In this Developing Adventure, I shot and developed my first roll of Bergger Pancro 400. I see my friend Bill Smith shooting with it often on his photo blog and really like the look. It almost has the same classic television look of Double X. If you read my article on Eastmans Double X film then you know I really liked that film.
Developing Bergger Pancro 400
I processed this roll in my go-to developer Kodak D-76 stock solution for 9 minutes and agitated for the first 30 seconds and then for 10 seconds every minute after that. Bergger’s instructions actually say to fix it for 6 minutes instead of the usual 5 that I do for other films. I fixed it as always with Ilford’s Rapid Fixer.
My Results
I shot this roll both indoors and outdoors, and unlike many 400 speed films I have shot, photos of Frankie on my bed actually came out properly. This astonished me because I have shot so many pics of my little guy in the same lighting situation with films I have to push, and they barely come out. The only other film I have been able to shoot indoors with a low ISO was Double X.
You can see the photo below of Frankie is in the same setting and lighting, but the film was pushed to 800. I just found that interesting.
Then, Kelsey and I went for a walk, so I brought my Canon F1 along with Bergger still loaded in it, and just took photos around our neighborhood.
I love the look of the contrast in this film. It has such a clean, yet classic look to it. The whites are very white, but yet there is still a good tonal range.
Even in a time when the sun was going down and creating a lot of contrast, the tones are still holding up. The shadows aren’t muddy.
Final Thoughts
I love this film. I will definitely be using it again, especially since it is around the same price as Ilford HP5. I’ve read that this is a two emulsion film, which gives it a wide latitude so I am going to try pushing it to see how it holds up in that way as well. Stay tuned.
Until next time, stay motivated and keep shooting.
These are really nice images. This is an interesting film. Never heard of a dual emulsion film before. Relevant link is https://bergger.com/media/wysiwyg/Fiches_techniques/Pancro400_en.pdf.
Thanks Merlin and thanks for the link. It is very interesting