Technical Pan: 3/8/2006

There's been some tech talk about the resolving power of the Carl Zeiss lenses, and I thought it might be fun to put that to use with some Kodak Technical Pan film that I have. For those not familiar with the film, Technical Pan – often called TechPan or TPan – is an extremely fine-grained film almost to the point of being grainless. It's a slow film, rated at ISO 25.

And luck would have it that just three years after I began using it, Kodak killed it.

TechPan is a high-contrast film originally developed for copying purposes and adapted to general use photography. It's best processed in Technidol developer, strictly following Kodak's instructions.

The first time I agitated a roll of TechPan in Technidol, I actually laughed out loud. You have to vigorously shake the development tank. For some reason, it just seemed very funny – you had to be there.

There also is an alternative method – process in Rodinal at 1:300.

I think my negatives have come out a bit too thin, and the next roll will be at 1:250 or possibly increase agitation. I hope I don't run out of film before I find a suitable alternative development method. I'm also having a dust problem, which I'll need to solve shortly.

I had told myself that I was finished shooting at the stables. Of course, I found myself back at the stables with the Zeiss Ikon, the 50mm Planar and a roll of TechPan.

Shooting conditions were very harsh. Very little light inside, and an extremely bright day outside with plenty of snow on the black ground.

One note about shooting. If you recall, I don't have the auxiliary viewfinder for the 25mm Biogon, as I've been using the full viewfinder and ignoring frame lines. I've been using the 25 so much that it sometimes is causing me framing problems with the 50mm Planar. I know there have been a couple of times when I took some photos using the entire viewfinder image. I have to remind myself to look for the framelines. Not exactly one of life's major issues, but still something for me to keep in mind.

Anyway, I wasn't pleased at all with the negatives. They weren't extremely thin, but thin enough that every speck of dust shows up in each scan. Scanning is a lot like using an enlarger with a condenser head – it shows every flaw in a negative.

So anyway, no photos this time around. I have a roll of Kodak Gold 200 – just need to locate it.