Shooting Pan F + Hand Held - Does Anyone?

DF · Mar 2, 2018

And if so, what settings work well?
I'm thinking 125th @ f8.5 - f8 in bright sunny skies...?

zanxion72 · Mar 2, 2018

That depends! Sunny-16 would give you 1/50 (make it 1/60) at f/16. I would give it f/11 to get some shadow detail as it is a high contrast film and tame the highlights later in development. So that could go up to the equivalent of 1/125 at f/8. What developer are you going to use?

jim appleyard · Mar 2, 2018

Sometimes I will shoot this film handheld, but I mostly use a red filter to darken blue skies. This will make it necessary to use a tripod.

removed account4 · Mar 2, 2018

wide open 15thS for everything ... processed in coffee

Pentode · Mar 2, 2018

In bright sun? Sure. Why not?

bsdunek · Mar 2, 2018

I do it all the time. Just learn to hold the camera still.

removed account4 · Mar 2, 2018

bsdunek said:
I do it all the time. Just learn to hold the camera still.

if it is a still camera, holding it still is like falling off a bike, isn't it ?

Gerald C Koch · Mar 2, 2018

bsdunek said:
I do it all the time. Just learn to hold the camera still.

+1

You should be able to shoot at 1/15 easily. I shot Pan-X all the time handheld. Even if I wanted to there was no way to get a tripod where I was going. Besides they are a bother, Years ago when films were much slower people shot handheld all the time. Think of all those box Brownies.

wy2l · Mar 2, 2018

Hand-held at 125th? Yes, I have done it many times. All depends how much enlargement you are after.

Until I read the book "Edge of Darkness" by Barry Thornton.
See page 65, where he compares results of hand-held and three different tripods.
It convinced me the use of a tripod is essential (for landscape work).

Yes, using a tripod is a PITA. No doubt about it.

Don't have "Edge of Darkness"? Get it, packed with useful data. Highly recommended.

Kris

Billy Axeman · Mar 2, 2018

You can go very low with ISO and shutter time with a heavy camera and a short lens. My Pentax ES with Takumar 28mm f/3.5 is almost 1 kg and is very stable indeed. A Nikon F6 + battery grip + 28mm f/2.8 is 1.7 kg. When a combination is too light to you could screw a lead or steel plate to the bottom of the camera, which is a flexible way to experiment with the effect.

Minoltafan2904 · Mar 2, 2018

I shoot Velvia 50 handheld just fine.
My Minolta X-700 / Motor Drive-1 combo i use is very stable and comfortable to hold even with long lenses.
My dad shot the same setup back in the 80s even using Kodachrome 25, although he did use the 64 or Ektachrome 100 when he wanted some more speed.

BAC1967 · Mar 2, 2018

I shoot it handheld almost exclusively but I use it mostly in bright sun. It allows me to open the lens a bit more in bright conditions. I usually shoot at 100th with a yellow filter. This was in the shade shot handheld.

Burnt Bikes by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Ko.Fe. · Mar 2, 2018

1/125 will works for not so deep shadows @f8 and ISO50. Or at not very cloudy day. I just went out and checked.

I think, OP needs to gain basic knowledge in what exposure means.
It is ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture. I suggest to use simple light-meter application on the phone or simple light meter. To exam different light scenarios.
Or use S16 rule.

On Sunny Day it is f16, 1/100 and ISO100.
So with ISO50 it is
f11, 1/125 or f8 1/250.
Just like on this and very image:

And this, Pan F, handheld:

With understanding it is possible to use Pan F in handheld situations indoors also:

Fixcinater · Mar 2, 2018

I tend towards wider apertures so yes, I do indeed shoot it handheld.

And with leaf style shutters, it can be a nice change to open it all the way up and not need an ND filter.

Nihil Abstat · Mar 2, 2018

BAC1967 said:
I shoot it handheld almost exclusively but I use it mostly in bright sun. It allows me to open the lens a bit more in bright conditions. I usually shoot at 100th with a yellow filter. This was in the shade shot handheld.

Burnt Bikes by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

This print is very grainy. You should not be able to see the grain at all from Pan-F.

Look here, at a photo made on HP5:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Nk5Xs7sE_3trdCXLRmj_GtO2CNojf88u

It's a darkroom-made print (Multigrade RC) scanned on an office copier, and the plastic on the surface of the print must create some mottling. But you can see nonetheless that the grain is negligible.

Craig75 · Mar 2, 2018

Ko.Fe. said:
1/125 will works for not so deep shadows @f8 and ISO50. Or at not very cloudy day. I just went out and checked.

I think, OP needs to gain basic knowledge in what exposure means.
It is ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture. I suggest to use simple light-meter application on the phone or simple light meter. To exam different light scenarios.
Or use S16 rule.

On Sunny Day it is f16, 1/100 and ISO100.
So with ISO50 it is
f11, 1/125 or f8 1/250.
Just like on this and very image:

And this, Pan F, handheld:

With understanding it is possible to use Pan F in handheld situations indoors also:

what is sunny 16 in some places is sunny 11 in others in the world so OP is totally correct.

Ko.Fe. said:
1/125 will works for not so deep shadows @f8 and ISO50. Or at not very cloudy day. I just went out and checked.

I think, OP needs to gain basic knowledge in what exposure means.
It is ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture. I suggest to use simple light-meter application on the phone or simple light meter. To exam different light scenarios.
Or use S16 rule.

On Sunny Day it is f16, 1/100 and ISO100.
So with ISO50 it is
f11, 1/125 or f8 1/250.
Just like on this and very image:

And this, Pan F, handheld:

With understanding it is possible to use Pan F in handheld situations indoors also:

just because it's a sunny day does not mean that it's automatically f16. it depends on the time of year and where you live so OP can be totally correct to use the settings he gave.

Craig · Mar 2, 2018

I've never had "sunny 16" work for me, it always results in underexposure by at least a stop.

But yes, I would handhold Pan F in 35mm, depending on the lens. Super telephoto, no, normal or wide angle lens, sure.

Fritzthecat · Mar 2, 2018

Geez, I use Adox and Efke 25 hand held in my Nettar 6x6 and Tourist 6x9 folders, No problem. I've used iso 25 film in my Mamiya C-220 with a 135 lens hand held, no blur.

Eric Rose · Mar 2, 2018

You didn't mention what format you are using. Personally when I shoot PanF it's with a MF camera. The only reason I would be using it is for extreme sharpness as I find FP4 or HP5 to be more pleasing films. Given the requirement for sharpness I use a tripod, even at higher shutter speeds. Could I handhold it? Probably but why screw it up.

DF · Mar 2, 2018

I also use a Minolta X700.
The Sunny F16 rule worked perfectly with FP4 practically all the time.
Of course we can't always apply the same principal to two different films just because their ISO's are higher or lower. I've heard people describe PanF+ as very contrasty whereas the last time I used it - tripod of course, it seemed like the most middle grey film I've shot. 'Course all the frames were slightly underexposed to "on-the-mark".

Poisson Du Jour · Mar 2, 2018

DF said:
I've heard people describe PanF+ as very contrasty whereas the last time I used it - tripod of course, it seemed like the most middle grey film I've shot.

The "Sunny 16" is not relevant as a reference if you are using a Minolta X700. The meter of that camera is more than capable.
If you shoot Pan F+ 50 in bright sunlight, you can expect to find high contrast. Conversely, if you shoot it in overcast/diffuse light, it will show great tonality. This is my preferred condition (I have scans at the lab I need to fetch as examples).

My exposures (Pentax 67) are around 30 seconds to 1 minute at f11-f16 (can be more or less than this in 35mm). The film is renowned for its sharpness, and thus a tripod is always used. The results speak for themselves. I don't really think Pan F+ 50 endows itself to contrasty scene work. I think my first impressions of it it years ago were not particularly positive until I did some experimenting.

BTW, Pan F+ 50 has a very narrow latent image stability so it ought to be processed fairly quickly after exposure.

Ko.Fe. · Mar 5, 2018

Craig75 said:
what is sunny 16 in some places is sunny 11 in others in the world so OP is totally correct.

just because it's a sunny day does not mean that it's automatically f16. it depends on the time of year and where you live so OP can be totally correct to use the settings he gave.

Yes, OP is correct. Once you have something with shadows here is no f16. I'm not sure if I was arguing about it at all.

kossi008 · Mar 9, 2018

I do it all the time. I even hand-hold Iso 25 a lot of the time, and not only in sunny weather, either.
It really depends on whether you want tack-sharp negatives for poster prints. If you don't, then 1/30th of a second at f/2 with a 50 mm lens can have a nice character all of its own...

Shooting Pan F + Hand Held - Does Anyone?

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