Tech Pan for landscapes @ ISO 100 ???

[Oldtimer Jay]

Hello All,

I have tried to get good landscape results in 35 MM format using document films since the H&W control days of the 70s. It has been a love-hate relationship because of difficulties with the tonal range and ISO rating.

In my recent experiments of the past couple of years I have tried various times, temperatures and dilutions of PMK, Rodinal, Formulary TD3, Acutol, Diafine, Formulary FX-2, and the web-published H&W formula. With respect to tonal range and quality, shooting at ISO 25, I am getting good results with Formulary FX-2 using 4 CC of solution A, 25CC of solution B, 275 CC H2O and developing for 11 min. @ 78 with 4 gentle inversions every 3 minutes.
I am merely an enthusiast, know virtually nothing about photochemistry and am blown away by the expertise of many posters here, so please forgive in advance the ignorance of this question.
What I would like to know is it worth trying a combination of the sodium perborate latensification in conjunction with development in XR-1 to get a usable ISO of 100 with nice, full range tonality? Alternatively, has anyone personally found any strategy for shooting Tech Pan at ISO 50 or better that yields good shadow detail and a nice range of tones? All the developers which I have used which purport to give ISO 50 have lacked shadow detail and/or blocked up the highlights.

Any input about how to accomplish this would be greatly appreciated, most of my "landscapes" these days are shot from a rather unstable 13 foot rowing dory, so a 2 stop increase in speed would really help!

Thanks,

Jay Ludvigh

 

[Tom Stanworth]

Wow, I think that'll be a challenge, as most endorse a reduction in speed and controlled development to tame contrast. Why not shoot something else ie Acros at 64 or even faster depending upon dev? It is seriously fine grained and will leave you a lot more room for error (and creative control). If you dont want grain at all and are prepared to accpect reduced acutance, what about Acros in Perceptol 1+1 @ ISO 50, or in Xtol at near full speed, or Aculux 2 at 64 or so? I bet you'd struggle to find the grain with any of these and the resolution would be gone long before grain intruded. Just a thought.

I know Barry T used to do a TechXactol for techpan, but dont know what happened to it since his death. I would imagine it has a limited market so may not have been continued.

Good luck on your quest!

Tom

 

[Claire Senft]

A lot of options are a vailable for Tech Pan.

Just about any film developer is useful with Tech Pan if the latent image is bleach in a 1% potaasium ferricyanide solutin for about three minutes and them developed for fairly normal amout of time in any developer used with medium to high speed film. You could try HC110 for 11 minutes after this treatment on a scene of normal contrast range. The best negatives I ever shot on Tech Pan were developed C41 developer Flexicolor..with conventional stop and fixing used. This is used without latent image bleaching. You will get an honest 50 out of the negatives. Try 10 minutes at 20ºC. Beautiful gradation is to be had on Tech Pan.

I believe that if you try low light latensifacation you may be able to use ISO 160 with Tech Pan and Flexicolor. It will take a bit of experimenting to see.
If you really love fine grain...due to the Tech Pan.. and sharp edges then the low light latensification, latent image bleaching with potassium ferricyanide and developing in PyroCat HD holds promise of great reward if you work at it.
But then again you are entering Terra Incognito but I do not think you will encounter dragons.

good luck

 

[Claire Senft]

addeunum

Sorry, that reference to HC110 should have mentioned dil B. The idea for Tech Pan in Flexiclor came from Hans Federich..hope I spelled corected..in an article in Photo Techniques. The idea for latent image bleaching of Tech Pan came from an article by David Kachel in photo Techniques magazine.

 

[Tom Stanworth]

I do not mean to suggest that this quest is not a worthy one, but why go to all this bother? If you want tonality and finer grain, why not use a bigger film area, or something like acros in a fine grain dev? I was under the impression that the tonal response from Techpan isn't the most pleasing (from the shots I have seen), but admit that this is of course a matter of opinion. I would bet that 35mm acros in Perceptol 1+1 would show no grain at all on a 12x16 or even 20x16 (though resolution is not going to be that hot, obviously). If it does, try it straight. Why techpan?

I just think that producing great images is already hard enough.........it sounds like there will be so much effort going into contrast taming and delivering the speed that I bet 1/2 a stop out on exposure......or a scene with high contrast and it is all going to fall to bits? Crikey, AA knew a bit technically and even he admitted to being a stop or so out on exposure and development (even for some of his great images), but becasue there was some latitude, he was able to get the print back on track with some extra care. Are you using this for a technical application?

 

[WarEaglemtn]

"I have tried to get good landscape results in 35 MM format using document films since the H&W control days of the 70s. It has been a love-hate relationship because of difficulties with the tonal range and ISO rating."

Why not try something easier... like going to Death Valley & trapping a wild burro & entering it in the Kentucky Derby?

You are wasting your time trying to make something fit where it just won't do the job. The quoted section above from your post says it all...

Don't you think 30 years or so of failing to get decent results is telling you something?

 

[Tom Stanworth]

The developers, EIs, and techniques that I've posted above take all of the fuss out of TP. Easy as pie.

Jay

Interesting. What is it like from a pictorial perspective; it's 'look'. I am not a great fan of Tmax 100, so the thought of a film even more Tmaxy at slower speed, with finer grain makes me wonder if it is more souless still .......

 

[Claire Senft]

Acros is interesting

If one reads the last couple of issues of Camera & Lens news at Carl Zeiss.. WWW.carlzeiss.de You will be very impressed with Fuji Acros.

The odd spectral sensitivity of Tech Pan can be easily conquered by using a 40 Cyan filter without compensation. Tech Pan is also a very interesting film to use for portraits of children and females. The extended red sensitivity produces very lightened and glowing skin tones and things such as nicks, cuts and freckles show hardly at all.

Tech Pan certainly produces fine grain. However, It is very difficult to meanifully exceed the resolution level of 100TMax when both films are shot side by side...very difficult indeed.

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

Kodak Tech Pan is nothing like Kodak Panatomic-X. The two films have very different looks.

The two films also have a very different development history and purposes.

I have a lot of Panatomic-X negs and a lot of Tech Pan negs, many shot of the same subject at the same time with the same Hassleblad. I just swapped backs.

 

[Oldtimer Jay]

Hi again Folks,

I greatly appreciate all the inputs to date and will be experimenting for quite a while to see what can be accomplished. I agree that what I am trying to do is not easy but there are reasons for it which I did not mention in my initial post First, I own and occasionally use a Pentax 6X7, but find myself shooting less whenever I decide I need the benefits of the bigger negative, especially since I started using an image stabilizing lens for 35MM. Second I do love Acros in 35mm and shoot more of it by far than anything else on a day to day basis. I usually process it in Acutol 1-14 and consistently get by far the best grain/sharpness/tonality balance of any film I have used.

However, I occasionally print 16X20 or 20X24 and by far the best prints I have ever gotten in these sizes (excluding MF and LF negs) are from document film negs. Also, the issue isn't just grain. The document films, when things are right, provide a level of resolution that is easily noticeable in big prints above what I see with Acros or TMax 100 (whose tonality is not to my taste.)
Testing with the extraordinarily informative Sleicher lens testing chart shows real-world, on film resolution of almost 110 lines per MM for Tech Pan and 90 LPMM for both Acros and T Max 100.

One other thing I did not mention in my initial post is that I have also used Technidol developer and that it, like most of the others, gave nice but not spectacular results.

So that is some more of the story. As mentioned at the outset, I greatly appreciate all the inputs to date and am excited about having some new avenues to try. APUG is awesome and any additional suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank You all very much,

Jay Ludvigh