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Response to Old b&w film

from Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com)
Not long ago I found a brick of Panatomic-X lying around from my commercial days. It had been sitting unrefrigerated for at least 10 years.

Anyway, since I had 20 rolls of the stuff, I shot a test roll and developed it. The negatives came out heavily fogged, with the image barely discernible. Therefore, I strongly recommend using a restrainer, as Ryuji Suzuki suggested. Because of the extreme fog I found with my Pan-X, I would suggest adding 15ml of 0.2% Benzotriazole / 1000ml to the "A" portion of your two part developer and 0.5g Potassium Bromide to your "B" solution. That should tame the fog, although it may inhibit shadow detail. But given the high fog I found with my film, I think you will have to restrain the developer at the expense of some shadow detail. Otherwise you may wind up with next to nothing. Lastly, if the film comes out thin, you can treat it in selenium 1+2, selenium to water, for 10 minutes with 10 sec/min agitation. That will give you another grade of contrast without any significant image degradation. Good luck!

(posted 8474 days ago)

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