This film has been expired since 2007, although I believe the production stopped well before that. The film which is 35mm, came in bulk roll, 30.5m, and it was made in the Azomures Chemical Factory of Targu Mures. In that town, a film negative factory has existed since the 70’s or so, and the brand this film used was Azopan Romania.
I am told that this film type was extensively used in document photography and for industrial purposes. The Azopan film was the usual one used in communist Romania, cheap and chemicals easy to find (also produced in the same factory). Other than Azopan, shops sold ORWO (DDR) and Svema (USSR); very rarely any Western-made film was to be found. Apart from the panchromatics, an entire series of technical and medical films were produced, such as Azocopy DN-3, Azocopy DP-1, aviation films, and so forth. An entire list can be found here.
Panchromatics produced here were (as far as I know): 100 (designated PS-21), 200 ASA (designated PS-24) and 400 ASA (designated PS-27) for black and white, also some colour negative 100 asa. However, I have no idea if they made 400 asa in color. It would appear that a variant of 50 ASA existed, but I haven’t seen one. These films came in both 35mm and 120. The production stopped sometime in the very early 90’s. I still have some bricks of PS-21 in both 35 and 120, but I never had time to check if they are still all right or not.
Recently, I slit some microfilm and load it in a Minox C, set at 12 ASA. The negative came out pretty good, but those shot indoors came out very dark, unusable. No amount of PS tweaking could render these indoor images (some with Minox 8×11 electronic flash) usable.
The film is a mix between Agfa Copex Rapid and Techpan; curly, very hard base, and when processed, transparent. It retains a yellowish tint, and this is the film not the incorrect processing I believe. However, very crisp, tonality is great and details amazing. As this is the first time when I am using it, I still have to experiment with it, but it seems to me that this film is a pain to process and scan (especially the scanning is troublesome, too many variables to match).
The film was processed in Rodinal Special 1/50 @ 20*C, for 12 mins, in Minox tank. Some agitation was involved, rotation, every 2 mins or so. Not exceedingly good looking, but a film that provides me with a challenge. I am going to try it in my Nikon F4, just to get a full feeling of the 35mm format.
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