about the old (pre 2000) jessops pan 400 film

is there anybody out there who knows anything about the old (pre 2000)
jessops pan 400 film?

I've never been too fussy about using whatever film and developer is
available, but for a long time my prefered combination was Rodinal with
jessop pan 400 which I bought in 30 metre rolls - it also happened to
be the cheapest film easily available in the uk at the time and, in my
opinion, the best.

Jessops 'improved' this film in early 2000 - the name on the rebate
changed from 'jessop pan 400' to 'jessop pan400s' - the 's' presumably
standing for '****e'. It's still being sold by them, and it's the only
film that I won't use as it gives such a supremely ugly tonal structure
that one is left after a shoot bewailing all the opportunities wasted
to such a film.

So the jessops film went from being the best to the worst - as so often
happens when things are improved.

I've recently been printing some of my pre-2000 work from negatives of
the original film and have once more been stuck by how wonderfully
'generous' the negatives seem when developed in rodinal - I feel
nostalgic for the old film.

Knowing how chains like jessops often re-package cheap eastern european
film (and I had heard it rumoured that the original jessops film was
one such film) does anyone out there know anything about it? What was
(or, hopefully still is) its easter european equivalent?

I'd be hugely grateful to anyone who can enlighten me on this.

thanks

Jules

On 31 May 2006 07:14:15 -0700, wrote:

[---]

Knowing how chains like jessops often re-package cheap eastern european
film (and I had heard it rumoured that the original jessops film was
one such film) does anyone out there know anything about it?

One common story doing the rounds was that the slower films (ISO 25,
50 & 100) were repackaged Efke film (which effectively is made in
Eastern Europe, in Croatia), although personally I cannot vouch for
that as I never used the Jessop's product.

What was
(or, hopefully still is) its easter european equivalent?

Efke is still around; Fotoimpex in Berlin sell it. It appears to be
sold under the old "Adox" brand name in some places.

However, there was also a rumour that the Jessops brand ISO 400 was in
fact repackaged HP5. Your experience with the older film certainly
doesn't contradict that, insofar as HP5 is very much better than any
400 speed film from Foma or Forte.

Repackaged HP5 and FP4 is still being sold by Fotoimpex, also (just to
confuse things!) under the brand-name "Adox".

Andrew Price wrote:

However, there was also a rumour that the Jessops brand ISO 400 was in
fact repackaged HP5. Your experience with the older film certainly
doesn't contradict that, insofar as HP5 is very much better than any
400 speed film from Foma or Forte.

At one time Ilford and Agfa film were the "cheap foreign" film sold as
house brands in the U.S. I remember buying Ilford slide film in London
in 1983 (including VAT) for half of the price of Kodak film in the U.S.

At one time Freestyle sold Ilford film rebranded as their own.

Geoff.

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