Developing old Ilford Pan F

[Ian Grant]

Can I ask: Why dilute it and have you had success with this age of Pan F and your recommendation?

Thanks

pentaxuser

The developing time is actually fairly irrelevant, as there won't be any viable images anyway. The Latency image fading of Pan F is shockingly short.

Ian

 

[Bill Burk]

Can I ask: Why dilute it and have you had success with this age of Pan F and your recommendation?

Thanks

pentaxuser

Generally diluting D-76 to 1:1 gives you reasonably long processing times which helps avoid mottling that can happen with four minutes development time.

I could test old Pan F with fresh exposure, but it’s going to take me a few years to test it to demonstrate whether it deserves the criticism of its fabled latent image loss.

I suspect it is not worse than other film. Maybe it just has a bad rep. Maybe just the same as other film but being a 50 speed film people tend to underexpose. I used to think Panatomic-X was very good at keeping latent image, but the recent evidence shows it’s vulnerable.

 

[Ian Grant]

I suspect it is not worse than other film. Maybe it just has a bad rep. Maybe just the same as other film but being a 50 speed film people tend to underexpose. I used to think Panatomic-X was very good at keeping latent image, but the recent evidence shows it’s vulnerable.

Read Ilford's own comments, it is far worse than any other film. They make Pan F, so they know for sure, and make it very clear in the Datasheet, that's quite different to all their other films.

It is time to get facts right, it is a superb film but needs swift processing, after exposure. If you don't believe the film manufacturer, then go shoot beer cans like Kid Rock, and forget shooting film.

It's a fact, not a myth, that Pan F has very poor Latent image stability. But what is worse is many here are trying to contradict the manufacturer, and also many of us who have first-hand experience of the issue,

I'm sorry Bill, but get your facts right. Read the Pan F datasheet.

Ian

 

[cliveh]

Can I ask: Why dilute it and have you had success with this age of Pan F and your recommendation?

Thanks

pentaxuser

I normally process Pan F at 14 minutes in D76 at 1:1 and at 20C. As the OP post has quite old Pan F, I'm suggesting an extra minute to compensate. I could be wrong, but until it is developed we will never know.