In my installment of Developing Adventures where I shot with Bergger Pancro 400 for the first time, I found that I really liked the look of this film. Naturally, my next step was to push it and see how it held up at ISO 800. I learned from that roll that this film has fine grain, and a moderate bit of contrast.
Developing Bergger Pancro 400 at 800
I processed this roll in Kodak HC-110 dilution B (1+31) for 11 minutes and 15 seconds. I fixed it in Ilford’s Rapid Fixer for 6 minutes and agitated for the first 30 seconds and 10 seconds every minute after that.
My Results
Right off the bat, I can see that there is a lot more grain when this film is pushed to 800. This surprised me because the film at box speed had relatively fine grain, and usually pushing a film to 800 doesn’t change too much. It may be difficult to see on here because of compression. See comparison below.
Right: Bergger Panaro Pushed to 800
The contrast is also a lot stronger after this film is pushed. The grain and contrast could also have been enhanced by the HC-110 developer. I wonder if it would’ve been a little less with D76 stock. I don’t have anymore rolls of this film, so I couldn’t test it. See the card in the pic below for an example of the grain.
Final Thoughts
I share these results with you all in hopes that it will maybe give you an idea of whether or not you want to shoot the film or push it yourself. I hope this series has helped. It has become very time consuming and a bit expensive so I may have to start doing them less often. I haven’t been well so I haven’t been able to do as much lately. I would like to try pushing this film again when I can afford a couple more rolls. Stay tuned.
Until next time, stay motivated and keep shooting.
