Seven year old Technical Pan developed with ..... :~)

[John Bartley]

So, some of you might remember that I recently picked up some out of date Kodak Technical Pan film at a flea market and was wondering how to develop it. I do have a small Paterson tank system, so I shot the first roll a week or so ago and got so frustrated trying to load it onto the reel that I ended up throwing it out and going to the kitchen where I drowned my sorrows in orange juice!! Well, ok, I did put a bit of ginger ale in with the OJ for effect,
Anyway, being the reasoneable, patient saint of a human being that I am, I thought to myself - "self?, it's just film - if other folks can get it onto the roll, you can too" ...
Sooo..... today I exposed another roll and this time I was able to get the ^&^$#*!!! stuff onto the reel, whereupon I decide that I should throw all caution to the wind and experiment with developers. In keeping with that spirit of adventure, I mixed 250ml of Adams variant D23 with 250ml of borax extender (same stuff that I use for my D-D23 in 8x10), and soaked my Tech Pan in it for 6 minutes, agitating for 15 seconds every minute - yeah, I know - nuts eh?
Well .... it worked. I stopped it after 6 minutes with a 60 second bath of kodak indicator stop and then fixed it for 5 minutes with Ilford rapid fix and then washed the film for 30 minutes in running water
The photos look GREAT!!! This was the first roll through my $20.00 auction sale Franka Bonafix and I gotta say I'm quite pleased.

So ... D23 mixed with Borax works to develop Tech Pan

cheers eh?

 

[big_ben_blue]

Glad to hear about your success (now you gave me a reason to dig my boxes of 4x5 TechPan out of the deeper corners of my freezer, LOL).

BTW, if you ever have a chance to get to the Henry's downtown location, ask for Mark. He did a lot of TechPan some years back with good success and might have a tip or two.

Chris

 

[dschneller]

Lets see some shots John! []

 

[John Bartley]

Well, I'm not too good at this scanning business, but here's two off the roll. The whole roll is a bit overexposed, but a few are pretty good. I'm going to have to learn how to use this camera I guess. It's strange not having a ground glass to focus on .

(note : these are negative scans - I don't really want to waste paper on these)

This first one is a front view of a building that a partner and I rent out to a small engine repair company. It's also where I pretend to work .

This second one is the view out the front door of our building. We have a bit more snow here today with about 12" on the ground from last night and today.

Next roll I'm going to reduce the development from from 6 minutes to 5 minutes and see if I get a bit less contrast. I 'spose I could also dilute a bit seeing as I'm using the D23 as a one shot developer anyway.

cheers