120 Roll Film, 10 rolls.
ILFORD PAN-F is a slow, ISO50, traditional black and white film with extremely fine grain. Originally formulated in the 1930’s, Ilford Pan-F is perfect whenever high level of fine detail is required. Understandably it is especially popular with landscape photography because of the abundance of fine detail in this genre. Pan-F is not the easiest film to expose and, if you’re new to using film, we would probably not recommend it. This is because it can deliver variable and disappointing results without testing and experience in exposure. It is certainly NOT a film to just try the odd roll now and again, and it is also a film where the best before date should be observed more tightly than other black and white films, such as FP4 or HP5, which seem much more resilient to the passage to time. To get the best from Pan-F, we would recommend shooting it extensively, with accurate metering and get to know it well. Once you nail down your exposure and development, it rewards with superb results.
It follows from this that you should also stick with the same developer if you are processing yourself, or the same lab, with professional standards, if you are sending out. At Ag, we keep our black and white process maintained within extremely tight parameters so, if you choose us to process your Pan-F, you can rely on the development to be identical every time. This is important with any black and white film, not just Pan-F. Click here for Ag processing.
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Important notes on shelf life and latent image stability of PAN-F
It’s often widely assumed that all black and white films perform similarly in terms of shelf life – that is to say, you can expose these films well beyond their “best before” date without significant compromise in the resulting images. This is often the case, but it is by no means a universal rule, and Ilford PAN-F does NOT perform well when exposed beyond the stated best before date or if it has been subjected to poor storage conditions. The latent image stability (the exposed, but unprocessed image) is also poor and the film should be processed as soon as possible after exposure. At Ag, when processing customer films, we see a many disappointing results from PAN-F caused by use of old film or excessive time between exposure and processing. Here is a note from the technical team, at Ilford, about PAN-F:
It’s our oldest film formulation – and though the product has many favourable attributes (fine grain, broad tonal range, sharp, slow speed etc), its unfortunately our least robust product. ie. if used when old /exceeded our expiry dates, or if there are long time gaps between exposure and processing – it can be way more prone to latent image regression (lighter signing [edge marking] / lighter images) – than all our other film products. Its why we guide to try and process it within 3 months of exposure – in our Technical info sheets.
It also can be more prone to wrapper interaction / mottle – if used when old/has long time gaps – compared to our other film products.
Additionally, the product is less robust to poor storage (heat/high humidity) compared to our other film products. Aside from the old formulation making it less robust – this film is also more susceptible to problems because of it being the slowest speed from our film range. But so long as stored well, processed as soon as possible after exposure – and used within our guide expiry dates, we would always expect optimum performance.
We hope this doesn’t put customers off shooting PAN-F, it’s a wonderful black and white film and perfect for many genre (eg. landscapes)!
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