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Royal Pan (expired)

DanielStone

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Dec 30, 2008
Messages
3,114
Location
Los Angeles
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Multi Format
hey all,

found a person selling some Royal Pan from 1984, its sheet film, and supposedly has been frozen since 1984. Up until 1mo ago, supposedly...

any ideas as to how it would/could come out? I know there will/could be serious fog, but since I'm contact printing, I could just develop it longer to keep the contrast up there, and print through the fog.

help would be appreciated on this one, espeically since the film is older than I am(I'm an '88 kid )

thanks

-Dan
 
I know someone that has truckloads of Royal Pan, and says there is quite a bit of base fog, but that you can print through it. You have to do a film speed test with it.

With sheet film that old you run the risk of having problems around the edges of the film, and it could be unevenly fogged. So you have to test it. I have had uneven fogging on old Plus-X, Agfapan 25, and Tri-X (400) sheet film. Still made some pretty interesting lith prints from it, but it certainly wasn't ideal.
 
Some of the most beautiful prints I've ever seen were made from horrifically fogged Super XX Pan, which was discontinued in 1994. I don't know whether or not the scale of Royal X is anywhere near as long as Super XX, but it's certainly worth your while to find out.
 
Royal Pan was a fast film (ISO 1000). Fast films which are expired will tend to fog worse than slow films which are expired. A test is in order.
 
I recently bought a box of long expired ortho litho film, thinking this film is so slow it probably won't be affected very much. I was wrong. There was a good deal of fog, which I could print through, but there were also clumps of circular spots in various sizes. Most were near the edges of the film, but there were plenty in the image area, too. I know it wasn't my processing, because I was processing it side by side with fresh ortho litho film, and the fresh film had no problems.

I guess I can use this film in strips to test developer and fixer activity. This would give me a life time supply. I'm also kind of discouraged to try my luck with expired film again.
 
mopar_guy said:
Royal Pan was a fast film (ISO 1000)...
Click to expand...

Actually, Royal Pan was an ASA 400 film. Its big brother, Royal-X Pan was the King at 1250 ASA. I remember using the Royal Pan back in the late 70's. I was just starting to use sheet film, so I can't remember noting any differences or special characteristics it might have had over Super XX or Plus-X which I also used at the time. I did not know enough to see any difference. I switched to TMax100 as soon as I came out. It has been a long time since I used any of those negatives!

Good luck with the film -- hopefully it was frozen the whole time and that it unfroze well!

Vaughn
 
Last edited by a moderator:
mopar_guy said:
Royal Pan was a fast film (ISO 1000). Fast films which are expired will tend to fog worse than slow films which are expired. A test is in order.
Click to expand...

You're confusing Royal Pan with Royal-X Pan. Royal Pan was a general purpose sheet film with an ASA speed of 400. It had fine grain and a very long straight line curve. (Royal-X Pan had coarse grain and an ASA speed of 1250.)

If the film had really been frozen, it may still be good.
 

Yes, I got them mixed up!
 
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