PanF+...in sheets (or the day silver became more sought after than gold)
- temporallightimages
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
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When I restarted my blog posting 10 days or so ago.....I really did not expect to be writing this one. If you had told me that a mere few days after releasing that post the landscape of large format film photography will have changed (hopefully forever) so dramatically, I would not have believed a word of it.
Rumours (for me) started on Tuesday last week that something big was coming from Ilford Photo (surely now leading contenders for company of the year?) A teaser from Ilford on the social networks. I have been here before though. I have been one of the "campaigners" for PanF+ to be made available in sheets for years and it would now appear I wasn't a lone voice in the dark and Ilford were listening.
Wednesday came and by now I was trying to contain my growing belief that PanF+ was the release. Another teaser from Ilford which I dissected :
"More detail" (sounds like PanF+)
"More drama" (sounds like panF+)
"More everything!" ( everything ....everything?...... "pan" ...it's got to be PanF+)
On Wednesday night my friend Dave, posted to our group a screenshot of the PanF+ data sheet....and there it was in black and white.......available in sheets. It was true ! !
Still holding back the belief (I remember April fools day Ilford...I remember) I stayed up until midnight just in case it was available bang on the stroke of the 7th May. It wasn't.
I woke the next day on "Ilford PanF+ Bank Holiday Thursday". A company in the USA had it on sale for a few minutes ...then it was gone. I was now 99.9% sure there was no joke and it was coming. I spent most of the day refreshing the Large format film page on the Ilford website, but still it wouldn't appear. Sometime after lunch after about 10,000 refreshers of the page....just when I was thinking I should probably just carry on with my day......something changed...that last refresh...there was something there and there was !
I immediately bought <unspecified number of> box/es of 10x8. I had thought long and hard about buying 5x4 AND 10x8 but my rational thinking suggested that if I had it in 10x8.....the 5x4 would not be shot for a long time. (I have a 7x5 field camera, with a 5x4 back I can put on, and reserve this mostly for IR and colour.)
Later that day wondering if I should have bought a further box for the freezer...I found it sold out in 10x8 ! !
I did find 1 box available at Nik and Trick and after telling my son about the "current climate" and "cost of living/shooting film" and the inevitable reduction in pocket money.....I bought the box, paying for instant delivery just in case the workload and logistics from the 4 million boxes Ilford had likely sold in 4 hours caused a delay in postage.
A single box arrived on Saturday and a single sheet was shot on Sunday.
Only one sheet exposed so far, as I only had an hour yesterday and the shoot was from a very precarious position so took some time to get set up. But it was a fantastic moment and I have many more to look forward to.
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For those interested:
Exposure - F32 and 6.5 seconds
Camera - John Nesbitt 10x8 field camera
Location - River Teifi near henllan Bridge
Development - Ilford ID11 1+1 for 8 mins 15 seconds (Stearman810 daylight tray)
Film stock - Ilford PanF+ ......(10x8 sheet ! ! !)
This negative looks to have nice potential so will likely form the subject of a "field note blog" to come. I suspect there will be more....its marvelous stuff !
Thank You for reading
John
Brilliant write-up John. I was pleased to share the days with you ☺️