120 Techpan and Technidol : What should I do?

[snaggs]

I have a few rolls of 120 techpan and a fresh pack of techidol frozen. What should I do? Borrow a 6x12 camera and shoot it? Will it look better than 4x5?

Daniel.

[Konical]

Good Morning, Daniel,

There should be no rush to use the film. Frozen Tech Pan will be good for years. I don't know if freezing the Technidol is a good idea or not, but there are similar developers available if that doesn't work out. Shot and processed properly, Tech Pan in 120 will easily challenge 4 x 5 print quality, but that assumes top-flight lenses, tripod use, a reasonable highlight/shadow range, etc.

Konical

[BrianL]

My favorite film. I still have some 120 and 35mm in the freezer. When processed as a continious tone transparency it is amazing.

[Mike Wilde]

I have a stash of tech pan, and have calibrated it with a mix yourself formula in the 'Darkroom Cookbook'. I was lucky enough to buy an old unopenned 8x10 box of 25 sheets for $4 at a swap show. One corner has uneven emulsion from pressure on the box for a number of years. I cut the 8x10 down to 4x5, and use the screwed up corner to calibrate the developer for N, and N-1 development so far.

Now I can use this developer with confidence on the 3 rolls of 120, and 2-rolls of 35mm TP O have in my frozen horde. The challenge now is to actually use the last of the stuff up.

[ic-racer]

I remember when T-max 100 came out in 120 size. It was a thousand times easier to get good results with that in T-max develper than theTech Pan in Technidol combo. The grain and sharpness are very close. So, If it were me, I'd sell it on ebay and get some T-max 100 .