Fomapan 100 - defective lot!

eumenius · Aug 28, 2005

Hello friends,

I am going to tell you a long and sad story of Foma 100 in Moscow. When it became available, everyone met it with a big enthusiasm - I myself have gone through maybe 200 rolls of it, and found it perfect fo my style of photography. All good things eventually come to end, so Foma 100 was all sold in Moscow in short time. But the new batch that arrived in three months (!) was not good at all - it showed small dark dots with smudged edges, some of them with some comet tails. These were visible only in midtones, giving a blizzard on the print. I can't say they were too numerous, but the defect was nasty enough to leave using Foma. My explanation of the problem is that the emulsion has a hypersensitive particles inside that give abnormal densities upon processing.

The emulsion number is 09256, and that applies to different master rolls - the dots are for sure in 2, 8, and 9. What is more interesting, the last lot of Fomapan 100 that arrived two weeks ago (again, after three months of delay) was of the same emulsion nuber and with the same problems. I wrote to Foma, but received still nothing. I don't know how the company with such a reputation in Russia could behave like this - or maybe it's their distributors are selling crap for their profits. Anyway, it's so sad to miss Foma 100 Maybe the next lot would be okay?

Regards from Moscow,
Zhenya

Donald Qualls · Aug 28, 2005

Seems to me J&C Photo (in Kansas, USA) was selling (at deep discount) some Foma 100 in 13x18 cm that they noted had occasional defects, but nothing like this. I've used Fomapan 100 for a couple years now, in 9x12 cm, and never seen a problem with two different emulsion batches; I suspect you're correct in that it's a cast of distributors dumping their trash where lack of consumer protection laws let them run with the profits.

desertrat · Sep 17, 2005

Similar Defects

Hi Zhenya,

I recently purchased a 20 brick roll of Arista.edu Ultra 100 from Freestyle, and noticed the same defects you described. According to the available information, this is rebranded Fomapan 100. The film margin opposite the frame numbers is inscribed: Ultra 100 092. The 092 corresponds to the first three digits of your emulsion numbers. I've run 8 rolls through 3 different cameras, used developers as radically different as pyro/soda and metol/hydroquinone, and processed both in tank and tray. In the tray, I used short clips of film. The marks have showed up in all my negs. I examined them by transmitted light with a 20X dissecting microscope, and the spots are images made up of grain just like the rest of the image area, no foreign particles in the spots. I thought of contacting Freestyle, but figured someone else almost surely already has. I try to take a philosophical approach. The film was 1/3 the cost from a major manufacturer. The .edu stands for education, as in for teaching processes and procedures. Emulsion flaws wouldn't necessarily prevent a film from being used for teaching purposes. I'm getting plenty of practice retouching prints with this film :rolleyes: I plan on using the rest of it for my demented diabolical experiments with obsolete or otherwise not recommended developer formulas. But I also plan to post a couple of landscape images, as soon as I get one that I think is worth posting. As far as my next bulk film purchase, I would rather have film with defects such as excessive curl or no gummed tape at the end of the roll instead of comet shaped spots in the emulsion.

Photo Engineer · Sep 17, 2005

Comet shaped defects are often associated with a coating problem, not usually with an emulsion problem.

They are related to bubbles or dirt in the emulsion that leave a dot and then a 'v' streak down from the dot creating the comet shape. This is due either to a dirty, dusty environment leaving particulate matter in the melted emulsion, badly prepared support, or bad or inadequate surfactant and anti-foaming agents.

PE

abeku · Sep 17, 2005

Photo Engineer said:
Comet shaped defects are often associated with a coating problem, not usually with an emulsion problem.

They are related to bubbles or dirt in the emulsion that leave a dot and then a 'v' streak down from the dot creating the comet shape. This is due either to a dirty, dusty environment leaving particulate matter in the melted emulsion, badly prepared support, or bad or inadequate surfactant and anti-foaming agents.

PE

Exactly what I've seen too, and I also have a few fpan100 120-rolls with the emulsion number 09256 that have had this artefacts. I don't have these problems with the 135-film (emulsion number 11315-05).

Fotohuis · Sep 17, 2005

Dear Zhenya,

Contact Mrs. Dana Hojná from the Foma factory:

Dana Hojná
Export and Marketing Dept.
Tel.:+420 495 733 210
Mob.:+420 605 227 094
Fax :+420 495 733 376(389, 384)
e-mail: dana.hojna@foma.cz

www.foma.cz
FOMA BOHEMIA spol. s r.o.
J.Kruinky 1604, 501 04 Hradec Králové
Czech Republic

She will solve your problem after investigation of sending in some samples.
Defective products will be replaced.

Best regards,

Robert

(Foma dealer from the Netherlands)

eumenius · Sep 17, 2005

That's it!

Dear friends,

I am very sorry that this 09256 bad lot has touched not only Russia - indeed, the footage numbers on the film itself say "092 ULTRA 100". All other rebranded films with bluish base and such footage is definitely Fomapan 100. My letter to Mrs. Dana Hojna, the person at FOMA responsible for Russia and CIS region, yielded no answer at all. 135 film has a differeny emulsion number, and of course it's free of defects. The FOMA guys somehow managed to get a bad coating in this case - all what we have to do is to wait while the supply of defective 09256 stock ends. Then a good old FOMA would be back in our fridges It's frustrating to have an otherwise very good and cheap film, but badly coated - but sooner or later it will end Let's wait, and avoid 09256!

Good luck to you all,
Zhenya

srs5694 · Sep 17, 2005

eumenius said:
I am very sorry that this 09256 bad lot has touched not only Russia - indeed, the footage numbers on the film itself say "092 ULTRA 100". All other rebranded films with bluish base and such footage is definitely Fomapan 100.

That's interesting. AFAIK, Foma doesn't sell their film directly with the name "Ultra," but this is part of the name of the Freestyle-branded Foma film ("Arista.EDU Ultra"). I've got some Arista.EDU Ultra 200 film and the developed film is definitely marked "ULTRA T200." Thus, I'd speculate that some film manufactured for Freestyle somehow got shipped to Russia. Maybe Freestyle's order size got cut back after a production run, maybe somebody forgot to change the emulsion labelling, or whatever.

FWIW, my one roll of Ultra 200 has two or three emulsion flaws, too. They're white specks (on the negative; black on a print). My negatives are numbered "0067."

dphphoto · Sep 18, 2005

jdef: what were your problems with JC 100? I had good luck with the first few packs I bought, then it want haywire on me. I couldn't get any shadow detail, even exposing at e.i. 50 or less, and it had been working for me at e.i. 64.
I've heard that this film is made in China, for whatever that's worth.
I've switched to the JC 400, which is Czech, I believe, and so far so good. It looks more like a 100 speed film, with tight grain, and at e.i. 200 has terrific shadow detail. Hope it stays consistent. Dean

desertrat · Sep 18, 2005

Emulsion Number

If I had thought to check the box more carefully, I would have seen the whole emulsion number. It's 09256 9. The last digit after the emulsion number is the master roll number? I learn good stuff almost every time I log in to APUG!

Jdef - I haven't given up completely on this film. I'm starting to get good overall results, except for the spots, which can be retouched out of the prints with spot pens. I plan to take Zhenya's advice and wait awhile for this batch to get off the shelves, then try again later. In the meantime, I plan to try some of Freestyle's Arista.edu Fortepan 100.

mongo141 · Sep 20, 2005

dphphoto said:
jdef: what were your problems with JC 100? I had good luck with the first few packs I bought, then it want haywire on me. I couldn't get any shadow detail, even exposing at e.i. 50 or less, and it had been working for me at e.i. 64.
I've heard that this film is made in China, for whatever that's worth.
I've switched to the JC 400, which is Czech, I believe, and so far so good. It looks more like a 100 speed film, with tight grain, and at e.i. 200 has terrific shadow detail. Hope it stays consistent. Dean

Hi Dean, I just sent 16 out of 20 rolls of Arista.edu ultra 100 (Foma) back to Freestyle for just the problem you stated. I shot 4 rolls in two differant cameras at box speed and used 3 differant developers and none gave any shadow detail. This is the stuff marked 09256 9. I was hoping that the stuff would be as good as the arista.edu 100 (Forte) but no such luck, I could deal with the light blue base but the stuff looks to me as about ISO 25 or less. All of that having been said I won't buy any more of the stuff at any price until the problem is resolved. I hope this doesn't bite Freestyle on the butt because I really like the company and have been doing business with them for over 20 years. I have a lot of Ilford FP4+ and APX 100 on hand that I have been saving for leaner days so I can still shoot but I like playing around with that $1.29 a roll stuff. Regards Dave

wildbill · Sep 20, 2005

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Profilm.com sells grey agfa apx for 1.69 or less.

mongo141 · Sep 20, 2005

Boy! isn't that the truth!

mongo141 · Sep 20, 2005

Well wildbill, if they listed any APX 100-120 @ $1.69 I would be a happy camper I just paid $1.85 a roll. OH Well!

eumenius · Sep 21, 2005

Letter to Mrs. Hojna

Well, I wrote exactly to mrs. Dana Hojna, as Fotohuis recommended to me - still silence, no reply, I got only reception confirmation message. I seriously doubt that Foma is ready to replace anything - in our store I've seen maybe 20 boxes of 120 Foma 100, all 09256 emulsion number We just have to wait until this scum clears off the shelves. Funny, but sometimes people think that they get what they pay for - well, I think the art of emulsion brewing is the same as the culinary art. One can't do it the same every lot, and any company has a right to flaw - even Ilford and Fuji! It's not wise at all to judge the film by its price - show me the prints, and I will tell my opinion

Cheers,
Zhenya

abeku · Sep 21, 2005

Hi Eumenius,
I've just sent an envelope with some negatives and the correspondence I've had with Mirko at Fotoimpex.de regarding this problem. I also referred to this discussion at APUG. I firmly believe that FOMA takes this seriously and will eventually come to an action. Hopefully, the affected customers will benefit from it to.

GeorgK · Sep 21, 2005

I had the same problem with four Fomapan100 in 120 format. The number on the box is 09256-8. If Foma has anything like a quality control, then they should have noticed this problem before (!) selling the stuff. We are not talking about a small amount of bad film which could slip through QC just by bad luck, but about a complete production run with an uniformingly distributed flaw.
So far APUG is the only place on the internet which mentions this problem. A lot of people will continue to buy and shoot defective film, just to find out at the printing stage. While foma is cheap, it is not that much cheaper than the big players, and they present themselves as a modern, state-of-the-art manufacturer. If you buy some super-cheap non-branded film of doubtful origin, it might be your own fault when important pictures are ruined. But foma should keep up with quality standards.
Is there anybody out there which had a non-defective fomapan 100 with the emulsion number 092? If not, we should put some pressure on foma and the distributers to get rid of this stuff.

Regards
Georg

eumenius · Sep 21, 2005

That's good!

Georg and Anders,

thank you for your actions - that's exactly what I wanted to say when I started this thread! Every company definitely has a right to a minor QC flaw - I'm a chemist, and I know how difficult is to obtain an uniform quality in a product including some uncharacterizable components of natural source (gelatine). But the case with 09256 emulsion looks like a major disaster, when the whole production run was sold out bad - you see, the occurence of this defect is distributed between Europe, America and Russia, and the whole 09256 emulsion is bad, in all numbers of master rolls. All QC department at FOMA should be left without their salary for a month they issued it on the market - the defect is obvious, and quite easy to notice even with 4X magnifier. FOMA is a well-respected and serious company, and they should definitely keep up to their standarts - after all, didn't they write "PROFESSIONAL" in bold on their packages? If so, they should bear the responsibility for their products, and salvage people from shooting defective film.

Cheers from Moscow,
Zhenya

Fotohuis · Sep 21, 2005

This case is under investigation.

As precaution we took out all our 120 Fomapan 100 rollfilms batch 09256 (-7) , exp. 8-2007 from our stock to prevent films are going out to customers.

FOMA is a well-respected and serious company, and they should definitely keep up to their standarts -

They will do, I am sure. Anyhow thanks for your information on APUG, we will do some randomn checks on our batch ( -7).

Best regards,

Robert

eumenius · Sep 21, 2005

Bravo, Robert!

The independent check of your film stock, with random samples taken, should provide a good proof of manufacturing defect. I just want to add one note - the "dark comets" in emulsion show only in exposed to light areas, especially in middle grays (arrrrgh, face tones included). In pure whites (footage number areas) and blacks of the negative I was unable to find any blemishes. Looks like those defects are centers of hypersensitivity, reacting too strong to exposing light.

I wish all the photo sellers were as honest to customers as you are.

All the very best,
Zhenya

Fotohuis said:
As precaution we took out all our 120 Fomapan 100 rollfilms batch 09256 (-7) , exp. 8-2007 from our stock to prevent films are going out to customers.

Anyhow thanks for your information on APUG, we will do some randomn checks on our batch ( -7).

Best regards,

Robert

abeku · Nov 19, 2005

FYI,
I received a reply from Foma by e.mail:
"Re. to your last experience with our b/w film FOMAPAN 100 120, the em. No.
09256.
After the checking we would like to inform you that our Quality
Control-Checking Department use appoitments test methods usually used for
this reason for discovery defects on materials.
This system didn´t show us defect you remarked, because of very low
frequency of this kind of defects. This defect is very sporadic and local,
so in standard appointed control system was not found.
We thicked our controll as prevention - we will make a more checking, which
could find similar defects."

eumenius · Nov 19, 2005

abeku said:
This defect is very sporadic and local,
so in standard appointed control system was not found.
We thicked our controll as prevention - we will make a more checking, which
could find similar defects."

He-he, what a bullshit! The whole world is wrong with this emulsion number, and their appointed QC missed it Let's hope the goddamn 09256 clears itselff of shelves soon. I shoot 9*12 Fomapan 100 now, and no problem - a beautiful film, no snow at all.

Zhenya

timeUnit · Nov 19, 2005

I might have the same defects. My batch number is 09256 - 9.

I have only shot night shots with this film, so I thought the spots were stars or something... when looking through them now I realise they can be defects.

Please check out the sky and water on these jpgs:
http://www.hform.se/Downloads/0511C_polesspots.jpg
http://www.hform.se/Downloads/0511F_ladderspots.jpg

Sorry for the size (around 700 kb), but I wanted to show the whole pic for context.

As I wrote, I thought they were stars or reflections... Naive? If you look at the later picture, in the lower right corner there are big white spots. They can be explained by poor development/drying, but I don't have the same problems with HP5, Efke 50, Tri-X, Neopan Acros etc.

Please check the jpgs, and advise on action. I have 7-8 rolls left, not a huge amount. I might get a discount on my next shipment from fotoimpex??

Thanks!

*h

Photo Engineer · Nov 19, 2005

It seems to be bad coating quality, if those comets and vertical lines are not from processing or scanning artifacts.

PE

timeUnit · Nov 19, 2005

They are not from scanning. I _might_ have scratched the film in processing, but the spots are something I haven't seen before. As I wrote, I thought it was due to the loooong exposures: stars, reflections, etc. But since all three Fomapan 100-rolls I've shot show similar problems, it might be coating defects.

I am pretty careful when scanning. I clean the negs carefully with an anti-static cloth, mount in holder, blow clean with canned air and scan. Sometimes a bit of dust shows on the scan, but not often. The spots are unusual. Haven't seen the likes of it for about six months, in that case on a T-Max 100 35mm.

Fomapan 100 - defective lot!

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency