Lab Status
This film has a very unique look – it has high contrast, rich charcoal looking blacks, and with medium exposure latitude. It’s a film you never want to underexpose which will result in a muddy look with no shadow detail – so be sure to meter for the shadows. Its ideal for street photography and can be a good portrait film as well.
Bergger Pancro 400 vs JCH Street Pan 400 film
Buy this film online – 35mm | 120 Rolls
Don’t waste your time on this over-priced re-spooled surveillance film. It has no latitude, and 400 ISO is extremely generous. Negatives always come out looking thin.
The first roll of this film I shot at EI 320, and developed normally in Rodinal. The results were so underexposed and lacking in shadow detail that they wouldn’t even scan. After just now processing another roll exposed at EI 200 and developing normally, I can already tell that the shadows in nearly every scene are completely lost.
I have another two rolls left, and probably will not shoot them.
If you do want to use this film, overexpose the heck out of it, and hope for the best!
I’ve shot maybe 50 or so rolls of film by now including quite a few different types. I’ve never actually had any turn out bad. The results of using this film were horrible. It turned out so terrible my local shop wasn’t even able to scan the negatives. I tried my hardest to make a decent contact sheet off the negs and nothing would work to recover the faint images that existed. Worst film ever. For street photography I’d definitely stick with Kodak Tri-X or Ilford HP over this. Both of those are 100 times better.
Little to no shadow detail, has way too much contrast for a 400 speed film (same level of contrast as Tri-x pushed to around 6400) with ugly grain at a premium price point.
Why bother.
I found the film to have way too much contrast with very poor shadow details. The dark areas of your scene will come out as solid chunks of black and light/dark greys are dirty and noisy. Overall a lot of grain and though I love film grain the grain on this one is just too distracting.
It has potential. I have to shoot more of it and do some actual darkroom prints. But it’s a fun film.
