Tech Pan for 4x5, or is this overkill?

[B Griggs]

The recent Readyload scare made me think of holders and films other than T-Max; thus the idea of using Tech Pan, apparently with Technidol, for 4x5. Several que stions: is this overkill, given the abilities of T-Max, and the ease of Readyloa ds, or are there people who have seen demonstrably better results with the Tech Pan? Are there problems with the extended red sensitivity of Tech Pan? Can its a bilities be exploited differently with other developers? Is reciprocity a proble m? (the tables apparently look OK) Other general comments and opinions would be most welcome. Thanks.

[Jim Galli]

T-Max is a pain-in-the-neck! Tech Pan is impossible!

[pat krentz]

Jim, a very good argument for Tri-X and Pyro dev. Pat

[Pete Andrews]

I find T-max100 to be a very good film across all formats, but if you don't like it, try FP4plus. IMHO FP4+ has the finest grain and best gradation of any non-delta/T-grain medium speed film.Techpan is impossible, I agree.

[Stuart Whatling]

I gave up using TechPan in 35mm years ago because I'd always end up with 36 frames on a roll that each needed slightly different development times.

Now I'm using 5x4 I may have to go back and try again...

[Sal Santamaura]

How does Tech Pan address "the recent Readyload scare?" Is Tech Pan available in Readyload now? TMX is the film Kodak will most likely keep in production longest, even if Readyload packaging is someday dropped.

For 4x5, developing TMX in convenient Ilfosol-S, I think you'd be hard pressed to see an improvement with Tech Pan, at least up to 16x20 prints. This takes into account practical matters like film positioning accuracy and typical large format shooting apertures. High magnifications from 35mm originals might be a different story. Also, to the best of my knowledge, reciprocity characteristics of TMY are bested only by Fuji Acros in this film category, and the single US source of that product in sheets charges $65.00 for a box of Quickloads.

[Ken Burns]

Burke:

Tech Pan for the 4x5 format is gross overkill and probably not a practical approach. It is such a slow film that you would probably have problems with depth of field and/or reciprocity dictated by the small apertures necessary to acheive adequate depth of field. Under most lighting situations, you probably would not be able to stop the lens down adequately to get necessary depth of field. Exposure times would be so long at the normal working apertures for the 4x5 format that reciprocity law failure as well subject movement would be a problem in many situations. The exposure times would be tremendously long. IMHO, T-Max 100 would be much more pracical.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

It might be overkill, and with such a low speed you will run into horrible reciprocity problems, on the other hand if you have a studio and/or a supernova is eminent, then it might not be a bad experiment. specially developed with a pyro type developer. This is an interesting question, I might even experiemtn with it.

[David Vickery]

Tech pan is not horrible or difficult or impossible. But it is different. It's probably the most DIFFERENT film of all standard films currently availble. In certain situations I believe that it is a tremendous tool to use(low contrast subjects esp.). Keep in mind what Dan Smith said and give it a try. I'd suggest trying one of the formulas in the Darkroom Cookbook or the Film Developing Cookbook or Technidal but be precise in your technique.

[Doug Paramore]

I honestly can't see going to the trouble of special processing, worrying if everything will turn out the same as last time, expensive developers and all the other problems associated with Tech-Pan just so I can get an ASA too low to be usable for much 4x5 work. Even ol' reliable Tri-X rated at 160 or HP-5 rated about 200 gets too slow at times with filters. Put in some bellows factor, a filter factor and you're down to almost nothing for an ASA rating. Why go to all this trouble when you can make perfectly fine prints in quite large sizes with medium or higher speed film. If you are going to do wall size prints, go ahead and use an 8x10. Fine grain just isn't a problem with normal size prints (16x20 to 20x24) with 4x5. I would certainly trade the additional speed of other films for the fine grain of Tech- Pan. Please feel free to disregard this personal opinion.

Regards,