Kodak Kodalith Pan

Kodalith Pan 2568 was the panchromatic member of the Kodalith graphic arts family, a high-contrast sheet film built for process cameras that needed to copy color originals or red-light subjects orthochromatic Kodalith could not see. Kodak sold it on the same ESTAR base as Ortho 2556 and ran it through the same two-part lith developers for the engraving-sharp halftone and line work the print industry needed before everything went desktop.

The difference between Pan and Ortho is spectral sensitivity. Pan sees red. That sounds trivial until you remember the reason graphic arts shops kept ortho stock so long was that it let them work under a red safelight. With Pan you lost the safelight and gained the ability to copy red ink, red text, and color separations through a panchromatic set.

Pictorial use today is similar to Kodalith Ortho with adjustments. Nominal speed is higher; in dilute paper developer rate it around EI 25, three times faster than Ortho Type 3. The continuous-tone work lith films can be coaxed into is slightly easier because panchromatic sensitivity gives a more natural gray-scale response. Compared with Kodalith Ortho 2556 in dilute Dektol, Pan gives a little more shadow information at the cost of slightly less extreme contrast.

Developer choice matters. Two-part Kodalith Super RT for the classic high-contrast look, or HC-110 dilution H or Dektol 1:20 for continuous tone. Compared with FP4+ in conventional developer, Pan in dilute paper developer gives a harder edge transition you cannot fake.

Kodak discontinued 2568 with the rest of the Kodalith line in the late 1990s. Surviving stock is mostly 4x5 and 8x10 in original Kodak boxes from estate sales. Freezer storage is the difference between usable and unusable past thirty years.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.31. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. A metered 30-second exposure becomes about 90 seconds at the sheet. At EI 25 indoors you will be past the threshold almost every setup.