Really old panatomic x, not refrigerated...

Before his death, a long-retired prof in my department and major contributor to the science of b&w film theory, J.W. (Jack) Mitchell, kindly imparted to me some panatomic x in 35mm format. It was manufactured around 1972 (the year of my birth!) and had not been refrigerated. Just stored on Jack's shelf in his office. It was marked develop by 1973....

I will admit that I did not receive it as enthusiastically as I could have. I had low expectations....

Anyway, yesterday I rated it at 25 and shot it on a Nikon F100 with 105/1.8 lens at f/4 or f/5.6, in my garden, just some quick snapshots to see how it looks. It was machine developed at a local lab, in xtol I believe. No defogging tratment. Attached are some flatbed scans.

Lo and behold, I think it still has its magic!

There is some fog, apparently, but contrast seems fine. The negs look good. Most importantly, the tonality is all I could have hoped for and more.

So... now I have several boxes of it to treasure!

keithwms said:

It was manufactured around 1972 (the year of my birth!) and had not been refrigerated. Just stored on Jack's shelf in his office. It was marked develop by 1973....

Click to expand...

I inherited an ancient "darkroom" that had been disassembled and stored in a rural barn for god-knows-how-long. There were several treasures (there always are), including two items manufactured when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. One was a classic GraLab timer, manufacture-dated 1958, IIRC. The other was an almost complete 100-foot roll of 35mm Panatomic-X, marked develop by 1962.

The timer I lovingly took completely apart, restored, repainted, and currently use in my darkroom. Yes, I have all the computerized stuff, including other timers. But I just love this ancient guy. He looks brand new. (And because he takes his cue from the AC power lines, he's still wonderfully accurate, too.)

The Panatomic-X I didn't hold out much hope for, but bulk-loaded a roll anyway. Like you I found a bit of fog. But the contrast was also amazingly good, and the fog printed through easily. He's now stored in my refridgerator, although that does seem kinda pointless.

This stuff is so old it could have been used to date the local rock strata. Sort of like a photographic trilobite...

Ken

Ken Nadvornick said:

He's now stored in my refridgerator, although that does seem kinda pointless.

Click to expand...

Ha, I know what you mean Ken, after seeing my negs the first thought I had was, I should put this in the fridge. But that would seem almost insulting to it now!

I have a bunch of rolls of 120 Panatomic-X that's old also, I think it's about time to use them up on something. Your results are pretty darn good. I used to use it exclusively, there is something very distinctive about it. It's the one item I wish was still being made. Imagine it in 8x10 sheet size! How about an 8x10 Panatomic-X negative contact printed on Azo?

BTW, I got married in 1972 and it's still working out.

Wow! I'm encouraged. I have some 35mm Pan-X that is a bulk loader that has to be 25 yrs old and was wondering if would work. I'll have to give it a try.

bobwysiwyg said:

Wow! I'm encouraged. I have some 35mm Pan-X that is a bulk loader that has to be 25 yrs old and was wondering if would work. I'll have to give it a try.

Click to expand...

Send it to me! I'll take care of it!

Yes Bob, definitely do try it, it wants to be shot! I have a slight feeling (=not quantified) that the grain is not quite as fine as fresh type 55 or 665, which is the only thing I have to compare to, but I allege that the magical tonality is there and the contrast is fine in spite of slight base fog.

Curt I agree, and I suppose that I would commit various crimes to get some 8x10 panatomic-x... but I have the next best thing: quite a lot of extended-pan bulk 5" panatomic-x, and I am thinking to make an adapter so that I can shoot up to 5x10 in an 8x10 holder. Tom is getting half of the 5" bulk.

Just looked in my stash from Jack, in addition to bulk panatomic-x in 135 format, he also bequeathed me a lone roll of tech pan and a whole bunch of medium format, coated b&w glass slides, and a fair amount of high contrast copy film. I wonder how all that stuff held up. By Jove I've never shot a dry plate....

Keith,

After reading your reply, just realized I have the better part of a bulk loader full of Tech Pan as well. If the Pan-X might live, going to give the Tech Pan a shot as well. I loved that stuff when I was shooting film (which I've recently ruturned to).

Quite interesting, isn't it, to be shooting film so far beyond its specs. A bit like tasting a very old wine, I suppose: it might be great; it might be vinegar.... but it definitely won't be the latest diet cola.

I had a random thought whilst shooting some of the old panatomic-x. I was thinking, if I do see pinholes or excess grain, then I might just take two shots each time and overlay the negs, thus obtaining a sort of lower-noise average at the enlarger. I suppose one could do this with any film, come to think of it....

I was quite enthused by this thread about trying some old Pan-X I had myself. The film was in a bulk loader. I had a habit of putting a masking tape strip along the spine on which to note the date the bulk loader was filled, and note each cassette loading along with the number of frames loaded. The date on the Pan-X loader is 1983! and only three cassette loads had been used from the total, so there's a bunch more left. It was not frozen, but well protected in a basement storage area with other film photo equip. For a basement, ours is quite dry, rarely above 50% hum. and it's a constant 68F.

To really make this a retro test, I used my first 35mm camera, an Ashi Pentax SV (entirely manual) and Vivitar-35 selenium meter. Nothing earthshaking in the subject matter and it was all hand-held. The fact that any image emerged from the soup at all shocked me. I developed it in D-76 1:1 for 7 min. I seem to recall seeing something somewhere about altering the dev. time for old film, but I couldn't find it again.

Well look at that! Nice! #1 is very nicely composed. Those are gorgeous tones that one sees on flower petals with panatomic-x. My find has restored my interest in 35mm.

I had some PanX that had been very casually stored since the early 80's. I shot it a few years ago and there was hardly any fog. Maybe what they say is true: generally, slow films have a longer shelf life than fast films.