Happy New Year everyone,

I did some shooting over the holidays. Due to a mental error, I found myself short one roll for my critical work. I ended up using a roll of 35mm Pan F+ that I had intended to experiment with. The film was rated at ASA 50 and used to shoot portraits with electronic flash.

It has been many years since I shot a roll of Pan F, and even then I did not process it myself.

I would like to process the film in Rodinal, however I have seen conflicting statements about this combination. I have looked at both the Agfa and Ilford sites and read the posts in here, but I still do not have a development time, dilution, temp, agitation, etc. that I am comfy with. I am willing to sacrifice fine grain (to an extent) for higher acutance. As always, I am looking for full tonal scale.

I am not entirely opposed to shooting the other roll of Pan F as a test, but would like to avoid this route, since I am under time constraints.

All information is greatly appreciated. ~james

-- james sobhani (bjs@briefcase.com), January 03, 2001

Answers

I would steer clear of this combination, unless you're willing to sacrifice a few rolls to arrive at a development time that gives you the contrast you want. Both PanF+ and Rodinal are tricky to tame, each tending to give excessive contrast on their own. The combination of the two doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
I haven't used PanF+ that much, since T-grain and Delta films actually give finer grain, but I used PanF a lot in the past, and it didn't respond well to acutance developers. Beside which, the sharpness didn't seem to vary much with developer type. A solvent developer like D76 gave practically the same sharpness as Acutol, but the tonal range was much better with D76. I don't think PanF+ is any different in this respect.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), January 04, 2001.

Try Rodinal (1:100) for 12 minutes at 68 degrees or 10 minutes at 75 degrees.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), January 04, 2001.

I ran tests of several film/developer combinations last year, and although Rodinol is my favorite developer, when used (1+50) with Pan F+ it produced lots of grain and not particularly sharp images. The best developer for Pan F+ turned out to be Ilford's own Ilfosol. Some times theory and practice don't necessarily agree.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), January 04, 2001.

Hi James, while I normally shoot Delta 100, I have used Pan F+ and have found it to produce very nice negatives when developed in Xtol full strength. I used Kodak's recommended time and the negs were great; nice tonal scale, sharp and no grain at 8x enlargement.

Regards,

-- Pete Caluori (pcaluori@hotmail.com), January 05, 2001.

I'm a regular user of this combination for all types of 35mm landscapes. I go for 1:50, 7.5 min. at 68 degrees. I typically print on Ilford Multigrade Pearl using a Seagull VC Cold Light head.

-- Bob Klein (bob@bobkleinphoto.com), January 05, 2001.

I use Ilford PanF+ 50' bulk roll, slitted into Minox 8x11mm format and use it in Minox EC camera. I developed PanF+ with 1+60 Rodinal-Special for 16 minutes 20 Celsius. PanF+ is sligthly grainier than Agfapan APX 25. I shoot PanF+ at EI 64

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), January 05, 2001.