Developing times for Fomapan 200 @800

koraks · Apr 11, 2021

FotoD said:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotohuisrovo/556599703/

I have no idea how accurate this is.

It's likely quite accurate. He has been in close contact with foma for years, with numerous visits to their plant and he's a local distributor of their products. Moreover he tends to focus on details quite a bit (to put it mildly). Especially in this case I'd take his comments seriously.

pentaxuser · Apr 11, 2021

Thanks both for the info. I'd presume that from what Foma says, the grain of the 200 represents an improvement over the 400 and may be over 100 film as well in the same way that D400 is finer grained that HP5+

If Foma 400 is more like a 200 film in all except a few speed increasing developers and Foma 200 is much closer to a true 200 speed with hexagonal core/shell tabular grains then Foma 200 would seem to be the best all round film of the three for general use

pentaxuser

Auer · Apr 11, 2021

If only Fomapan 200 wasn't so fragile in 120mm.
I like the look of it a lot.

Rudeofus · Apr 12, 2021

FotoD said:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotohuisrovo/556599703/

I have no idea how accurate this is.

This is just a 2D image, with no indication of any kind of 3D structure. I would not dare to draw any conclusions regarding flatness of crystals from this image.

PS: I have way too much trust in Robert's competence to ever doubt, that he meant "Triangles for the sharpness and hexagonal for the minimum grain" in jest.

FotoD · Apr 12, 2021

Rudeofus said:
I would ask everyone at this point to give me a similarly authorative source of information regarding mixed cubic and tabular. Core/shell can be, but does not have to be cubic in shape.

Rudeofus said:
PS: I have way too much trust in Robert's competence to ever doubt, that he meant "Triangles for the sharpness and hexagonal for the minimum grain" in jest.

koraks said:
It's likely quite accurate. He has been in close contact with foma for years, with numerous visits to their plant and he's a local distributor of their products. Moreover he tends to focus on details quite a bit (to put it mildly). Especially in this case I'd take his comments seriously.

The following comments made by the same source are from this page: https://www.flickr.com/groups/86738082@N00/discuss/72157622403285883/

"Fotohuis (Robert) 8 years ago
In 4x5" the grain of both films doesn't matter anymore. Fomapan Creative 200 was a Foma attempt to create a Tgrain type film. But at the end it is a mixture of classical cubical and hexagonal HLX crystals."

And:
"The remark that Fomapan 200 looks like a mix from Tri-X and Tmax is not so strange if you look at the electronic microscope image of the film.
Foma is the only manufacturer who has such a film. This film looks sharper then the Fomapan 100 but has slighly less resolution."

As I said, I have no idea how accurate this is, but it's what I have come across during my years of Fomapan 200 use. The microscope image appears to be ten years old, unclear who made it, and the discussion is from eight years ago. You asked for an authorative source. I guess you'll have to decide for yourself if the source is an authority or not.

Rudeofus · Apr 12, 2021

My conclusion would be: it is still difficult to create "tabular grain only" emulsions. It may well have been Foma's aim to create a tabular grain emulsion, and Robert Huis' discovery may have just brought to light, that Foma's aim may not have born fruit all the way.

gigidamico · Nov 28, 2022

lantau said:
The datasheet claims that you can underexpose two stops without change in processing. While this may be optimistic for the high expectation of most members here, I'd still try that first.

I hope you have tested that film at 200 to see if you get good negatives. I don't know to this day why, but one of my first rolls of this film came out with quite thin negatives. They still worked, though. But I'm using it as my main film for 4x5 and have no problems anymore. I'm developing in X-tol at E.I. 160.

The E.I. 160 dev time for D76 is 5 minutes. Maybe you want to increase that a little for more robust negatives and see were it'll get you. Phenidone based developers will be a better choice, though.

thanks for your comment!

I just bought some 35mm of foma 200, so you advice to shoot at 160, and which dilution for the Xtol? I read some use 1:1 or 1:2
I would like to get the maximum sharpness out of this film

thanks again

FotoD · Nov 28, 2022

I would use it at EI 100 and develop in Xtol 1+1, that's going to give you good negatives to work with.

On the same roll you can always photograph a contrasty scene at both EI 160 and EI 100 to test if shadow detail is good enough at EI 160 for you.

I doubt Xtol 1+2 will make any significant improvement.

Do not expose it at EI 800 and don't develop it with Xtol 1+3 if you want good negs.

npl · Nov 30, 2022

Can warmly recommand fomapan 200 at EI 160, in XTOL 1:1 for 8.5min, standard agitation. The scans and the one print I made on fomaspeed paper were really nice.

Previously I shot a roll at EI 200 and used XTOL stock (7min). That's supposed to be underexposed (or rather underdevelopped) according to the graph in the datasheet, but I had nothing to complain about the negatives I ended up with. YMMV, of course.

meowdameow · Dec 2, 2022

Anyone have experience with FOMA and pyro?

koraks · Dec 2, 2022

meowdameow said:
Anyone have experience with FOMA and pyro?

Yes. Mostly Fomapan 100 and Fomapan 200 and Pyrocat HD. Also Fomapan 400 as I indicated in response to your other post on the topic. Are we talking about the same thing here, i.e. your trouble with developing Fomapan 400 with reduced agitation in Pyrocat HD 1+1+150 for 30 minutes with 3 agitation cycles at every 10 minutes, yielding too much density to your taste in the highlights?
Or is this about another issue? If so, can you be specific on your question?

Developing times for Fomapan 200 @800

koraks

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pentaxuser

Auer

Rudeofus

FotoD

Rudeofus

gigidamico

FotoD

npl

meowdameow

koraks

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Developing times for Fomapan 200 @800

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