• Welcome to Photrio!
    Registration is fast and free. Join today to unlock search, see fewer ads, and access all forum features.
    Click here to sign up

Fomatone vs Fomabrom

ericdan

Member
Allowing Ads
Joined
Feb 28, 2014
Messages
1,359
Location
Tokyo
Format
35mm RF
What exactly is the difference between these papers?
Foma lists MG classic as warmtone.
I had a look on Fotoimpex and their description says warmtone for both papers.
I have used Adox MCC, Ilford MGFB WT and MG classic 131.
MCC was the coolest but still warmish. MGFB WT was only slightly warmer and Fomatone MG 131 noticeably warmer.
How does Fomabrom fit in?
 
Bromide papers are always neutral tone, so much colder tones that those other papers. Byt remember warmth is also dependant on developer and development time with warmtone papers, over development kills warmth.

Ian
 
Fomatone is a true warmtone paper and about two stops slower than fomabrom, which is a neutral paper. Fomatone does very well in lith giving smooth gradation. Regularly developed or in lith, it responds strongly to toners, giving rich chocolate browns in strong selenium. Fomabrom responds far less to toning although it does the usual shift from slightly greenish to purple-black in selenium. In lith fomabrom gives a very coarse grainy image.

These are two completely different emulsions. They are both very good depending on what you want to do with it in terms of image tone, use of toners and lith printing. Both are quite affordable with fomabrom being the cheaper of the two.

Fomabrom is very similar to Adox MCC in my experience; I have difficulty telling afterwards which of the two I used for a print if I didn't record it.

Note that foma papers have a somewhat softer topcoat which can cause the emulsion to peel off at the edges with prolonged washing and rough handling.
 
ericdan said:
I had a look on Fotoimpex and their description says warmtone for both papers.
Click to expand...
?? I look up : FOMA Fomabrom Variant 111, at url: https://www.fotoimpex.com/photopape...loss-13x18-100-sheets-gradation-variable.html
and I read:
Surface: Natural Gloss
Paper Grade: Variable
Darkrom Safelight: Red only
Image Tone: Neutral Tone
Base: Fibre base 255 g
Whites: Bright white

With that settled, my experience is that Fomabrom is as good as Ilford MG, and significantly cheaper, esp. at fotoimpex. But maybe my poor eyes are nor dicerning enough.
 
bernard_L said:
Fomabrom is as good as Ilford MG
Click to expand...
I won't comment on which paper is best, but I can only say they are different in subtle ways which may be relevant to some photographers. Both are indeed warmtone papers and both are very capable of yielding excellent prints. However, Ilford MGWT Glossy has a different surface texture than Fomatone Glossy, with the Ilford paper having the edge in my opinion, but it's a matter of personal preference. Both papers respond differently to lith, with many people stating that Ilford MGWT is not suitable for lith, while e.g. Bob Carnie asserts that it is his favorite lith paper. Hence, the comparison is in my opinion only complete if various dimensions of paper quality are taken into account.
 
bernard_L said:
With that settled, my experience is that Fomabrom is as good as Ilford MG, and significantly cheaper, esp. at fotoimpex. But maybe my poor eyes are nor dicerning enough.
Click to expand...

It's different, but a good paper nevertheless. Cost is a very poor criteria to qualitatively judge a paper.

I much prefer the graded Fomabrom to the Variant, but I also know that its hardest grade is only about 4-4.5, even helped along by Dokumol. Both are a hair or more warmer than Multigrade Classic, but less warm than Galerie.

My preferred papers are Fomatone & Ilford's Art300 which make MGWT seem cheap by comparison, but they produce the visual results I want.


What developer are you using? I've managed to get Fomatone to go everything from almost cold to brownish-black & most of the other warmer papers can be warmed up or chilled down significantly too - MCC specifically. And that's before you take toners to them.
 
I’m using Neutol WA.
I’m really interested in what you are using to get all of those tones before toning.
MCC doesn’t change much. Tried it in Dektol and Neutol WA and looked the same. But MCC seems to react more to toners than Ilford MGFB WT does.
 

Nothing particularly special with Fomatone, I've used some of the warmer tone developers - the special one made by Foma does warm it up, as does bumping up the exposure & giving it less time (45-60s?) in the dev - even in regular Multigrade dev. I've got it to chill off a bit in strong Dokumol - though a good dose of Moersch's 'Finisher Blue' in his SE6 would be even better I suspect. Main thing is not to give it lengthy development - then it goes greenish, though a burst of selenium solves that. Really all depends what colour you want it to go... I like the split tone it'll do in strongish selenium, but some people hate that sort of thing...

Also bear in mind that MGWT etc are slightly different from more 'traditional' higher chloride warmtones - they seem to use highly controlled crystal growth technology rather than more chloride to achieve their 'warmth', so you might find a notionally 'colder' developer is warmer...

The main things that seem to help warm tones in general are devs using phenidone & potassium bromide & for cooler tones, something like PMT (phenyl mercapto tetrazole) or similar. Have fun!
 
Last edited:
That’s interesting because when I ran a bunch of MGWT sheets thru normal 1:2 dektol I thought I got warmer tones than with Neutol WA.
I noticed that with dektol the image starts to appear after 15 sec with Neutol it takes a good 35 sec and that makes it hard for short Dev times. I’ve tried overexposure and 1min Dev time but sometimes that didn’t give me deep enough shadows.
Both developers were fresh.
 

That doesn't surprise me - I think that longer times seem to suit MGWT better than shorter - the overexposure & pulled process trick is nothing like as strong as on Fomatone. Even so, the image usually has decently fast emergence - those times seem rather long for Neutol WA - to the point I'm doubting its freshness - how fast is the emergence with Fomatone? It should be nearly instant - 5-15s & fast density build-up after 30s.
 
This is Fomatone MG Classic 111 in Ilford ID-78, the formula is very similar to Neutol WA. The image has been Selenium toned.



As Lachlan says development times need to be shorter to get maximum warmth, however I'd add that one other parameter often overlooked is the developer temperature. I use a tray warmer and don't let it drop below 22ºC. Low temperatures will have an effect on the colour.

I don't mix my ID-78 to Ilford's published formula, I substitute Potassium Carbonate and Hydroxide for the Sodium Carbonate and mix to a "commercial" strength, using the same ratios of Pot Carbonate and Hydroxide as Ilford's commercial developers, Agfa Neutol WA uses a higher proportion of Hydroxide.

Ian
 

Have you tried ID-78 at deeper dilution than the recommended 1+3 (1+9 from your concentrate)? Does it go softer or not significantly?
 
Lachlan Young said:
Have you tried ID-78 at deeper dilution than the recommended 1+3 (1+9 from your concentrate)? Does it go softer or not significantly?
Click to expand...

I have, sometimes I use it at 1+14, it does allow more control of development which is slower. I'd add that using Potassium Carbonate increase warmth marginally as well.

Because I use MG warmtone papers I don't use the devolment much to control contrast, just image colour, but warmer is also softer. I've just finished mixing ID-3 same as Selectol Soft/(D165 - the 2 part Ilford concentrated version) and some ID-72 as I'm going to be printing on graded Bromide papers again for some images. This gives me a Grade up and a Grade down by switching developers.

Ian
 
Fomabrom is a quite neutral paper and as such will respond very reluctantly if at all to changes in developer.

Fomatone is a warm tone paper and a completey different matter. Tone will indeed change depending on developer and the other variables mentioned. It will give a distinct warm tone in Neutol WA. The Fomatone PW developer gives very interesting tones with this paper (I think I posted some samples a while ago here), but in my experience is not very practical in use as it does not keep well, requires long development times and will lower the speed of the paper further.
 
OK, so the slower image emergence was actually only with MGWT paper and didn't change with developer.
MCC and Fomatone emerge after about 10-15 seconds in the developer.
I could also not tell the difference between Dektol and Neutol WA on MCC110 and MGWT.
I printed several samples and had friends try to guess which the warmer one is. They actually said Dektol 60% of the time.
To me these two developers look exactly the same. The only paper it made a difference with was Fomatone.
Fomatone reacts to the developer used and the time processed as Ian has pointed out above.

I remember some Ilford guy on Youtube saying that they designed their papers so the results are consistent regardless of how old your developer is.
Has that 'feature' anything todo with warm tone developers not having any effect maybe?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register