 Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Well, you read the title and it isn't bullshit. I am going to try and pull out some exposures on some 60 year old sheet film, more specifically some 8x10 Panatomic X that expired in 1958. You may not personally remember the 1950s, but here's a quick recap from someone who wasn't alive then. Times were good, World War 2 is over, houses are abundant and affordable, and the whole Harambe thing won't happen for another 50 years or so. This whole thing started when I was sent some expired Panatomic X by a fellow named Andrew. Develop before July 1958. Oops. What am I feeling right now? Emotionally. Kodak Panatomic X is a black and white film and was discontinued by Kodak in 1987. Panatomic X has cemented itself in the history books as the film that was shot and route to as well as on the moon. Of course they didn't shoot 8x10 on the moon, even though that would have been f**king sick. But enough history lessons, this film's oldest s**t, so what am I planning on doing about it? Like humans, film starts to expire as it gets older. The only difference is that the light-sensitive chemicals on film decay over time and lose their sensitivity, whereas on humans, farts turn into shards. The general rule of thumb is to add a stop of light for every decade that the film has expired, but there are quite a few asterisks to this rule. And I've personally really only found this rule to be effective for a color-negative film. Supposedly black and white film doesn't decay as fast as other classes of films, and as an added bonus, lower ISO films don't lose their sensitivity as fast over time. It doesn't actually say what ISO this is. Though it doesn't say it on the box specifically, Panatomic X is generally rated at 32 ISO. Additionally, how you store your film also makes a huge difference in longevity. If it was stored in a freezer or buried on the ice planet hoth for 60 years, then yeah, it might be actually pretty close to its original ISO. If the film was stored in a room temperature or swampy humid environment like Dagobah, then it's probably f**ked. What I'm saying with all this is it's a total crapshoot. So step one, we're going to have to do some test exposures to see exactly what ISO the film is reading. To do this, I used my big brain energy and developed a test that should put us somewhere in the ballpark. I would shoot three sheets, one at one stop overexposed, one at four stops overexposed, and lastly one sheet at, well, frankly the shutter times were starting to get kind of ugly so I just said f**k it and doubled down to a thousand seconds. If nothing turned up on the first two shots, I figured this would be some sort of film photography hail Mary. So far in my large format career, I'm 9 for 9 on exposures. Not one shot has been f**ked up beyond repair, and it's a badge of honor that I wear proudly, even though literally no one gives a s**t. But that perfect record is about to change, so I'm sad. So now that the test has been shot, let's skip ahead to the future and see if we got anything tangible. Three days later. I'm trying to get your good side. Oh s**t, there's actually something on here. There's something on all of these actually, holy crap, I really did not expect anything on these. Alright, well, I didn't consider a third option in which all three sheets actually have a photo on them and none of them are too f**ked up beyond recognition, which is more than I can say about my 21st birthday. The exposure is a little hit or miss, but it actually gives us a lot of good information about the current state of the film. So here's the first shot, shot one stop over at ISO 16. Not too far off to be honest, a little underexposed but usable. This image displays heavy flaring or something going on here that wasn't in the others. I'm kind of suspecting that that was because it was the first sheet on the top of the stack and maybe over the years it just got fogged or something. Kind of like the top layer of a luscious wet lasagna getting more burned than the center part. Additionally, don't worry too much about the scanning marks, I just got some ANR glass that should hopefully kind of take care of that because those Newton rings are going a**. If you'd like to know more information about that, too bad, this isn't the video for it. Here's the next shot at ISO 2, which is four extra stops of light. Yeah, definitely a little bit overexposed. And lastly, here's the unknown Hail Mary shot, which has little to no detail in the highlights and plenty of information in the shadows, which is an obvious sign of overexposure. So what ISO is this god damn thing? I'm thinking it's probably good to go at its original ISO of 32. Or maybe even 16 is where we should shoot this bad boy. At 16 it seemed maybe slightly underexposed in some parts, but otherwise fine, except for the flaring. But hey, I'm willing to look past that because I too have flare ups of unknown origin. It's kind of crazy to think that 60 years past its expiration and by definition probably an archeological relic, and it's still good to go at its original ISO. But whatever. Without out of the way, now's the fun part. Let's go shoot. I loaded up my 8x10 Slammers and hit the road. We headed out to the desert to do a s**t load of ayahuasca. If you're a cop watching this, ayahuasca is just a slang term used to describe reading a good book, staying hydrated, respecting your elders, and being home well before curfew. Unfortunately our ayahuasca spot had been compromised as there were a lot of people there, so I just shot 8x10 instead. I had a new 120mm lens for the 8x10 that I was dying to try out. A 120mm lens is about equivalent to a 15mm lens on standard 35 or full frame. Of course that meant that my camera had to be flat and like roadkill to achieve focus. Online reviews of Panatomic X say that the grain is so fine that it's virtually unnoticeable. Gotta say, this wasn't really the case with my results. These images shove the grain right up your a**, but it adds to the texture. Does this mean that film reviews are dirty liars and I'm the only person on the internet that you can trust? Nope. The opposite, actually. It's entirely possible that because we're shooting an expired film, we're not seeing a true representation of the stock's rendering. I took this shot and I remember thinking that this shot was gonna be so cool, but clearly something went wrong. I'm thinking maybe I somehow loaded it incorrectly. Honestly, what's worse than shooting something cool and then getting it back and it's a mess? It's kind of equivalent to toilet backsplash. On a different day, we shot some more Desert Rocks. It was super windy at this spot, like Category 5 windy, which is starting to become par for the course every time I pull out the 8x10 for some reason. If you don't know, wind is kind of the natural enemy of large format. The bellows of the camera kind of act as like a sail when the wind picks up and rattles the camera. When you're doing longer exposures, obviously that isn't what you want. Anyway, this shot would have been cool, but just like a botched circumcision, something clearly went very wrong. I'm not exactly sure what went down, but my best guess is that the past 60 years haven't been particularly good to this sheet because it was f***ed. If you have any ideas of what might have happened, let me know. And don't say it's because I'm a bad photographer because I already know that. We tried replicating something we'd seen online where the subject of the photo's face was kind of motion blurred out. So I had Caleb slowly rotate his head over the course of the exposure. Like the Exorcist, Caleb can actually rotate his head 360 degrees. Also like the Exorcist, Caleb scares me sometimes. Unfortunately, this shot only turned out OK, in my opinion. But we followed it up with another portrait. And I got to say that this shot is one of the best. The shallow depth of field in the shot kind of makes the whole scene feel miniature, even though Caleb is like eight foot two. I think that this is the best portrait I've ever taken. And the kind of texture of the film really lends itself well to the mood of the image. Is that a train coming? You better take this f***ing thing fast, bro. A train rolled by while we were shooting. And while I contemplated leaving it all behind, hopping aboard and starting a new life along the rails, I figured my film cameras at home would miss me quite a bit. Also Monica and Baxter or whatever. Before we wrap up this video, I'd like to thank today's sponsor, Squarespace. Are you tired of making some kickass work, but no one takes it seriously? Perhaps I have the solution for you. A professionally designed website makes all the difference in the world to booking potential clients or even possibly something more simple and having your work critiqued by your peers. A solid first impression makes a huge impact on your overall brand. So why wouldn't you want a polished looking portfolio that puts your best foot forward? Luckily for you, Squarespace has numerous professionally designed templates for you to choose from and customize. I personally use the Wells template on my website and have an easy to adjust setup for my portfolio. Squarespace's user interface is very straightforward and doesn't require any downloads, plugins or patches to get going. So what are you waiting for? If you're ready to build a website, you can start a free trial today at squarespace.com slash grainy days. And if you use the code grainy days at checkout, you can get 10% off your first purchase. So yeah, that's about it. Even though the film still shoots at its original ISO of 32, the finals definitely had a lot of dirt and grunge, which is definitely a look like seaweed. This film definitely has a lot of texture, but that doesn't mean I'm going to pick it up off the beach and suckle that bad boy down. I think I probably could have done most of these photos better if I'm being honest. In my time of reflection on this video, I kind of came to the conclusion that film is a lot like Schrodinger's cat. Film gets loaded into a box and before it's developed, it is both simultaneously a good photo and a bad photo. It's only when it's developed fully that I realize, yep, that shot looks like sh**. So what did you think of the 60 year expired Panatomic X? Besides the fact that it sounds like it would heal you and fall out for, I thought it was pretty interesting from a historical standpoint. I'm actually interested in exploring more of the Panatomic X line of stock. Maybe 120 would be something cool to try out. They actually discontinued Panatomic in 1987. So maybe I can find a role that isn't old as balls. Oh crap, I was born only four years later. I guess that means I'm old as balls. Here's a quick comparison of the Panatomic X and some 35 millimeter T-Max 400 that I shot on the same day to show more or less some of the film damage I was working with. If you're on the hunt for something similar, apparently Cat Labs 80 is a film stock that bears a striking resemblance to Panatomic X. From my results, I'd have to say, yeah, maybe. What I can say for probably almost certain is that Cat Labs 80 is not secretly Panatomic X in disguise. The actual film of Panatomic X is quite sturdy and the negatives are quite dense. Whereas I'd say Cat Labs 80 negatives are pretty thin. But regardless, to wrap things up, if I could go back 60 years and freeze more 8x10 Panatomic X, would I? You bet. I'd also probably invest in Dogecoin.