Foma Ortho 400 Development

So I bought a roll of Foma Ortho 400. In the past I have found Foma's ASA ratings to be, shall we say, optimistic; and their data sheet suggests that this film develops contrast very quickly. Anyone know what this film is - Foma 400 without the red sensitizing dye? Foma doesn't say.
My first roll I will assume an ASA of 160 and give it 6 minutes in D-23 to tame the contrast. I'll report back whatever my results are.

A thread with some impressions by a few people.


IME Ortho 400 has nothing whatsoever to do with Foma 400. Completely different spectral response. See post 93 by @Bronson Dugnutt for a good guess re what this film might be.

Thank you. Most of that thread was devoted to speculation and argument, but after #89 it included actual useful information.

Update: Foma 400 Ortho, 6 minutes in D-23, 68 degrees F. One roll shot with a Zeiss 521/16 with a coated Tessar.

1. Very contrasty; easily drops the shadows; added exposure to bring in the shadows, and the highlights are too dense. I think that if one exposed for the shadows and developed for the highlights, the actual ASA would be less than half the published value. In this sense it acts like Foma 100.
2. Not nearly as grainy as I had feared it would be. Nothing like Foma 320 Retro.
3. No apparent emulsion defects.
4. Very weak response to even under-saturated yellow, orange and red.
5. Strong response to green light. Excellent separation of values in green foliage. Much better in this respect than traditional pan film. Skin tones in Caucasian people is noticeably darkened.
Hope this helps somebody!

shot my first roll of Foma Ortho. Decided to use Acurol N as developer even though did not find any information about this combo.

EI200, developed in Spur Acurol-N, 1+50, 20°C, 10min, 30secs at start, then once per min (Copied it more or less from Ilford Ortho).

Negs look really nice, shadow detail is good, maybe a tad overdeveloped. Would use 8 mins next time.

I scanned the negatives, and zoomed in at 100% there are some (few!) emulsion defects which are unnoticeable otherwise. (Nothing like Foma 200 in 120).
So, I really like this film and can also recommend developing it in Acurol N.

Thank you for the information here, just saw this, was not aware Foma was selling it, so I was planning to do some research and try.
Most of blogs and info I find, seems to tell a story where people who shoot and develop at 400 are basically pushing the film (hence the contrast).
I saw a few people shooting it at 400 and developing it in HC-110B for 7 minutes.
I was thinking to shoot it at EI 25o and dev for 10.5 minutes in H, or at 300 at 8.5 minutes.
Seeing this info leads me to believe that EI 200 at 10 min dev at H is probably closer to the truth to tame the contrast on this one (5 minutes at B seems a bit risky, seeing the film may be a bit finicky?).

Also, here Rodinal 1:50 for 11 minutes for EI400 looks underexposed and pushed: http://www.alexluyckx.com/blog/2024/09/30/film-review-blog-no-107-foma-ortho-400/
EI200 and Rodinal 1:50 for maybe...what...6-7 minutes should yield a better result perhaps?


Will be placing an order and report back (can take some time).

Rodinal does not maintain full film speed, yes, you may want to try it at 200 or 250 in that developer.

HC-110 H times should be about double the B times at the same film speed, so your H times look a little short.