After more than a decade, I've finally gathered up enough courage to shoot a roll of Kodak Technical Pan, which expired in 2001. The film is notorious for being difficult to process, it's difficult to tame its contrast, and both the film and its developer, Technidol, got discontinued in the early 2000s.
But I already had the film loaded, so there was no way back!
Finally, after carefully choosing those 10 exposures, I developed and scanned the film.
I've shot the film in Zenza Bronica GS-1, and standard 6×7 back, yielding ten exposures. I've used only one lens for the whole roll, Zenzanon-PG 80mm F3.5, one of only 500 made.
That's an extremely sharp lens, even wide-open, and I needed that - since the film was so expired, I shot it at 12 ASA. With no tripod, and having an 80mm lens, I had to keep the exposure above 1/80, and that meant wide apertures, even on bright sunny days.
Having no Technidol, I had two options - Rodinal 1+100 stand process, or FX-39 1+19. Despite being a big Rodinal fan, I've decided for FX-39, to keep the contrast under as much control as possible. The scans definitely aren't the best, negatives are sharper, but I've hit the limitations of my flatbed scanner.
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