1963 Expired Panatomic-X 4x5 Film!

[Andrew O'Neill]

Cracked open a box, expired the year I was born, that I bought off of ebay, and took it for a spin...


https://youtu.be/Jqrcsi7m3q8

[John Layton]

Excellent! Can't wait to see the comparison photos w/tmx!

...and I still have a few sheets of 11x14 Tri-X, exp. date 6/88 and stored all over the place in all kinds of hot/warm/cold conditions, which I've so far had great luck with, albeit the quite visible (and sometimes actually quite handy!) base fog!

[Drew Wiley]

More of a museum piece, just like a taxidermied dodo bird. I have a mini-museum of interesting obsolete boxed roll film in my freezer. Kinda like collecting vintage beer cans or bottles.
But if ya wanna try ... I think the most desperate attempt was when they found Mummery's 1920's camera finally thawing out a glacier on Everest with the film still in it, hoping it would resolve the great question whether or not they ever reached the summit of Everest long before Hillary & Tenzing. Mummery's body itself was found frozen way up there, but distinctly below the summit. Nodody knows where he dropped the camera, and the images themselves were no longer any good. If it had been, it woulda been a helluva testimonial for Kodak advertising or whomever : "Glacier-Proof Film".

Expiration dates are interesting. I once had a can of Pepsi fall out of a vending machine with a stamp on it, Best before 1872. It didn't taste any more awful than allegedly fresh Pepsi does.

Thanks, Andrew; that was fun. But I certainly wouldn't call a base fog of .30 "low".

[Andrew O'Neill]

More of a museum piece, just like a taxidermied dodo bird. I have a mini-museum of interesting obsolete boxed roll film in my freezer. Kinda like collecting vintage beer cans or bottles.
But if ya wanna try ... I think the most desperate attempt was when they found Mummery's 1920's camera finally thawing out a glacier on Everest with the film still in it, hoping it would resolve the great question whether or not they ever reached the summit of Everest long before Hillary & Tenzing. Mummery's body itself was found frozen way up there, but distinctly below the summit. Nodody knows where he dropped the camera, and the images themselves were no longer any good. If it had been, it woulda been a helluva testimonial for Kodak advertising or whomever : "Glacier-Proof Film".

Expiration dates are interesting. I once had a can of Pepsi fall out of a vending machine with a stamp on it, Best before 1872. It didn't taste any more awful than allegedly fresh Pepsi does.

Thanks, Andrew; that was fun. But I certainly wouldn't call a base fog of .30 "low".

To me it was low, as I was expecting it to be much higher... like my 4x5 HIE expired in '67, with base fog around .60... I'm more used to base fogs of around .11 :)

[Vaughn]

I use Tech Pan and Pro Copy Film from the 70s and get clean negatives...different (slow) beasties. And some TMax400 expired in 2011 that does have too much fog...especially with staining developers (stain added to the fog -- nap time during print exposures!)

[Daniel Unkefer]

Vaughn,
I have a couple of boxes of Pro Copy Film from the 80s. I remember Expansion development and SLIMT. Should I make long exposures with it under soft lighting? What's it's best use? I too also have 4x5 Tech Pan

[Daniel Unkefer]

Those look good Andy! It's always cool and fun to shoot olde film! Especially when it comes out LOL.

I have 100ft of 35mm Panatomic-x perfect shape I'm saving for special uses. I've used some in D23 recently came out good. Microdol-X too

[Mark Sampson]

Daniel,
Professional Copy Film 4125 was a special-purpose lab film designed specifically to reproduce b/w photographs. It's ortho-sensitive, and the curve has an unusual up-sweep in the high values. I used many hundreds of sheets of it in my photo-lab days. A tricky film to get right, even in controlled conditions, but worked very well when you did. I never tried using it as a camera film, and I'm not quite sure why you'd want to. But (obviously) Vaughn knows what he's doing; I hope he'll reply with his use and approach for Pro Copy.
Panatomic-X hasn't been available in sheet film for probably fifty years, or in 35mm for 30. it's wonderful to see that it's still usable.

[Drew Wiley]

Tech Pan was especially stable. Dunno what I'm gonna do with all my 8x10 sheets of it. Bought em for very high contrast pan highlight masking purposes, so way more versatile than regular ortho-litho. But now that I shoot mostly color neg film instead of chromes, no longer need it, that is, unless I ever find the time to seriously get into dye transfer printing, which is getting more an more unlikely due to finding high-quality competing options for printing color in the darkroom. I used 4x5 and 120 Tech Pan for forensic art sleuthing copy stand purposes as well as photo restoration techniquea back before those tasks mainly went over to digital. It's always been a so-so, or very so-so pictorial film, and was named "Technical" for a reason.

The last official black and white Copy Film (4X5) I tried was already outdated so much that it sometimes reticulated and frilled off its base sheet during processing. But I got a few good snowshoeing shots anyway.

[Daniel Unkefer]

Thanks Mark!

I remember photo articles, you could achieve N+3, N+4, N+5, and up.

Interesting material

[Vaughn]

Tech Pan was especially stable. Dunno what I'm gonna do with all my 8x10 sheets of it. ...

Both the Tech Pan and the 4125 can be very useful to nuts like me for low to normal contrast situations that I wish to create a high contrast in-camera negative.

I used the (4x5) 4125 (Professional Copy Film) this summer in the Redwoods. Not the best film for sun-lit conditions. As Drew mentioned, the highlights can start taking a hike clear out of sight before you know it. The difference between one stop exposure can create a whole different relationship between low and high values (not always wanted). Its own special rule is to expose for the highlights and develop for the shadows. Love the stuff. I find the Tech Pan is a little more versitile for landscape than the Copy Film.

A 4x5 carbon print. Island Rock, Redwood Creek, 2012, Redwood National Park
4x5 Kodak Tech Pan film (ASA 25) developed in D-76 1:1.
Film exposed and developed 2012. First printing, 2022.

[Michael R]

Drew, I suggest selling both your Tech Pan and Pan-X films. Lots of rubes out there who go bonkers for old junk, especially those two because they have the coolest names.


Tech Pan was especially stable. Dunno what I'm gonna do with all my 8x10 sheets of it. Bought em for very high contrast pan highlight masking purposes, so way more versatile than regular ortho-litho. But now that I shoot mostly color neg film instead of chromes, no longer need it, that is, unless I ever find the time to seriously get into dye transfer printing, which is getting more an more unlikely due to finding high-quality competing options for printing color in the darkroom. I used 4x5 and 120 Tech Pan for forensic art sleuthing copy stand purposes as well as photo restoration techniquea back before those tasks mainly went over to digital. It's always been a so-so, or very so-so pictorial film, and was named "Technical" for a reason.

The last official black and white Copy Film (4X5) I tried was already outdated so much that it sometimes reticulated and frilled off its base sheet during processing. But I got a few good snowshoeing shots anyway.