Fomapan 400 in rodinal 1:50 EI (35mm)

npl · Mar 22, 2023

Following foma's curves in the fomapan 400 datasheet, I exposed a few rolls of fomapan 400 at EI 250 and developped them in XTOL 1+1 or fomadon Excel stock with the time and agitation method they recommend, and it's been working great. Nice grain, nice contrast, and I don't miss shadows details.

But after looking at older print I made, I'd like to use rodinal again because I love how sharp and crisp it is on paper.

Now, rodinal and xtol/excel are very different, and I'm aware of the speed loss using rodinal. Foma doesn't publish curves for rodinal/fomadon R09, so what would be for you the best EI and dev time for fomapan 400 that will be developped in rodinal 1:50 ?

I don't have a lot of rolls left and film is not getting cheaper, so I'm looking for a good starting point. EI 160 with standard dev time (11-12min) ? EI 125 with a slight pull ?

The end goal is a darkroom print on fomaspeed variant 312 (RC paper) using a jobo c6600 color enlarger. I use incident metering or a general reflective reading of the scene if I can't be in the same light as the subject. Agitation will be foma's, standard continuous for the first 30s and 10s inversion at the start of every minutes.

Thanks

Donald Qualls · Mar 22, 2023

Others will call me a liar (well, probably not, but they'll say they "can't reproduce my results"), but I routinely shoot Foma 400 at box speed for development in Parodinal -- key is careful metering for shadows, and I extend development (equivalent to about a one stop push) but reduce agitation to five inversions every third minute.

Animalcito · Mar 22, 2023

In the past I used Fomapan 400 with Rodinal 1+50. The Gamma I tried to archive was around 0.6, the EI used was 250. The development time was about 8:30 minutes at 20°C with 5 inversions after filling in the developer, then one inversion every minute.
Fomapan 400 has changed a few years ago and lost its IR capabilities, I don"t know if that has also changed the development times.

koraks · Mar 23, 2023

Donald Qualls said:
I routinely shoot Foma 400 at box speed for development in Parodinal -- key is careful metering for shadows

Alright, but setting the meter to 400 and basing exposure on a reading of an important shadow may work out the same as setting the meter to 160 and basing exposure on a midtone reading. And herein lies a problem. On photo forums etc. we often say things like "I rate this film at EI x", but this would only mean anything if we all metered the same way. Since we don't, the whole business of "your personal EI" really remains limited to something quite personal, indeed.

So not saying you're lying, or that your approach is wrong - not at all! It's an approach that works for you. To be able to translate it someone else, you might add some more information about your exposure habits. I.e. when you say you meter for the shadows, how exactly? I.e. you meter for a shadow that will end up wat what zone (for lack of a better word) in the final image, and by how much will you underexpose (if at all) this shadow reading?

Given OP's metering habits and earlier experiences with this film in XTOL, I would suggest setting the meter to 125 or so to get similar results in terms of shadow detail preservation when switching to rodinal.

relistan · Mar 23, 2023

koraks said:
Given OP's metering habits and earlier experiences with this film in XTOL, I would suggest setting the meter to 125 or so to get similar results in terms of shadow detail preservation when switching to rodinal.

I agree with Koraks. If XTOL 1+1 gives good results at EI 250 as metered by OP then 125-160 is going to be about right for Rodinal.

koraks · Mar 23, 2023

Tsubasa said:
This is very true, but what about the scenario where you have to use the flash indoor, where there are no shadows to meausure?

Depends on how you work I suppose. When using strobes and negative film, I still measure shadows.

Donald Qualls · Mar 23, 2023

koraks said:
setting the meter to 400 and basing exposure on a reading of an important shadow may work out the same as setting the meter to 160 and basing exposure on a midtone reading.

It might, but metering an important shadow and then closing down two stops (via aperture or shutter) does a better job of ensuring that details in important shadows are preserved, regardless of SBR. If you're shooting Zone, you can then specify development to control where your brighter areas land -- and if you don't, you'll control that with dodge/burn or contrast filtration when you print, or equivalent controls in digital post.

koraks · Mar 23, 2023

Donald Qualls said:
metering an important shadow and then closing down two stops (via aperture or shutter) does a better job of ensuring that details in important shadows are preserved

But doing this with Fomapan 400 with the meter set at 400 will most definitely not record details in important shadow areas, especially not when developing with rodinal. I've shot hundreds of feet of this film in 35mm and a couple dozen sheets in 4x5; it's just not capable of this.

Donald Qualls · Mar 23, 2023

koraks said:
it's just not capable of this.

And yet I have dozens of rolls negatives, processed in speed-losing developers like D-23 and Parodinal, where it did just that. I'm not at home, so I can't post examples (they're all on my home computer), but I've been pleasantly surprised as well, given that I learned of this "optimistic film speed rating" a couple years after I'd been getting good results...

pentaxuser · Mar 23, 2023

Donald, so if I may be sure I have read correctly what I think you have written, it is as follows: You meter for an important shadow area and use that as your exposure setting i.e. you do not then open up your exposure to get to the equivalent of zone V

If I am right then if your important shadow area is say zone III then haven't you effectively reduced the film speed to about 2 stops less so close to 100/125?

Thanks

pentaxuser

Donald Qualls · Mar 23, 2023

pentaxuser said:
You meter for an important shadow area and use that as your exposure setting

No, I meter an important shadow and reduce exposure two stops to place that shadow in Zone III.

Daiichi Zenobia, .EDU Ultra 400, D-23 replenished stock (most likely 9:30 at 20C). I don't have a record of the exposure on this (I seldom record that information), but I'm pretty sure I did meter it due to the high brightness range.

koraks · Mar 24, 2023

So in that image, what was the shadow you likely metered on and then dialed back 2 stops? And is this a scan of a print or of the negative?
We may have different expectations of the degree of detail a shadow retains; hence the questions.

albireo · Mar 24, 2023

Donald Qualls said:
View attachment 333479

Daiichi Zenobia, .EDU Ultra 400, D-23 replenished stock (most likely 9:30 at 20C). I don't have a record of the exposure on this (I seldom record that information), but I'm pretty sure I did meter it due to the high brightness range.

Apologies, not sure if it's my monitor, but are the completely burnt highlights in this example a consequence of strong overdevelopment or of artistic choices in post processing?

koraks · Mar 24, 2023

@albireo I take the burnt highlights as a digital artifact. Knowing how Fomapan 400 tends to handle highlights, there's no doubt in my mind it's easy to extract lots of information from them. It's really hard (probably impossible) to blow out highlights on this film. Trust me, I tried...

Donald Qualls · Mar 24, 2023

@koraks is correct -- plus, at the time I scanned that negative, I had a 1998 vintage scanner that could only record 8 bits per pixel in monochrome; I'm sure my current Epson V850 would do a better job both on dynamic range (16 bits per pixel) and resolution/sharpness.

Bill Burk · Mar 24, 2023

Donald Qualls said:
No, I meter an important shadow and reduce exposure two stops to place that shadow in Zone III.

View attachment 333479

Daiichi Zenobia, .EDU Ultra 400, D-23 replenished stock (most likely 9:30 at 20C). I don't have a record of the exposure on this (I seldom record that information), but I'm pretty sure I did meter it due to the high brightness range.

Nice!

To clarify for all… metering an important shadow and stopping down two stops to place that reading in Zone III is a Zone System metering practice.

When you use Zone System metering practice there is a two-third stop difference in index.

So I don’t think you are really “shooting at 400”. I think you’re shooting at 250.

To properly compare, it may help to have an Ansel Adams exposure record. Then we could see if you are getting good results because you are giving good exposures… while others may be setting their camera to 400 and not carefully metering, and occasionally getting underexposed negatives.

Donald Qualls · Mar 24, 2023

Bill Burk said:
To properly compare, it may help to have an Ansel Adams exposure record. Then we could see if you are getting good results because you are giving good exposures…

This is much easier to do with the slow, contemplative process of large format than with hand held compact and roll film cameras. These days, most of my photographs are either shot with a roll of 6x9 or 6x7 in an hour or less, or shot as I go about my regular day, taking two or three weeks to finish a roll of 35 mm.

And I'm not "using Zone System" -- I'm just metering to place the shadows. I've never done the film speed or development time testing -- either the instrumented or no-instruments sensitometry -- on which the Zone System is founded. If I had, I'm sure I'd be on the other side of the fence, shouting about how Fomapan 400 can't even be exposed at EI 200-250 (as would normally be the case with a "true" ISO 400 film), but needs to be more like 125 to 160. But I'm not. I "overdevelop" my film, and when using a dilute developer (like Parodinal 1:50) I extend development further to get everything possible from and reduce agitation to limit the overrun of highlights (i.e. to enhance the compensating effect of high dilution Parodinal).

I'm pretty sure that the following was "average" metered -- still .EDU Ultra 400, shot at 400, developed in Parodinal 1:50.

Kodak Reflex II, 80 mm Anastar.

Bill Burk · Mar 24, 2023

I’m using the phrase “Zone System metering practice” to describe taking a reading and placing it on a Zone. You can do this without doing all the testing.

When you talk in Zone System terms you give a good description how much exposure you gave the film. Everyone knows what you mean.

My all-time favorite metering method is called Jim and Tom. When we’d go backpacking we’d spend our afternoons taking pictures and I could call out, “Hey Tom what are you getting? I’ve got a 60th at f/5.6”. The only figuring we would have to do is adjust because Jim would be using Kodachrome 64 while I was using Kodachrome 25.

npl · Mar 27, 2023

Thanks you all for the feedback and advice. For this first roll I went with EI 125 and a 12min development at 19°c (room temperature), standard agitation.

First day, overcast light, no real shadows :

The day after was better for this test with the sun out :

A few close-up shots (mirrorless digital camera on a tripod, extension tube, default jpeg) - first day :

Second day, more sun :

The last one was a fairly constrasty scene, and it's good to see details in both highlights and shadows on the negative. But overall they seem to be on the denser side .. overexposure, overdevelopement, both ? 11min (20°c equiv.) might be a bit too long, somewhere between that and @Animalcito 8:30 might be better.

I'll do a print or two one this week to see how that actually look on paper.

Animalcito · Mar 27, 2023

Thanks for sharing your results. Always good to see how it works out.
I have this old conversion wheel from a German photo magazine "Foto Hobby Labor". As your negatives are looking dense, just for fun I assumed an over development like push +1 (1st picture). In the second picture you see that I've put the dial to 'normal' (0.62) and the indicated time would be around 8.5 minutes. Looking at the shadow details you may can 'risk' to increase your EI a bit, too.
BW photography is just so much fun

npl · Apr 2, 2023

Thanks @Animalcito ! next roll I'll probably increase my EI to 160 and develop for 9min.

I did a print last night on fomapseed variant 312 18x24cm, using 60 Magenta which should be a grade 3 equivalent with this paper and my enlarger (Jobo c6600). I don't own a scanner so I did my best with a digital camera to take the following pictures.
Image on paper is sharp with visible grain (if you get very close ..) as you would expect from Rodinal. I like it, It reminds me of Ilford fp4+.

Negative looks like this :

I burned the sky a bit, rendering the grain in this high-density part more visible

Then, to compare, an other print from a fomapan 400 negative that was shot at EI 250 and developed in fomadon Excel stock. 90 magenta for this one :

Take all theses pictures with a grain of salt as digital noise is there alongside the grain, but it looks a bit smoother (as you would expect from a XTOL clone).

redbandit · Apr 4, 2023

What is your AGITATION pattern..

Try doing 10 seconds every 3rd or 5 minute, and doing at 15min and 1+100.

Donald Qualls · Apr 4, 2023

redbandit said:
10 seconds every 3rd or 5 minute, and doing at 15min and 1+100.

I usually use this pattern for Fomapan 400 with 1:50 Parodinal. I'd use 1:100 for a film like Imagelink, though.

Fomapan 400 in rodinal 1:50 EI (35mm)

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