Has Interest in Panatomic X Picked Up In Recent Times?

[braxus]

For years there has been plenty of Pan X on Ebay for sale and not much interest in it. I noticed this last year it seems more people are now buying it. Some sales of bulk amounts of film selling 1 roll each have surfaced, asking for 20 or more dollars US per roll. Now all of a sudden it seems the well has dried up on stock. I wonder what fueled interest in this film in recent times? It was a film that never sold well when it was on the market. Now people seem to want it?

 

[alanrockwood]

For years there has been plenty of Pan X on Ebay for sale and not much interest in it. I noticed this last year it seems more people are now buying it. Some sales of bulk amounts of film selling 1 roll each have surfaced, asking for 20 or more dollars US per roll. Now all of a sudden it seems the well has dried up on stock. I wonder what fueled interest in this film in recent times? It was a film that never sold well when it was on the market. Now people seem to want it?

As the poem says:

"As a rule, man is a fool,
When it's hot, he wants it cool;
When it's cool, he wants it hot,
Always wanting what is not."

Maybe interest is picking up, but of course, it would be kind of neat if Panatomic X were to come back, but would it do any better now than before?

 

[Ernst-Jan]

Probably someone on Youtube has used it?

 

[Don_ih]

It's been hyped - it's believed to be magical - mythically free of grain and capable of rendering detail down to the molecular level. With it, you can take a photo of the moon using a 50mm lens and enlarge it to the size of the actual moon.

That may be an exaggeration. I think people want to be able to tag Instagram posts #panatomicX.

I have one 24-exposure roll of it, sealed in the cardboard packaging. I'm waiting for it to be worth $300 before I sell it.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Probably someone on Youtube has used it?

Or it's a finite supply that ceased manufacture 34-ish years ago, the fact that there's been residual stock till now says more about its real level of popularity, no matter what its fanboys try to claim. There's nothing especially special about it, other than it having a higher degree of idiot proofing than some other slow films. XP2 Super, let alone the current crop of controlled crystal growth/ high aspect ratio grain ISO 100 films equal it if not better it in terms of granularity, sharpness etc.

 

[Lachlan Young]

It's been hyped - it's believed to be magical - mythically free of grain and capable of rendering detail down to the molecular level.

What it tells me is that their terms of reference are woefully limited. The 70s/80s FX I've encountered (none of it shot/ processed outwith its date stamps as far as I know) has about the same level of visual granularity as Delta 100 - but Delta 100 is a lot sharper & overall better able to usefully resolve details.

 

[AgX]

Often I stumble over a strange thread title... How can interest pick up? At best someone can pick up interest.
Or interest may have peaked.

 

[Don_ih]

What it tells me is that their terms of reference are woefully limited. The 70s/80s FX I've encountered (none of it shot/ processed outwith its date stamps as far as I know) has about the same level of visual granularity as Delta 100 - but Delta 100 is a lot sharper & overall better able to usefully resolve details.

I'd say that's accurate. It's being hyped to people who never used it. They end up with a roll and, most likely, any defect they end up seeing, they blame their camera or whoever they got to develop it. After all,they've heard it's impervious to aging, is grain-free, is sharp as an embroidery needle, and will improve their photography.

 

[ic-racer]

I can't imagine starting any project with film that is no longer in production.

 

[Auer]

I can't imagine starting any project with film that is no longer in production.

Indeed.
But if your "project" is to get possibly one usable image out of some old roll of film so you can instagram it...?
Trends are trends, nothing to do with projects

 

[Donald Qualls]

it would be kind of neat if Panatomic X were to come back,

If you need that kind of slow, ultrafine grained film, why not shoot ADOX CMS20II? Yes, it needs special developer -- but I seem to recall FX did best in specialized developers, too. I've shot the old CMS20 -- developed in a version of Caffenol, printed to 8x10 from 35mm, a grain focuser was almost useless, good tonality, and the film was better than the lens (even with a Super Takumar 50/1.4). CMS20II is readily available, pending COVID-19 issues, and much more reasonable than $20/roll.

 

[BAC1967]

I’ve been shooting Panatomic-X for a few years now, only because I came across a few bulk rolls for very cheap. I like the film but when I run out I’ll probably shoot more Pan-F50+ For a slow fine grain film. It Panatomix-X does hold up well over time, one of my bulk rolls expired in 1963 and still looks great.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

Comments have left me wondering how many people actually have had extensive experience with Panatomic-X and also have had similar levels of experience with any of the substitutes mentioned. Reading that Delta 100 might be considered a direct replacement almost made me blow my coffee out my nose. It’s a fine film, as is XP2, and CMS20II, but there is a lot more to what a film brings to the table than granularity and sharpness. Which everyone here usually knows. There is nothing mentioned here, all of which I have used, which could be termed a direct, indistinguishable replacement for Panatomic-X, in my experience, outside of very cursory comparisons based on nothing more than grain visibility. The Who song, “Substitute” comes to mind.
It was my overall favorite black and white film, a personal preference based on use. I liked it, liked it better for my use than any of my current options, pretty much all of which I use as the occasion calls for. Pan-X is gone, (though I still have some left) I wish it weren’t; that doesn’t make me a fanboy. I just like it. And before anyone suggests, “but have you tried such and such, shot at such and such, developed in such and such?”, I probably have.
Has it been overhyped on the hipster corner of the internet? I don’t know, probably, isn’t everything? But that’s a separate subject.

 

[Lachlan Young]

At one time Pan-X was a somewhat unique film in that it had a long exposure scale more characteristic of faster films, but with the fine grain/sharpness of a slow film.

Once medium speed tabular grain films like TMX came along, Pan-X became obsolete. However (a) it is old, and (b) it has a cool name, hence the mystique.

I think that's the important point - in 135 (which is where 99% of the last generation FX-nostalgia is based on) the tone scales of the 135 versions of FX/ PX/ TX in D-76 or Microdol-X etc seem to have been close enough (to the end user 's perception) that they were essentially a continuum differentiated largely only by visible granularity and speed. Agfapan 25 and Agfpan 100 seem to have been intended to have similar relationships, and even Pan-F+ is pretty well behaved - if people pay attention to the shadow speed & keep a weather eye on their processing.

 

[takilmaboxer]

I think that's the important point - in 135 (which is where 99% of the last generation FX-nostalgia is based on) the tone scales of the 135 versions of FX/ PX/ TX in D-76 or Microdol-X etc seem to have been close enough (to the end user 's perception) that they were essentially a continuum differentiated largely only by visible granularity and speed. Agfapan 25 and Agfpan 100 seem to have been intended to have similar relationships, and even Pan-F+ is pretty well behaved - if people pay attention to the shadow speed & keep a weather eye on their processing.

I shot Panatomic-X in 35 and 120 exclusively throughout the 70s and into the 80s. Lachlan's assessment is accurate. It looked just like Plus-X but with finer grain. It took me a long time to accept its demise and get used to T grain films, but in today's world, Panatomic is obsolete. Tmax 100 is a superior product, if the user is careful with processing.
Of course, nowadays I use mostly HP-5.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

Reading that Delta 100 might be considered a direct replacement almost made me blow my coffee out my nose. It’s a fine film, as is XP2, and CMS20II, but there is a lot more to what a film brings to the table than granularity and sharpness. Which everyone here usually knows.

Delta 100 is great, but looks different than Panatomic-X. I can't complain about either film.

Samples from 135 size:
https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2021/02/expired-film-treasure-135-size-kodak.html

Samples from 120:
https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2017/05/panatomic-x-best-black-and-white-film.html

 

[Donald Qualls]

CMS is essentially useless for normal photography without a special low contrast developer, and even when paired with a specialized developer, its exposure scale is not as long as that of a general purpose film (it doesn’t have a “normally” shaped characteristic curve either), and speed is low - somewhere around EI 12 at best from what I’ve seen in documentation.

I've shot the old CMS20 at EI 20 and 25 (processed in low-contrast Caffenol with ascorbate) and been quite happy with the results -- Panatomic was ASA 32, was it not, and lots of folks shot it at 20-25 or even lower -- not much speed difference, if any. Yes, CMS20 is/was fairly high contrast at that speed -- but if I were a slow-film shooter with any regularity and the price was good, I'd use CMS20II without a qualm (and not feel a need to shell out for a "specialty" developer vs. mixing coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda).

 

[Alan Johnson]

Thin Emulsion Films c1956 | Photrio.com Photography Forums
Panatomic-X was different to 100T-max.
Crawley's test for Amateur Photographer found it had slightly higher resolution.
It was from an era when the iodide content of films was lower and it responded much better to acutance developers.
More differences are mentioned in other posts above.
I have one roll left and a brick of Efke 25 to investigate one day.

 

[Lachlan Young]

I agree Lachlan - the nice thing about FX at the time was that from a sensitometry perspective it behaved like a faster film - long scale without any special concoctions or handling required.

I think this was fairly unique. Although I have no personal experience with films like Agfapan/APX 25, my understanding is those films had shorter scales more characteristic of fine grain films before the advent of tabular grains and newer dye sensitizations. Based on my limited experience with it, I would say even current Ilford Pan-F has this conventional fine grain/shorter scale characteristic to some degree.

To me, based on the curves I've seen for Pan-X (from Richard Henry's book and a few other sources) it was really the only "sub-100 speed" non-tabular emulsion to ever replicate the exposure scale/characteristic curve of faster films. Today I would call it obsolete in comparison to TMX.

Like you, I can't speak specifically to APX 25, but I've found Pan-F pretty controllable - I think that like TMX, it can have a slight propensity for contrast to take-off for the unwary with wayward process controls - from what I've seen, FX seems to have required quite a bit of extra development to get it from a 0.55-0.6-ish CI to well over 0.7, but with Pan-F, it can be less than a minute's difference. From Agfa's data, the same issues may have been the case with APX 25 - and would inherently lead to the description of it as 'shorter scale'. I keep finding references to 1+3 dilutions supposedly making these materials 'better behaved' and that, to my mind, suggests that it's a development rate issue rather than an inherency of the emulsion itself.

Crawley's test for Amateur Photographer found it had slightly higher resolution.
It was from an era when the iodide content of films was lower and it responded much better to acutance developers.
More differences are mentioned in other posts above.
I have one roll left and a brick of Efke 25 to investigate one day.

There were at least 3 production eras of FX - 1938-49, 1955-73 and 1974-88 (Shanebrook, pg.401) - the film that is under discussion is likely largely based on the latter production era, although it is not clear how much the emulsions changed in their structure, sensitisation, coating methods etc, between those changeovers. I suspect that the 1955 version was quite a radical upgrade in terms of grain growth technology & sensitisation methods. Efke 25 was quite a simple single-run emulsion, dip coated.

 

[Marcelo Paniagua]

Not really interested. I actually used on the 80-90 (shoot an entire 100ft) and to be honest, I reallly prefer TMax 100 and Delta 100 if my goal is grain less negative. It was cool back then but I suspect today trend is based on myths. Now, Plus -X , well....

 

[Lachlan Young]

Now, Plus -X , well....

The last version of Plus-X was something that I do miss - and because the 135/120 version shared the same emulsions, it effectively unified PX and Verichrome Pan (which was essentially 135 PX emulsions) - so bringing it back would satisfy two markets at once.

 

[Marcelo Paniagua]

Last rolls I used came from a 100ft cool stored I inherited after my dad passing. I still have som 6 rolls from that reel. Really like it looks. Sure hope I get to see that emulsion again.

 

[Auer]

Comments have left me wondering how many people actually have had extensive experience with Panatomic-X and also have had similar levels of experience with any of the substitutes mentioned. Reading that Delta 100 might be considered a direct replacement almost made me blow my coffee out my nose. It’s a fine film, as is XP2, and CMS20II, but there is a lot more to what a film brings to the table than granularity and sharpness. Which everyone here usually knows. There is nothing mentioned here, all of which I have used, which could be termed a direct, indistinguishable replacement for Panatomic-X, in my experience, outside of very cursory comparisons based on nothing more than grain visibility. The Who song, “Substitute” comes to mind.
It was my overall favorite black and white film, a personal preference based on use. I liked it, liked it better for my use than any of my current options, pretty much all of which I use as the occasion calls for. Pan-X is gone, (though I still have some left) I wish it weren’t; that doesn’t make me a fanboy. I just like it. And before anyone suggests, “but have you tried such and such, shot at such and such, developed in such and such?”, I probably have.
Has it been overhyped on the hipster corner of the internet? I don’t know, probably, isn’t everything? But that’s a separate subject.

The title of the thread is "Has Interest in Panatomic X Picked Up In Recent Times?" so the subject is about it's current popularity/trend/hype.

 

[GRHazelton]

Back in the day I shot both Pan X and Plus X. I preferred Plus X; It gave fine grain - I have a lot of more than acceptable 11 x 14 enlargements from 35mm (we used Beutler), and could yield a useable increase in speed. Would that it would return! Any suggestions for a modern equivalent!

 

[alanrockwood]

I shot one or two rolls of Panatomic X back in the early 1970s. To be honest with you, I don't remember too much about it, but it has become somewhat legendary, so in that respect it would be fun to have it back. Maybe the legendary status is why interest in it might be picking up, that and the fact that it is becoming rarer.

I shot a few rolls of Tri-X way back when as well. I mostly shot slide film. Of the black and white films I shot way back when it was mostly Plus-X. These days when I shoot black and white it is usually re-branded Fomapan 100 or 200 from bulk rolls.