled out the "latent image stability" theory for the simple fact that the markings on the edge are like the exposed image: either well exposed or severely washed out. Bear in mind that these markings are exposed at the manufacturing stage while the image is exposed much later (years, even!). In my experience, I've never seen a difference between the manufacture markings and my images.

By this Logic, my simple conclusion is this: bad film or good film. That's it.

Hmm I've ALWAYS had washed out markings and strong not washed out images.... Never have I seen strong markings that matched the film.

How do you store your film? I always keep mine in the fridge or freezer both before and after shooting until processed.

I've never had a bad roll of PanF+ ... I've shot in 100° F and -15° F and never anything different with that film.

What developer do you use?

If you say xtol I will laugh and blame that

~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

Roger Cole · Apr 8, 2013

sepiareverb said:
PanF has less robust latent image keeping qualities than other films. I'm not sure why this is, but you'll often notice very faint edge printing on PanF because of this. I always develop PanF within a week of exposure at the very most.

I've gone two months with no ill effects, but I froze the film after exposure and kept it frozen until a few hours before developing. Otherwise, while I like the film I wouldn't shoot it because it's rare that I can develop sooner than a few weeks after shooting. Freezing seems to prevent the problem over the time frames I have experienced, but I'd guess there is a limit there eventually.

Roger Cole · Apr 8, 2013

Oh and I too ALWAYS have washed out thin edge markings with Pan F+ and nice density in my images.

NB23 · Apr 9, 2013

Not me. I dob't want to be or sound contrarian. I'll develop the contact sheets this evening and try to post examples...

Roger Cole · Apr 9, 2013

Maybe yours is fresher or maybe it's your developer.

viridari · Apr 9, 2013

Am I the only one hoping a moderator will fix the subject line to something less suggestive of failure on ILFORD's part?

noacronym · Apr 9, 2013

I never much believed there was any defective film anyway. While Kodak had the best quality control of any company in history, Ilford probably never was very far behind.

NB23 · Apr 9, 2013

Kodak was Perfection itself!

I've had issues with Ilford's QC. In the 90's I've had badly streaked negatives. It was so bad that it must have been a sabotage by an employee or a defective machine scratching the films. 15 years later I found out I wasn't the only one, thanks to the internet.
Also, my HP5 films behave differently from time to time. I'm not sure what to think about that. It's still my favorite film, though.

All in all, I trust Ilford 100% and I love their products. But i've run into QC issues.
And I miss their plastic bulk rolls packaging. I ised to collect them and they were enough a reason for me to choose Ilford films over Kodak's and their tin cans.

To get back on topic, I used ilfosol-3 for 11 rolls of Pan-F and 12 rolls of FP-4. Lovely results. I haven't had such nice results in a long while.
I also used ilfosol-3 on HP5 a few years back from which I printed 20x24s just last week. Deep blacks and very sharp grain. Ilfosol-3 is one very underestimated developer.

StoneNYC · Apr 10, 2013

NB23 said:
Kodak was Perfection itself!

I've had issues with Ilford's QC. In the 90's I've had badly streaked negatives. It was so bad that it must have been a sabotage by an employee or a defective machine scratching the films. 15 years later I found out I wasn't the only one, thanks to the internet.
Also, my HP5 films behave differently from time to time. I'm not sure what to think about that. It's still my favorite film, though.

All in all, I trust Ilford 100% and I love their products. But i've run into QC issues.
And I miss their plastic bulk rolls packaging. I ised to collect them and they were enough a reason for me to choose Ilford films over Kodak's and their tin cans.

To get back on topic, I used ilfosol-3 for 11 rolls of Pan-F and 12 rolls of FP-4. Lovely results. I haven't had such nice results in a long while.
I also used ilfosol-3 on HP5 a few years back from which I printed 20x24s just last week. Deep blacks and very sharp grain. Ilfosol-3 is one very underestimated developer.

I think their QC has gotten a lot better in recent years.

I have to agree the Ilfsol 3 really is a great developer, just expensive in large ribs. HOWEVER (and I don't recommend doing this but..) I've successfully re-used the developer up to 6 times not just one shot with a 30 second increase each dev without much change in the films outcome. Shocking! But I wouldn't do this without personal testing and doing it all in the same day. Just nice to know it CAN be economical to use. But yes, great developer!

~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

Simon R Galley · Apr 10, 2013

As always I am willing to look at the issues, I would be pleased for NB23 to show me the replies regarding his long list of QC's from ILFORD itself.

With all due respect I'm sure he is very knowledgeable regarding photography, and his views genuinely held, but its amazing his in depth knowledge of our manufacturing processes and QC rates.

As always, we will remain diplomatic and open minded the vast majority of QC's are CGI ( customer generated issue ).

Where we have a QC ( very, very, very rare ) and it is our fault we always acknowledge this to the customer ( in writing ) and replace the goods.

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology LImited :

Ian Grant · Apr 10, 2013

Strange I was using the Internet 15 years ago (infact had been for a few years by then) and have never heard of all these so called QC issues with Ilford, that doesn't mean none rather that they are exceedingly rare.

I've been using Ilford products since well before Simon joined the company, I began with FP4 and HP4 although I used some ex-Government surplus FP3 and HP3 bulk rolls as a teenager at school. I dread to think how many rolls and sheets of Ilford film I've shot over the years as well as boxes of paper and I've never seen a QC problem.

Ian

NB23 · Apr 10, 2013

Simon,
What explains, for instance, that the 2005 expired pan-f I shot recently is perfectly well developed and even has the manufactured markings bright and clear while fresh Pan-F often comes out washed out?

Under the above circumstances, the "latent image" theory just doesn't stand.
My error? Maybe. But hundreds of posts on the internet from people having the same issue can't
possibly all be wrong at once. And even you acknowledged the Pan-F issue. But if 2005 film behaves so nicely and fresh film does on an aleatory basis, what is the explanation?

Unstable film? Maybe. That would make it a manugacturing issue.

I would tend towards another theory: selling not so fresh film with a stamped dates that show it's fresh. Maybe? That would make it a QC issue.

I would really apreciate an explanation on why this film behaves so erratically. In my case, the latent image stability theory has been proven wrong many times.

Simon R Galley · Apr 10, 2013

Dear NB23,

I have discussed the latent image properties of PAN F and PAN F + before.

PAN F+ is NOT unstable and your theory regarding date stamping an 'old' roll is laughable.

We coat each of our films on a regular basis, some monthly, some bi-monthly and some tri-monthly
and one of our film products ( not PAN F+ ) twice per annum, remember 35mm, 120 film and sheet film are all separate coating events. This ensures that we do not hold too many rolls of extremely expensive coated parent roll material in stock, that would be very bad business, it also ensures that we have extremely fresh film leaving the factory. Every coated parent roll is date registered, and when it is finished into cassettes the coated batch has to have the exact same expirey date on it, its all computer controlled, sequentially finished and called TQM ( total quality management ). Whilst waiting to be finished it is stored under controlled conditions. If a scan of the individual bar code on the parent roll that is to be finished is taken and its not sequential with the last roll ( of the same type ) the process control system cannot be initiated.

Please do not get me wrong, I'm not miffed, you are entitled to whatever opinion you hold and I do not doubt for second they are geniunely held, my issue is that I know the massive amount of hard work and systems that have been put in place to ensure the ultimate in quality control and the money we have spent ( and continue to spend ) to ensure 100% customer satisfaction. I know every single week how much 'waste' we have, that is coated product both film and paper that never finds its way into a box due to our no compromise QC systems, its one of our key KPI monitors.

And the secret is, the better your QC from start to finish the lower the waste will actually be.

Kindest Regards

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology LImited :

Bad Pan F ??

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency