Foma Ortho 400 movie film!

It's arrived. I'm planning on shooting two rolls towards the end of August. I'll report back when I've developed some.

I shot the first roll, in a variety of situations including bright sunlight, inside a dim church and fireworks at night. The film handled all really well with the church shots being especially successful. I'll put a selection of shots on Youtube soon so people can get an idea.

I decided on a Sankyo 8CM which only automatically meters up to 250ASA. The sunny shots will have been over exposed despite shooting those at 24fps. But it all came out well. The grain is surprisingly unobtrusive for such a fast cine film in 8mm. I've tried shooting Tri-X and Fomapan R100 in the same church and while I got results, the contrast range in the shots I did last week was far superior.

The ortho aspect really lends itself to shots like landscapes. I made some long shots of beaches in the evening and some on the beach on a sunny afternoon which look great. Perhaps the best is a single shot of a gravestone in a very leafy churchyard.

you can use this as a high speed cine film without worrying much about lack of red sensitivity. Though it does rear it's head, I shot a little from a moving car at night and you can barely see the tail lights of the car in front while the tailgate is lit by streetlights. But it renders white and brown skin tones nicely. No problems loading it or developing it. I used D76 in a Lomo tank. There was a little fogging as I changed the spool over on the beach under a parasol, not ideal conditions and I expected it.

I've shot a quarter of the 2nd roll, mostly in another church as it happens. I'm probably going to finish off that roll at the jazz club which will be interesting....the high speed nature of the film should really help (I've had great experiences with Tri-X and what I think is XX there) but the backlight is predominantly red so it won't show up much.

But for now, if you can get hold of it, I thoroughly recommend this. If's not expensive. It's easy to process at home or at the lab. If you scan rather than project it's no more hassle than a reversal film, and is easier if you dev and scan yourself as I do. I just use one of those cheap domestic scanners and some old video editing software to invert the image and tidy up the framing and contrast a little.

EDIT: I did have real difficulty opening the film cans. I've never had this with Fomapan R100. But I ended up having to turn the container upside down, and bash the rim of the top with a small hammer to get both cans open. I was certainly never going to simply twist them open like I do the R100 cans. Maybe they've changed the design of the can a little as the spool inside seems the same.

Here is about half my film, remember this was processed in my kitchen in an old Lomo tank and scanned on one of those £300 domestic scanners. There is surely better quality to be had from a more professional scan though this is fine for social media.

You might need to set the quality to 1080 as it seems to default to 144!

Thank you for posting the video. Your results look impressive.

I think it's a really nice film. I do wish it were easier to buy in the UK. Process Supplies in London did suggest to me that they could order some but then went silent. For those in the EU who can get hold of it quite easily for around 20 euros per roll, it is a great product.

I probably will buy more. For anyone who wants to work with B&W negative cine film this is easy to process. And I could send the film off for a pro scan if I was doing anything remotely serious with it. There's a chance I might assemble 200 feet of 8mm film from the jazz club at some point.

Currently the other B&W negative films offered in 8mm are by Film Photography Project in the USA. I gather they're Kodak XX possibly? And no criticism really, I've shot 6 rolls of their 200 neg and 2 of their 100 neg film and they work. The images are just not quite as pleasing as Foma Cine Ortho.

Agulliver said:

Currently the other B&W negative films offered in 8mm are by Film Photography Project in the USA. I gather they're Kodak XX possibly?

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Foma have started selling their Fomapan 100 negative film in 2x8mm.

I bought a handful directly from Foma last week but haven’t exposed them yet. I’ll be using Fomadon LQN developer so I can expose at 100 ISO.

Foma didn’t have any Ortho in 2x8mm but I got a roll in 35mm to test.
Fotoimpex have Ortho 400 2x8mm in stock so I may get some if I like how the 35mm develops.

@Nitroplait I bought from Fotoimpex, they had a maximum order of two rolls which was a shame but I guess Foma haven't released a never ending supply into the market.

Fomapan 100 would surely be good in 8mm too.

Agulliver said:

scanned on one of those £300 domestic scanners

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Thank you very much for showing your results.
I am particularly impressed by the low light indoor footage, and the general contrast also looks pretty well behaved.

If you don't mind me asking; Which scanner is that exactly?
Even at highest Youtube resolution, there seem to be quite a bit of digital noise. Is that observation also true to what you see on the scan before YT upload?

I am asking since I am still considering which approach to Standard 8 scanning I should take.

I've had Super8 professionally over-scanned in 4K proRes HQ and it allows quite a bit of post processing. With image stabilisation and color grading the results can be surprisingly beautiful.
Needless to say, the scanning it is very expensive - and is best done immediately after professional development to avoid artefacts - thus adding to the cost.

Besides that, Standard 8 is, after all, what it is .
It will always look amateurish and I'd like to embrace that as part of it's charm. I plan to home develop B&W and was thinking about a home made telecine, but I also don't feel there is room for yet another DIY project, so the only other alternative seems to be the cheap Super/Standard8 home scanners out there.

The scanner is branded "Winait" and is probably the same as any number offered for sale these days. It's probably the same as this one in the link at the bottom.

It is what it is, aimed at amateurs wanting to transfer old family footage from the 60s and 70s. It does photograph every frame individually and outputs at 720p but it uses MP4 compression which is somewhat noisy depending on the nature of the material. Sometimes more noticeable than others. I'd say it's 50/50 between Youtube and the scanner, some of the artefacts are definitely from the scanner. I've also run it through an old version of Vegas editor too.

It is never going to compete with a professional 2K or 4K scan but it costs as much as having a few reels professionally transferred, does super 8 and std 8 and doesn't damage the film.

I'd say that a better firmware with better video codec or a few quality options would help. The sensor and film handling themselves are good.

Agulliver said:

Here is about half my film, remember this was processed in my kitchen in an old Lomo tank and scanned on one of those £300 domestic scanners. There is surely better quality to be had from a more professional scan though this is fine for social media.

You might need to set the quality to 1080 as it seems to default to 144!

Click to expand...

When I saw Dorset and 2024 I was hoping for analogue footage of the Great Steam Fair
No idea where Dorset in the UK is, and if there are more, but that is my only thing that I relate to when I hear/read/see Dorset

FYI Fomapan Cine 100 is now available at Process Supplies based near Farringdon in London.

And Analogue Wonderland are trying to get hold of some Foma Cine Ortho and Fomapan Cine 100.