Eastman 5369 High Contrast Panchromatic Film ~ 35mm 30 Exposure Roll

Eastman 5369 High Contrast Panchromatic Film, this little known film offered to you from a can that was a bit of a lucky find, once upon a time we could go out and just get stuff like this but not anymore. Those days are gone!

Allegedly cold stored from new it will probably be the last of our unusual hand spooled films (apart from Vision films) as it was a bit of a lucky find!

Eastman 5369 is slow, high contrast panchromatic intermediate film that we think will be like the FT-12 we used to offer and adore.

5369 was made from 1973 to 2011 and is described by the maker as having; “ultra-high resolving power and is coated on a clear acetate safety base with an anti-halation undercoating”

That latter part dictates that it should be loaded in low light to avoid light piping, it was also used for matting…ie where green and blue screen effects were utilised for special effects.

Urban legend says that it was “possible heir apparent to Kodak Technical Pan”. It has also been labelled as close relative to Eastman SO-331 which, like our FT-12 was a sound recording film.

Shooting: Rate this at 16 to 20asa and shoot as normal. So, like the fantastic Adox CMS20 it’s still usable outdoors in good daylight without having to resort to using a tripod, should be lovely for portraits, landscape and architectural photography, anywhere that high detail is desired.

Development: Well, this is a movie film stock by Eastman who recommended D97 (available here by BelliniFoto), the original data sheet suggests 3’30 in stock solution.

Other times found: Rodinal 1+50 for 14’00 and there is a lovely looking time in Xtol and BelliniFoto Eco-Film stock solution for 5’45”. There is also a caffenol product available that works, you might even get good results from BelliniFoto Duo-Step.

We believe that is should be pretty amazing in our own 23RX we’d suggest a starting point of 1+9 for 8-12mins.  You can have the official Data Eastman Sheet HERE!!

It may well also be worth trying stand development in Rodinal, Euro-HC 1+63 and even a try in our FX-2.

Scanning:  High contrast movie stocks like this can be notoriously difficult to scan, see the image gallery for our findings and advice.  Best to scan for details in highlight and shadows to get a scan that can be finalised with good photo editing software.  You may also find the occasional anomaly due to long term storage but hey, that goes with dealing with very old films sometimes!

However, when all is said and done, here’s something “new” and interesting to play with. For those of you new to the analogue revolution, this was something that people used to adore doing, loved a challenge and the rewards that come with that, but now be sure that this could well be the last one!