Ilford Pan F 50 120: Perfect for Long Exposures!

A recent experience using an Ilford PanF 50 film roll into my Lubitel 166U, taking some photographs of interiors in natural light. The great contrast of this film allows me to obtain nice greytones even in conditions of low light.

I often used an Ilford PanF 50 film roll during the summer seasons, especially the 135mm format. This time I tested a 120mm roll into my Lubitel 166+ mounted on a tripod, to shot some photos in interiors without flash, using the available natural light only.

I made long exposures with narrow lens aperture, for example 12 seconds at F11 or even 16 seconds at F16, using a flexible cable to release the shutter in B pose.

This film was developed in Rodinal (R09 One Shot) at the dilution of 1:25 for 6 minutes, as indicated in the data sheet of the developer. I obtained pleasant and rich greytones and very small grain, almost invisible!

This film has a great contrast, so even in poor light conditions you can take advantage of the whole greyscale tones of the film; the images are never flat!

As many other films, the long exposures require a time adjustment. As written in the Ilford data sheet, you don’t need an exposure correction between 1/2 ad 1/1000 second. When the measured exposure time is larger than 1/2 second you might increase the time as indicated in a graph. For example, for a measured exposure of 15 seconds you need to add an extra time of 50% (7,5 seconds), while for an exposure of 30 seconds you need to increase the time for an extra time of 150% (45 seconds).

The development was made using the instruction of the Rodinal R09: continuous agitation for 1 minutes, and then one inversion every 30 seconds.

For those who loved positive black and white images (b/w slides), the Ilford website report in the fact sheet page a pdf application sheet that describes how to perform a reversal processing.

In this crop of the last images, you can see the exposure time of 12 seconds that I used in the photo above (watch the second hand will!)

A great film for a great Lubitel!

written by sirio174 on 2012-11-30 in #gear #medium-format #black-and-white #ilford #review #still-life #lubitel-166 #requested-post #ilford-pan-f-50-120 #pan-f-50