Hello! Do any of you esteemed experts have experience developing Kodak Tech Pan sheet film? I have read somewhere that it is very trick to do a good job in its roll film version, any tips for developing the sheet film variety? Thanks for any info!

-- John Kasaian (www.kasai9@aol.com), March 16, 2002

Answers

Sorry, I meant to say"tricky" to do a good job with roll film. Also, are the POTA developers from Photographer's Formulary the equal to Kodak's pricey Technidol?

-- John Kasaian (www.kasai9@aol.com), March 16, 2002.

I have processed Technical Pan in the Kodak POTA developer with little hitch. I prefer to use Edwal FG-7, 1:15 in a 9% sodium sulfite solution, because the Edwal chemistry is so much easier to mix up.

BTW, should you ever run into a circumstance where the meter needle barely moves between important highlight and shadow value, try rating tech pan at ISO 100, place the shadow on Zone IV/V and process it as you would for Tmax 100 at N-1. result is a +++ negative that prints rather easily. Bob

-- Bob Moulton (bobmargaretm@insightbb.com), March 16, 2002.

I fiddled with tech pan and Pyro and that's an exercise in futility. I had a much easier time getting Graphic Arts Ortho to behave for about 10 cents on the dollar to what Tech Pan costs. Bob's idea sounds like it should work pretty neat though. Skip the Pyro.

-- Jim Galli (jimgalli@lnett.com), March 16, 2002.

I've only used Tech Pan in 120 and I was very disappointed. Mostly it had to do with the film's poor blue response. I found that I couldn't get nice dark (clear on the neg) skies because it didn't respond to filters in the normal way.

Back in the 80's Kodak claimed 4x5 quality out of this stuff and in 35 mm format. Arguably the grain approached 4x5 - and I wouldn’t argue hard for this stuff - but it certainly didn't have the detail that a bigger neg would have.

Anyway with all the pain that you go through to process this film properly, the slow speed of the emulsion and the lack of normal filter response I'd just use a normal film. Why make life hard.

-- David Grandy (dgrandy@grandyphoto.com), March 16, 2002.

Thank you one and all! Madame Tech Pan sounds like someone I wouldn't want to tangle with!

-- John Kasaian (www.kasai9@aol.com), March 17, 2002.

I consider myself lucky. I haven't had any of the problems listed above. My only word of advice is to pre-wet, especially for the 120. I use mostly technidol developer. I tried pyro and got too much contrast. Someday I'm going to try Diafine. Good luck. Peter

-- Peter McDonough (31416@attbi.com), March 17, 2002.