Ilford just released some exciting news. PAN F 50 in sheet film! And they sent me 6 sheets to shoot and give them feedback. See the video
They already have Delta 100, FP4, HP5 and ORTHO in sheet film. Why has it taken so long to whip up PAN F 50? An emulsion many LF shooters have been itching to see come to town. I can only think that with the other sheet films the process and machinery was already there. Maybe to bring PAN F50 to sheet film required more than just a bit of jiggery pokery.
PAN F50, I would say, is no where near as popular as FP4 or HP5. Possibly due to its low speed and its unpredictability of the latent image being stable. Ilford recommend processing this film within a few months of exposure. Some say much sooner! It's not the sort of film you would shoot handheld either - unless you are shooting in bright sunlight. It's really a tripod film for most.
But, get this film right and you will soon notice the sharpness, super fine grain and wonderful tonality it has to offer.
I took my Intrepid 4x5 camera and 105mm lens out of the case and set up a simple table top window light studio and chose a couple of objects. An AGFA Record II folding camera and a studio session microphone.
I chose this camera as it has a good range of tones from the bright highlights of the lens to the deep shadows on the bellows. I literally was blown away after developing the negative in 510 PYRO.
- Literally no noticeable grain
- Amazing tonality and impressive dynamic range
- Razor sharp (see the letters on the lens which was my focal point)
There is a light leak on this negative, top right.
I then chose my second subject. A studio session microphone. I chose this for the mesh detail.
The detail in the mesh area of this microphone was outstanding. And of course it should be. An excellent film from Ilford combined with a brilliant developer.
Outside
I took two more sheets outside over the fields. Here is one of those photographs. For this I used an orange lens filter for the sky. My focus was set to infinite here, however, my lack of practice with large format left me with out of focus foreground from the cameras movements, even though I thought it was all in focus from what I saw on the ground glass under the curtain.
But even so. The detail is incredible once again. And the contrast!
This film needs a lot of light!
Before getting too excited in shooting this film in your large format camera - being a 50ISO film you are limited, as I was with the tabletop photos. Limited with aperture!
For my camera scene my light meter gave me (after bellows factor) f/11 and a third. And that was with a 1s exposure. This aperture was not small enough to focus so close on the lens AND get the rest of the camera in focus. Really I needed to shoot f/22 or smaller. For this my options were -
- Bring static lights in instead of window light. Nope. I wanted that natural window light.
- Push the film. Well, that would have been crazy. I would have got to f/22 but my contrast would have been nuts.
- Shutter speed. This is the most logical. I could have got f/22 if I chose 4s exposure. However, I would then have needed to include reciprocity failure and added a few more seconds bringing my total time to maybe 6 or 7 seconds.
The trouble with doing that is that if my light changed during that exposure time; if it got brighter outside say, then my negative would have been over exposed.
So the low speed of this film and large format could potentially be a pain for some, as I experienced.
Grain
I already said there was literally no grain that I could see. It was super clean! Personally I like to see grain in my prints. Take the tabletop photographs for example. I feel as though a little bit of film grain would have given it a bit more soul. Even with the landscape photograph.
With landscapes I always aim for minimal grain. But as I already said. I saw none.
Now, this was with 510 PYRO. With a different developer, maybe ID-11, who knows. But it is just a heads up to those who like to see grain in their prints.
If I had printed these in the darkroom I would have had to focus the enlarger without the focus finder!
Final thought
What a film! I love it. Always have, but never used it as much as I do other stocks. But I really should!
For this film and large format my subjects would be
- Product
- Scapes
- Architecture
However, going forward I really would need to nail the reciprocity failure for longer exposure times just so I can close my aperture down for more DOF.
Thanks for reading.
Roger.