Kodak Tech Pan 8x10

[kodachrome90]

A good friend of mine was clearing out all his film stock and gave me 5 boxes of Kodak technical pan 8x10, each box containing 50 sheets. Based on what ive seen its super rare. It expired in 06 and has been refrigerated since purchase. Any idea as the value of this film?

[Brian C. Miller]

Stick one box on eBay for $1, and see what the auction ends at. Then offer the rest of them for at least 20% more. The film has its dedicated followers, but it does require a special developer.

The current grain champion (IMHO) is Fujifilm Acros. It's available for about $180/box for 20 sheets, and works well with any normal developer.

[Jim Jones]

. . . The film has its dedicated followers, but it does require a special developer. . . .

Tech Pan has often been used for fine grain continuous tone photography of ordinary subjects. Special developers may work best for this. Standard film with standard developers should do as well or better in large format. Tech Pan excels for emphasizing texture and contrast in flat subjects. For this I use whatever paper developer is handy, usually Kodak Polymax. Tech Pan in paper developer is also a fair substitute for litho film, especially if red sensitivity is needed.

[John O'Connell]

I sold my last partial bulk roll of TP a few years ago, and I got about $0.50 a foot. It was expired, but there was a keen auction for it.

POTA is supposedly a usable developer for continuous-tone use, although I always used Technidol (and still have some). I did not find Rodinal to give usable results at any dilution.

Seeing this post made me a bit nostalgic for the stuff; it did scan wonderfully.

[Jim Galli]

Tri-X is $7.65 a sheet and Tmax is 8.50 and neither of those has the cult idol worship going for it that Tech Pan has. I think you're looking at $450 - $550 a box. Age has little to do with tech pan. In a cold environment it might last 60 years. I hate the stuff, but then, that's just me.

[Vaughn]

I love the stuff, but could not really afford to pick some up. I have been using some out-dated 4x5 with great results. I want the high contrast for carbon printing.

Redwood, 2012
Redwood National Park, CA
Gowland 4x5, Caltar IIN 150/5.6, Tech Pan
Scanned carbon print

[Drew Wiley]

The value of Tech Pan is not just as a fine-grained general film. It was never originally designed for that anyway, but as a pan sensitive very high resolution, high
contrast copy film witth extended red sensitivity. Ordinary lith films share none of these special characteristics. And Brian, it is FAR finer-grained than ACROS, as are a number of other slow speed films. I don't personally like it for general shooting because it has poor shadow and highlight tonality, even with special developers, and has poor edge acutance compared to many other films like ACROS, is very slow, and requires special developers. BUT I have used it quite a bit as a forensic film, or when I needed pan sensitivity in a highlight mask or other high contrast application.

[kodachrome90]

Thanks for all the responses. Pretty excited about getting this out onto the market. Maybe i'll finally be able to get that Leica ive been drooling about since I was 13.

[vinny]

"a special developer", yeah I call it Rodinal.

[Brian C. Miller]

But Drew, it isn't made anymore, thus it isn't a currently manufactured film. Of course it beats Acros for grain. Duh! I used Tech Pan when I was calibrating my Graflex. Acros is the currently manufactured champ, but not the champ of all time. Personally I love Tech Pan, and I do miss it. So I "make do" with Ilford Delta 100 in 8x10. Yes, there are other films finer than Acros, but what is generally available in 8x10? (And come to think of it, Acros 8x10 is only available from Japan.)

(All I have posted is in reference to currently manufactured 8x10 films.)

[Vaughn]

"a special developer", yeah I call it Rodinal.

I just use D-76 -- but again, for high contrast...

[Drew Wiley]

OK, Brian ... I get the point. I still have a few sheets of 8x10 Acros left. Wish they'd import it. But with the incessant wind around here it would be hard to switch
from TMY. Up in the high country I use ACROS a lot, but mostly in 4x5. I like the orthopan sensitivity. I'd shoot it up there in 8x10 too if I thought I could get more.
Efke 25 was avail until recently in 8x10 and extremely fine grained - too many quirks to tempt me to use it in sheets, however.

[onnect17]

Great emulsion. I have some 9.5" in the freezer. I would use an ED lens, Pyrocat-HD or xtol and scan it above 5000 dpi. Otherwise it's a waste of film.

[Mark Sampson]

Tech Pan's inherent high contrast work for some people, witness Vaughn, but it never did anything for me pictorially. The short tonal scale and development issues (unevenness, streaking) made it unpleasant to use in normal circumstances. (At Kodak we used it for a variety of things in the lab, where it excelled.) And I wonder at the logic of using an ultra fine grained film in 8x10, even if you're making 40"x60" prints. Is it just to say "I've got the finest grain film", like "I have the sharpest lens"? Perhaps people just like its look, in which case more power to them.

[John O'Connell]

I had occasional issues with the stuff, but it gave a great look for portraits due to the extended red sensitivity. And it was very nice for big prints: I know a guy whose career was essentially defined by a 72mm SAXL, 4x5 TP, and big rolls of Tapestry X paper.

[ic-racer]

A good friend of mine was clearing out all his film stock and gave me 5 boxes of Kodak technical pan 8x10, each box containing 50 sheets. Based on what ive seen its super rare. It expired in 06 and has been refrigerated since purchase. Any idea as the value of this film?

Not much if he gave them away.

[benrains]

I know someone else who just recently got seventy-five of the 8x10 50 sheet boxes at no cost from someone he knew. I don't know what 8x10 TP is going for on the open market, but I did see that similarly aged and stored Technical Pan 4x5 50 sheet boxes have been selling for $200 on eBay.

[vinny]

Ben, Tell them I could use just two boxes. I love the stuff in overcast conditions.

[Drew Wiley]

Nowadays serious art sleuthing and restoration experts have all kinds of expensive devices; and most photo restoration projects are now done digitally. But when
someone showed up with what they imagined was an Old Masters painting and didn't want to spend ten grand and wait for months for an opinion, or risk the guess
of some antique dealer down the road, it's pretty amazing the kinds of hard information a bit of IR film and TechPan could tell them for a few hundred bucks. I took
one glance at a "Carravagio" once (which the client hoped was worth millions), and knew if it was indeed old, it was probably a copy by some klutzy art student.
But they aren't paying me for my opinion. So when the red filter and film shows the ghost image of "Dogs with Cards" in the underpainting, back the thing goes to Grandma's closet, and no need to spend thousands more.

[vinny]

Nowadays serious art sleuthing and restoration experts have all kinds of expensive devices; and most photo restoration projects are now done digitally. But when
someone showed up with what they imagined was an Old Masters painting and didn't want to spend ten grand and wait for months for an opinion, or risk the guess
of some antique dealer down the road, it's pretty amazing the kinds of hard information a bit of IR film and TechPan could tell them for a few hundred bucks. I took
one glance at a "Carravagio" once (which the client hoped was worth millions), and knew if it was indeed old, it was probably a copy by some klutzy art student.
But they aren't paying me for my opinion. So when the red filter and film shows the ghost image of "Dogs with Cards" in the underpainting, back the thing goes to Grandma's closet, and no need to spend thousands more.

I got my tech pan, 4x5 hsi, and 400 rolls of konica ir from a guy who shot dead sea scrolls and other artifacts like that for a living. He had all sorts of stuff I'd never seen.