For some time I've been experimenting with Kodak's Panatomic-X, a film which has long since ended production yet leaves a legendary status as one of the finest black and white films ever produced. As the stock I acquired had an expiration date of 1973, I decided to shoot subjects which were evocative of that era. A selection of the shots can be found on my Flickr page.
Due to the age of the film I dialled in a EI of 12 on the OM-2n, predicting a speed loss of one stop per decade of expiry. On a sunny day this didn't prove to be a problem, even when using the Zuiko 100mm f.2.8. With shorter lenses I used an orange filter in combination with a polarizer. Processing was straight forward enough; stand development in Rodinal 1:100 for an hour, with gentle inversions for the first thirty seconds and another series of five inversions after thirty minutes. The film chemistry has held up reasonably well. There is some mosaic patterning at a granular level and there's a little bit of base fogging, but nothing which prohibits normal printing. I'm looking forward to continuing this project into the Winter of 2014-15.
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I'm just getting used to my new exposure...Instructing film photography, developing and printing in the darkroom. Archives
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