GIII 17 + Pan f 50 = smoooooth.....

[R Alan]

Bright and early Saturday morning I tried some Freestyle Pro 50 ( Ilford pan F +) for some Bauhous style shooting near Arizona State University for one of my photo assignments. I biked back to school and developed it in D76 1+1 and printed a few 5x7's. The 50 speed film seems to work pretty well in the bright Arizona sun, since the top shutter speed is 1/500.

I set my film speed to the first notch after 25 ASA--is this 32 ASA? I shot a short roll last week to check the best film speed setting and these seemed best.

Any other hints when using D76 (the lab at school has stock solution and they sort of want us to use 1+1)? I developed it at 68' for 10.5 min in my patterson tank.

Roy

 

[pdx138]

Great shot! I'm excited because I'm shooting some Pan F right now and will be developing in D76 1+1. It looks like you got good results.

It's taking me a little while to go through a role because I'm in the rainy Pacific NW... I really want to see what my Plannar 50/2 can do with such a nice smooth, slow film.

 

[xayraa33]

try a 1:3 dillution with D76 and the Pan F 50 film
I use a development time of 15min. at 20 deg. C
I also rate Pan F at 32 ISO

 

[kaiyen]

Yeah, I would not recommend developing as stock. You'll lose too much sharpness. You're shooting low grain, you might as well go for high sharpness. 1+1 at a minimum.

allan

 

[xayraa33]

Bill Pierce had a good write up in his nuts n bolts column in Pop Photo in the 1970s I believe, about using D76 1:3 on panatomic film for high sharpness .
D76 1:3 can rival Rodinal for sharp negs on slow fine grain films.
Pierce's claim was that at the higher dilution, the sodium sulphite in D 76 is so watered down , that it has little effect in rounding out the grain in these very fine grained films and result is very sharp negs with lower contrast and more shadow detail.

 

[R Alan]

try a 1:3 dillution with D76 and the Pan F 50 film
I use a development time of 15min. at 20 deg. C
I also rate Pan F at 32 ISO

I'll give this a go next time I develop-I tried my camera at ISO 50, but the negs looked a little thin. ISO 32 seems just right - I am using a 1.5 volt battery so this may have something to do with it. Next time I'm in the darkroom I'll raise the enlarger up to a 16 x 20 size and print a 5 x 7 crop from my sharpest negative. The 1:3 may give even better results.

Roy

 

[pdx138]

I'm game to try it at 1:3, but I've been shooting it rated at 50. Should I still develop for 15 minutes? Please let me know. Thanks!

 

[xayraa33]

I have found that the real rating of Pan F is closer to the speed of the old Kodak Pananatomic 32 ASA or ISO now, than what Ilford rates it for (IMHO)
BTW, Panatomic was a great fine grained film.
As far as developing Pan F at 50 ISO in D76 1:3, experiment a bit on a test roll
a good rule of thumb is my 20% rule
increase dev. time if doubling the speed rating, by 20%
or, decrease dev. time by 20% if halving the ISO rating ( this is great if you expose for the shadows, if you want more shadow detail in the neg.)
in this case it is less than double than what I rate Pan F for so try an increase of dev. of around 16% to 17.5 min. at 20 deg. C for D76 at 1:3.
You can fine tune this later on when you develope other rolls of Pan F exposed at 50 ISO, so you can get negs to the density that you personally like.

 

[pdx138]

Thanks for the advice. These are test roles I'm shooting, so its a good chance to play around.

 

[R Alan]

try a 1:3 dillution with D76 and the Pan F 50 film
I use a development time of 15min. at 20 deg. C
I also rate Pan F at 32 ISO

15 Minutes at 20 deg. C at 32 ISO seems just about perfect for my camera/film combo. My instructor thought my negs were really spot on as far as density goes. You can see one of the prints in the W/NW forum in the Lamp Post posting. I think I better stock up on a few bulk rolls of this film since I really like the tonality I got in the darkroom with my limited experience. I was at the Canada/Mexico world classic baseball game tonight and ran a roll of HP5 plus through my GIII of all the fans wearing sombreros. I'm anxious to see what 400 speed film at a stadium looks like compared to 50 speed film taken at dusk.

Roy

 

[xayraa33]

I am glad that combo worked out for you. I have been shooting Pan F at 32 ISO and dev. it in D76 1:3 for 15 min. at 20 deg.C for many years now, and I love the range of tonality that I can capture on that film . I hope other RFF members can give this combo a try if they love fine grain and nice tone graduations, esp. for 35mm film users.

 

[sf]

Pan F is the smoothest B&W film I've ever used. I love it. For landscapes, when possible, it is my film of choice.