So I'm looking at film prices....

[Tim V]

I'd love to see some examples you've shot with Pancro 400. Do you rate it at 200? I've often wondered if it's worth it against HP5+. It's similarly priced.

A reasonable alternative between these two is Bergger Pancro400 indeed, which is not grainy at 4x5 in PMK and should be about $94 for 50 sheets of gray...

[jnantz]

Hi OP.

If you are shooting colour film and you don't want to deal with expensive color prices you can always shoot 3 sheets of black and white and RGB filter accordingly and scan them and layer them into moderne trichromes. It is probably less expensive. ALSO film prices are what they are, sure they are kind of expensive but they take all the legwork and guesswork out of the equation so you can just enjoy yourself and expose. If you have the interest you can also shoot paper negatives or get yourself some dry plate holders and shoot some J.Lane Dry Plates, they are worth every penny spent ( and the modern dry plate holder kickstarter starts soon ).

Have Fun!

[paulbarden]

I'd love to see some examples you've shot with Pancro 400. Do you rate it at 200? I've often wondered if it's worth it against HP5+. It's similarly priced.

I like Pancro 400 a lot, and find it has more “character” than HP5. Pancro 400 offers exquisite subtle middle and upper gray values when processed in BER49 (same as Atomal49) and superb highlight separation. In fact, BER49 compares favorable with Pyro in overall character. Avoid processing this film in Rodinal: it ruins the subtler values.



https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4828/4...4e0585e6_c.jpg

[Wayne]

Who makes it now?

Who made 2007 11X14 Arista 100? Getting ready to shoot some.

Although I never used the 11x14, Arista 125 in 8x10 was still FP4 for batches expiring in 2005, and I think for a couple years after. I don't know exactly when it changed. But if yours says ISO 100 it must be something else.

[Willie]

Is this version of the Bergger film similar to earlier versions. Start longer development and it goes just so far and then basically sits there? Not very good for expansion development.

[m00dawg]

I'd love to see some examples you've shot with Pancro 400. Do you rate it at 200? I've often wondered if it's worth it against HP5+. It's similarly priced.

I find I get better results when rating it at 200 but I still get good results at 400 - the negatives just seem a bit thin compared to a sheet of TMX. I develop it in XTOL but suspect I might get better results using Bergger's developers. I like to standardize though and XTOL is super economical (doubly so when using replenishment and lets me be a bit fast and loose about how much chemical I pour into the tank). I've also tried to develop it more than their starting speeds. Still not at the negative density I'm used to seeing with other films but it does produce some lovely tones. I'm not much of a fan of it in the smaller formats (very grainy), but it does seem quite nice in the larger ones!

I inadvertently started a long discussion about film speed and development time because of the different results I get with Pancro 400 over other films. If you fancy a read, you can read up on it here.

EDIT: Oh forgot to mention, the 4x5 box of that Pancro 400 comes in is, by far, the best box I've seen (and it smells nice!). That's not the reason to buy the film but nonetheless, the box is sturdy, is a 3 box, puts 25 negatives in their own inner cardboard and plastic bag each.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Ilford HP5 and FP4.

[Drew Wiley]

jnantz - Making matching tricolor separations on sheet film is trickier than you might think, and you'll probably spend hundreds of bucks just on the learning curve, if you don't give up first. I guarantee it's going to much more expensive than buying color film, and a LOT more work! But it's one way to get more accurate color, provided nothing moves between shots. TMax 100 is the best film for this kind of usage. You need to be able to get precisely overlapping curves for all three separation filters. Most films won't do that.

[jnantz]

jnantz - Making matching tricolor separations on sheet film is trickier than you might think, and you'll probably spend hundreds of bucks just on the learning curve, if you don't give up first. I guarantee it's going to much more expensive than buying color film, and a LOT more work! But it's one way to get more accurate color, provided nothing moves between shots. TMax 100 is the best film for this kind of usage. You need to be able to get precisely overlapping curves for all three separation filters. Most films won't do that.

Hello Drew Wiley
I've been doing it for years and it hasn't given me any trouble yet. Im not quite sure why it is so tricky; and it never cost me hundreds of dollar on the steep learning curve. I invested about 15 minutes of reading a website and about 10 minutes watching a EEEW-Tube video.
The hardest part of the whole process is remembering which film is R, which film is G and which film is B; and if you do it manually, pre-stacking them so they don't bleed.
Perhaps I should have published this disclaimer ---->> Your Mileage May Vary <<----

>> added later <<

OP
As I mentioned it is a piece of cake, there is even an auto align layers action so that makes it even easier! If you are interested, here is a quick video that shows how easy it is to do.
--- >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S28OUlavAvg

WARNING: It is a lot of fun and might end up a little addictive

[Laminarman]

Paul that is beautiful.