JCH street pan 400

[Pedro_fiz]

I have had one problem with this film in 120 roll (see black stains in the photo). After development the film seems to have very low thickness and twisted. The expiration date is Jul-2021. Development process was the same than other rolls and without issues.
Some months ago I had the same problem with an Ilford FP4 125, but this time it was expired.
Any equivalent experience? Any suggestion to avoid this problem?
In my opinión it could be a film quality problem but I am not sure...
Thanks

 

[SimonSawSunlight]

the carrier is just not very thick on this film so it won't be quite as straight as tmax or hp5. i've found that the twisting changes with the air you dry your film in. too cold / too warm / too dry / too humid could be a factor....
i thought the film was fine, but i have noticed some emulsion defects at the very beginning of some rolls and i have told bellamy about it. i don't know if that's something he has any influence over.

 

[Pedro_fiz]

JCH street pan 400

Trying to confirm, I have used a roll Kodak TMax 400. Using same liquids, process, etc. and here are the results...
For sure the JCH roll had a quality issue.

 

[Skiff]

For sure the JCH roll had a quality issue.

That isn't surprising as this film stock is very long expired:
The last coating run of this film (former Agfa ASP 400s / Aviphot Pan 400) was in 2008. So this material is 12 years old and suffering from aging effects.

JCH is cheating his customers in many ways:
- selling very long expired film but not telling the customers the truth about it
- selling this film as ISO 400; but when you measure the real sensitivity / speed with a densitomter, you get only 50-100 depending on the developer (because of loosing speed caused by ageing, and because those former aerial/surveillance films have all a real speed of two stops less; in aerial photography the speed measurement is completely different and not shadow oriented as in regular photography)
- selling this film at ridiculous high prices (you can get the same "look" with Superpan 200 at less than half the price).

 

[CharlesDAMorgan]

I've come to the conclusion that he sells it as 400 so it looks really contrasty when developed, a two stop push.

It's a horrible cheat upon the film buying public, and an egregiously overpriced one at that.

 

[Skiff]

I've come to the conclusion that he sells it as 400 so it looks really contrasty when developed, a two stop push.

Exactly, it is a 2 - 3 stop push, dependent on the developer you are using.
You get dark shadows with no details, a very steep characteristic curve, and strongly reduced dynamic range.
If you want acceptable tonality with this film, using the right developer and exposing at EI 50 - 100 is the way to go.

It's a horrible cheat upon the film buying public, and an egregiously overpriced one at that.

+ 1.000

 

[Rayt]

I have experienced similar defects with mildly expired (By a few years) Shanghai GPS, Lucky, Rollei 80s, Fomapan 400 and others. Whereas I have shot 10 years expired Ilford, Fuji and Kodak with zero problems. My guess is the backing paper. After enough ruined shots I solved the problem by only buying Kodak and Ilford films in 120. Shanghai and Fomapan are great in sheets though.

Nam6 by ray tai, on Flickr

 

[Henry]

I will admit some surprise when I got my first roll back, having not researched it very well, and discovered everything look 2-3 stops under exposed. Since I already have two more rolls of it I guess I'll shoot it at 50 and see what happens. It's annoying though, because I bought it with the intention of using it indoors and that's not really super feasible with iso50

 

[WJJ3]

FWIW I have had good results stand developing this film in Adonal

poodle

And yeah, the first several frames are fogged on this film. Seems the light shields on the canisters are not very good...

underpass