fomapan 100 and 200

Helinophoto · Nov 16, 2018

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo said:
I have only worked a bit with Fomapan 100 and 400 (never the 200 speed film) and never liked the course grain. I have never had issues with the technical quality, the tonality is great, but I always had the impression that they have much coarser grain than other 100 and 400 films. As a side note, I usually do stand development in Rodinal and Foma films, both the 100 and 400, are two of the few films I have ever experienced bromide drag with, especially with the 135 films around the perforation holes. I would not risk that combination.

Mostly for my own purposes, to kind of confirm what I have always thought is right, I started a larger test to combine different films and developers a few months ago. I haven't got too far yet with my experiments, but to a certain degree confirmed the impressions I already had. Foma 100 is however one of the few films, where the choice of developer really matters. I know that faith can move rocks, but to be honest, most films only show very minor differences depending on which developer you bathe them in. That seem not to be the case for the Foma films. From my preliminary data, especially the Foma 100 film shows a very different behaviour in certain developers. In most developers, the Foma films are indeed coarser grained than the other films I have yet tested. After developing the Foma 100 in Spur Acurol N, I first thought that I had tested with the wrong film and repeated my test. It looks completely different, the grain is almost gone, sharpness and tonality still great. Acurol N was one of the developers I had never used before and only bought for this test and although it works with most films just as any other developer, I did not yet have any 'wow' experiences with that developer except for the combination with Foma 100. I have not yet tried it with Foma 400, but it is next on my list. I might do some more work with Foma and Acurol N, but the developer is so expensive that it chews away a large part of the Fomapan price advantage compared to e.g. Ilford in a regular priced developer.

That is very interesting.

What do you shoot Foma 100 at, when plan to develop it in Spur?

tthef · Nov 16, 2018

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo said:
Foma 100 is however one of the few films, where the choice of developer really matters.

Foma 100 is my favourite B&W film, and I can confirm this to be the case, the developer choice has a big impact on both grain and contrast. The developers I use most are Rodinal 1+50 and ID-11 1:1. The former gives particularly coarse grain and medium-high contrast, it's a good choice if you are after a very retro look. ID-11 gives much finer grain and more linear tone curve. I have tried Ilsofol-3 as well, but the results were poor (very high contrast at 1:9, and almost no contrast at 1:14). I have just got some Fomadon Excel, which I will try as soon as my current batch of ID-11 is exhausted.

Here are a few of my Foma pics on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=15514377@N00&view_all=1&text=foma -- the bottom 6 are Ilsofol 1:9; the next (Birks of Castle Carry II) is Ilsofol 1:14, then up to the toy pics it's Rodinal 1:50, the rest are ID-11 1:1. All developed at manufacturer recommended times, except the ilsofol, those were as if it was Delta 100. The top four are Foma 400, the rest 100. I should say all of those are hybrids and had some amount of digital post-processing applied, but the character of the negatives comes through nevertheless, I think.

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo · Nov 16, 2018

Helinophoto said:
That is very interesting.
What do you shoot Foma 100 at, when plan to develop it in Spur?

I know that fine grain developers often recommend to shoot the films at a slower speed than their box rating. I find that's kind of cheating, pull-development will with almost any developer give finer grain, so for my tests I wanted to give all developers the same to work with and exposed all films at their rated speed. The camera I used can only adjust the exposure time in full stops, so in reality all test images may have been over- or underexposed by up to half a stop. That is well within the exposure errors I usually experience when doing 'real' work and the exposure latitude I expect b&w negative film to cope with without any issues.

Here is a direct comparison between Fomapan 100 in Rodinal 1:100, stand, 60 minutes and Spur Acurol N. The negatives were scanned with 4000DPI on a Nikon Coolscan 4000. Each crop is about 4mm wide on the negative.

Disclaimer: I know that it is not absolutely correct to compare grain only based on negative scans, but my experience with scans from the Coolscan 4000 is that you usually see what you get. The grain appearance and structure on the scans is mostly very similar to how the grain appears on a traditional wet print.

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo · Nov 16, 2018

tthef said:
Foma 100 is my favourite B&W film, and I can confirm this to be the case, the developer choice has a big impact on both grain and contrast. ... Ilsofol-3 (very high contrast at 1:9, and almost no contrast at 1:14).

I am not sure if I can agree that the choice of developer has much impact on contrast. Contrast and density is more a matter of development time, temperature and dilution. If your negatives come out too contrasty in a specific developer, you can in most or all cases fix that by shortening the development time, decreasing the temperature or use a more dilute developer. There is usually no need to go for a completely different developer.

NB23 · Nov 16, 2018

Ilfosol is a very potent developer. The difference between 1:9 and 1:14 should be invisible, really.

tthef · Nov 16, 2018

NB23 said:
Ilfosol is a very potent developer. The difference between 1:9 and 1:14 should be invisible, really.

FWIW, 1+9 and 1+14 are the two standard concentrations Ilford uses in their data sheets, and e.g., for the Delta 100, the recommended times are 5 and 7.5min respectively, so definitely not insignificant. Anyway, I did not find a good way to develop Foma in Ilfosol 3 (I use it for Ilford films and for Acros), but that could be just me.

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo · Nov 16, 2018

I have today developed Foma 400 in Acurol N and Foma 100 in ID11 so that I can compare both Foma 100 and Foma 400 developed in Acurol N, Rodinal (1:100 stand), ID11 (stock) and Rollei Supergrain with several other films.

With Foma 100, there are obvious differences between the developers

In Acurol N, as mentioned earlier, the film is actually quite good. Grain is fine, the negatives are sharp and tonal values very nice.
In ID11, grain is perhaps not quite as fine as in Acurol N, but still acceptable, but there is a clear lack of sharpness. The antennas on the roof (see my previous image) can almost not be made out.
In Rodinal and Rollei Supergrain, the grain is very coarse for a 100 speed film. In Rodinal, it actually looks very similar to Tri-X or HP5+.

With Foma 400, there is not much difference between the developers. With all developers, the grain is very coarse. If I had to order the developers by coarseness, I would say that Acurol N gives the coarsest grain and Rodinal (stand) the finest. With these developers, the Foma 400 grain is distinctly coarser than Kodak Tri-X, Ilford HP5+ or Rollei RPX400.

So except for the combination of Foma 100 and Acurol N, my prejudices against the Foma films have mostly been confirmed. I still have a few other developers I was planning to test with. Perhaps I'll find another gem by chance.

pentaxuser · Nov 16, 2018

NB23 said:
Ilfosol is a very potent developer. The difference between 1:9 and 1:14 should be invisible, really.

Can you explain the link between Ilfosol being potent and the differences in dilution should be invisible? I agree it should but I infer from your statement that the difference is not invisible. Ilford has decided, by testing I presume, that the time difference between the two dilution means that the outcome remains the same. So are you saying that Ilford has got the times wrong and at the times given by Ilford, the contrast is different. Hence Ilford has underestimated the potency of Ilfosol and got the times wrong

Thanks

pentaxuser

NB23 · Nov 16, 2018

I meant that “the outcome is the same”.

The previous poster said that by using ilfosol-3 at 1:14 dilution gave him thin negatives, which is not supposed to happen.

Tim Stapp · Nov 16, 2018

NB23 said:
I meant that “the outcome is the same”.

The previous poster said that by using ilfosol-3 at 1:14 dilution gave him thin negatives, which is not supposed to happen.

Depending upon the age of the Ilfosol-3, it may have been due to dying developer. I started with Ilfosol-3 and quit using it due to short life once openend.

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo · Nov 16, 2018

Yet another attempt with Foma 100 and 400 in Pyro (self made PMK+ from Bergger PMK with a pinch of Amidol, both films in 1+2+100, 12 min, 20°C):

For both films, tonality is again great. The development time seems spot on for Foma 100. The 400er could have needed a few minutes more, perhaps 15 minutes or so in total to get a bit more details in the shadows.

Foma 100 shows grain courseness somewhere between Rodinal and Acurol N with similar sharpness to Rodinal.

With Foma 400, PMK+ gives the coarsest grain of all the developers I have tested so far. Absolutely nothing to recommend.

Vw1302 · Nov 17, 2018

I have got good result with Fomapan 100 and Pyrocat HD... try it

nios2 · Jan 19, 2019

I have just developed a 135 and a 120 Fomapan 200 film, both shot on the same day at the same ASA rating, both developed on the same day with the same chemistry (Fomadon R09 1:50 dilution), same tank inversion scheme, etc etc.

The 135 is nice and full of contrast (I like that), the 120 is lacking contrast.

Interestingly the used developer from the 120 came out green but not the 135.

It is almost as if they are not the same film.

Has anyone else experienced this?

R.Gould · Jan 20, 2019

I develop all Fomapan 400 in RO(, which is Rodinal by another name, very often 120 needs longer at 1/50 than 35mm, I develop 400 120 for 18 mijutes and 35mm for 14 minutes, and yes, used develop for 120 will come out the tank green, it is the anti halation layer, which 35mm dies not have,

albireo · Jan 21, 2019

I love fomapan film in medium format.

I enjoy the 100, 200 and 400 alike and I've stopped shooting anything else in an effort to get to know the brand and the above three products thoroughly. I have only recently started doing my own film development, and am striving to respect the times and dilutions indicated in the foma leaflets to utmost precision, at least during this learning phase.

I use foma's own chemicals exclusively, as follows:
-fomapan 100 & 200: Foma Fomadon R09 (Foma's Rodinal) 1+50
-fomapan 400: Foma Fomadon LQN 1+10

Foma 100 in Fomadon R09:

Puglia rurale III - olive tree stump by G.Gallone, on Flickr

Foma 200 in Fomadon R09:

Costa merlata, Italia by G.Gallone, on Flickr

Foma 400 in Fomadon LQN:

Dahlem by G.Gallone, on Flickr

baachitraka · Jan 21, 2019

albireo said:
I love fomapan film in medium format.

I enjoy the 100, 200 and 400 alike and I've stopped shooting anything else in an effort to get to know the brand and the above three products thoroughly. I have only recently started doing my own film development, and am striving to respect the times and dilutions indicated in the foma leaflets to utmost precision, at least during this learning phase.

I use foma's own chemicals exclusively, as follows:
-fomapan 100 & 200: Foma Fomadon R09 (Foma's Rodinal) 1+50
-fomapan 400: Foma Fomadon LQN 1+10

Foma 100 in Fomadon R09:

Puglia rurale III - olive tree stump by G.Gallone, on Flickr

Foma 200 in Fomadon R09:

Costa merlata, Italia by G.Gallone, on Flickr

Foma 400 in Fomadon LQN:

Dahlem by G.Gallone, on Flickr

I am curious about this developer Fomapan LQN and may I know how is the shelf life for you and the speed that it gives for Fomapan 400.

albireo · Jan 21, 2019

baachitraka said:
I am curious about this developer Fomapan LQN and may I know how is the shelf life for you and the speed that it gives for Fomapan 400.

I wouldn't be able to comment on shelf life as I've only purchased one bottle so far (my first), which I've been using for the past 3 months or so, without any problems.

As for speed, I stick to the official foma 400 leaflet here
https://www.foma.cz/en/fomapan-400

Look at the bottom of page 2, there are development curves for fomapan 400 in fomadon LQN. EI 320 for 10 minutes is what I've been using.

alanrockwood · Apr 19, 2019

albireo said:
I wouldn't be able to comment on shelf life as I've only purchased one bottle so far (my first), which I've been using for the past 3 months or so, without any problems.

As for speed, I stick to the official foma 400 leaflet here
https://www.foma.cz/en/fomapan-400

Look at the bottom of page 2, there are development curves for fomapan 400 in fomadon LQN. EI 320 for 10 minutes is what I've been using.

One thing to watch out for with the fomapan data sheets is that the characteristic curves the show for 100, 200, and 400 are absolutely identical in shape, so it seems pretty clear that they did not actually run separate curves for each film, or if they did run separate curves for each film type they didn't bother to show them.

Agulliver · Apr 19, 2019

My latest Fomapan 100 in ID11 stock. It's a film I use quite often in good weather conditions.

fomapan 100 and 200

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