Shooting Kodak Technical Pan

I've been fortunate enough to get my hands on a quite a bit of Kodak Technical Pan even though it has been discontinued, and I've gotten excellent results shooting it in sunny as well as slightly overcast conditions, rated at either ISO 25 or 50.

What other film, rated ISO 25, shot handheld at 1/125 sec. and F5.6 from the top of the Empire State Building could give you a tack sharp 20 x 24 print of the East Side of Manhattan??

I've heard that this film can be rated up to either 200 or 320. Is this true? Is there anyone who has gotten good results shooting it above ISO 50?

Efke 25 from jandcphoto.com

bluetrayne said:

I've been fortunate enough to get my hands on a quite a bit of Kodak Technical Pan even though it has been discontinued, and I've gotten excellent results shooting it in sunny as well as slightly overcast conditions, rated at either ISO 25 or 50.

What other film, rated ISO 25, shot handheld at 1/125 sec. and F5.6 from the top of the Empire State Building could give you a tack sharp 20 x 24 print of the East Side of Manhattan??

I've heard that this film can be rated up to either 200 or 320. Is this true? Is there anyone who has gotten good results shooting it above ISO 50?

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I always expose it at 100iso. it is amazing for portraits!

develop in 6 min - continous agitation - in TETENAL Neofin DOKU.
just remember to pre rinse the film. (about 4 min in tap water..)

Back when they announced that T-Pan was a goner, it re-spurred some interest in the freezer stock I had from some years back. I had used TechPan developer years ago with some success but didn't have any around so I tried some remaining WD2D+ that I had. The results were the best I remember from Tech Pan. I only did a couple of test rolls but if I return to any use of it, I would defiinitely start there again. I decided to put my energy into films that would continue to be available and I usually don't rely on 35mm (which is what I was dealing with) for serious, hi-res work anyway. The highlights were very well controlled with this combo. Just thought I'd mention it if you're looking at options/directions to try. I was getting by at 25 on this short test and it seemed to be about right.

Craig, can you give us times, agitation, temps, etc?

bluetrayne said:

What other film, rated ISO 25, shot handheld at 1/125 sec. and F5.6 from the top of the Empire State Building could give you a tack sharp 20 x 24 print of the East Side of Manhattan??

Click to expand...

Kodak Imagelink HQ at EI 50.

bluetrayne said:

What other film, rated ISO 25, shot handheld at 1/125 sec. and F5.6 from the top of the Empire State Building could give you a tack sharp 20 x 24 print of the East Side of Manhattan??

I've heard that this film can be rated up to either 200 or 320. Is this true? Is there anyone who has gotten good results shooting it above ISO 50?

Click to expand...

Well, if ISO 25 isn't a major point, TMY will do this just fine -- in 6x9 cm format, of course. And with the higher speed, you can stop down *and* use a faster shutter, so a better chance of getting a good shot on the first go.

Tech Pan is supposed to be rated at EI 320 for document imaging, but that's when developed to some huge contrast index; it's certainly not suitable for pictorial use with that development.

Has anyone developed Tech Pan in Pyrocat-HD? If so, what kind of times did you use?

I used to shoot a fair amount of Tech Pan in 35mm. I developed it mainly in C41 developer and Photographer's Formulary's TD-3. I prefered the latter, as it gave slightly higher film speed and lower contrast than the color developer.

While I've seen lots of claims of high film speeds with Tech Pan, my densitometer has never born that out. E.I. 16 was the best I could achieve. Ultimately, I decided that moving up in format size was the way to go, and so I haven't looked into TP or other document films any further. (At the moment my FM2's are caput, which is a shame.)

However, I recently bought a film scanner, and I've revisted lots of my early 35mm work. TP scans really, really well.

One developer that I'd seriously look into for use with document films is Ethol's TEC. I've not used it myself, but a long time participant on rec.photo.darkroom, John Hick highly recommended it. John runs well controlled tests on films, and in the instances where we tested the same materials, we always got very similar results. I forget exactly what EI John got with TEC, but it was at least a true EI of 50.

gandolfi said:

I always expose it at 100iso. it is amazing for portraits!

develop in 6 min - continous agitation - in TETENAL Neofin DOKU.
just remember to pre rinse the film. (about 4 min in tap water..)

Click to expand...

The developer that you mention, has been discontinued.

Keith Tapscott. said:

The developer that you mention, has been discontinued.

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sorry to hear that - but it seems I still can get it.

See: http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Times/TechPan/techpan.html

bluetrayne said:

I've been fortunate enough to get my hands on a quite a bit of Kodak Technical Pan even though it has been discontinued, and I've gotten excellent results shooting it in sunny as well as slightly overcast conditions, rated at either ISO 25 or 50.

What other film, rated ISO 25, shot handheld at 1/125 sec. and F5.6 from the top of the Empire State Building could give you a tack sharp 20 x 24 print of the East Side of Manhattan??

I've heard that this film can be rated up to either 200 or 320. Is this true? Is there anyone who has gotten good results shooting it above ISO 50?

Click to expand...

You would be better off buying Kodak Technidol developer before it`s all gone. There may be other ones that are also suitable, dilute Acutol, Rodinal etc etc. Personally, I`d buy the dedicated developer.
A simple bracketed exposure sequence of +/- one stop in half f/stop increments should help to establish a personal exposure index, one of these should be right on the button.

I read in a thread somewhere on another site about a guy shooting tech pan @ EI100 in D76 for 8 min at 68-70 deg F. This was for scanning though, the results he posted looked good.

I developed some tech pan in Pyrocar hd last night for the first time. I used stand development. I mixed my developer as follows:
1 liter of water
4 ml Pyrocat A.
3 grams of sodium carbonate...washing soda....this is used in lieu of Pyrocat B

I develop in open tanks using a seperate tank for each solution. The film reel
is on a lifting rod. The rod is lifted and lowered about 1 cycle every 2 seconds a distance of a couple of inches. To maintain the eveness of development from the outside of the reel to the inside the lifting rod is NOT turned, it is just raised and lowered.

The temperature of the developer is maintained at 70º with a water bath from a thermostatic valve.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND USING LESS THAN 1 LITER OF SOLUTION FOR A 36 EXPOSURE ROLL OF 35MM. iF YOU DO THIS WITH 1/4 OR 1/2 OF THE VOLUME LISTED ABOVE, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN..NO WHINING PLEASE.
Presoak for five minutes in 70º tap water with with agitation as above

Put the film into the tank containing developer. Agitate as above for one minute.

When I did this last night I used a developing time of 25 minutes..1 minute of agitation+24 minutes of stand development with no agitation...I put the cover on the tank and returned before 25 minutes total had expired. My film had been latensified by low light which reduces contrast as bit. The negatives were a bit contrasty for printing on grade 2 with a condenser enlarger...I am referring to grade 2 paper not filter number 2.

The lit to shadow ratio of the scene photographed as measured with an incident was 2.5 stops.

If you use this method for printing with a condenser enlarger I would recommend that you develop as above for 20 minutes. I think 25 minutes would work well for enlarging with diffused light with grade 2 paper. Both remarks are predicated on having a similar lighting ratio.