forte, forma paper weight...

I tried some forte RC paper the other day and I found these paper don't have much weight (I don;t know how to describe it in a proper way, I mean the paper are very thin). And it's very slow. I am in the process of trying different paper to replace agfa. I have never used foma fb, or any arista fb paper. I understand arista edu is forte, arista ultra foma. Can any tell me something about these products in terms of weight and speed? Thanks a lot.

dxphoto said:

understand arista edu is forte, arista ultra foma. Can any tell me something about these products in terms of weight and speed? Thanks a lot.

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Forte RC paper is much more susceptible to curling when air dried and will curl more easily in a machine dryer than most RC papers. Except in extreme cases, curl induced through machine drying is very temporary and the paper will uncurl as it cools. That said, curl in the machine can easily become extreme enough to cause the paper to get stuck.

Agfa MCP is a very fast RC paper. Forte Polygrade RC is a good stop (or more) slower. And the speed among different boxes of Forte Polygrade RC (or its Arista.EDU Hungary clone) can vary almost 1/2 stop.

I'd just add that Foma Fomaspeed Variant III VC RC paper is the thinnest I've used, while Agfa MCP310RC is the thickest. (I've tried about half a dozen brands, so that's not a huge sample.) FWIW, B&H lists the weight of many of the papers it sells in grams per square meter on the "specifications" tab of its product listing. They list the Agfa at 270 g/m2, but the Foma's one of the few for which they don't have this value. Ilford MG IV is 190 g/m2, for comparison. Unfortunately, with Agfa's demise, MCP310RC is already hard to get (it's mostly been delisted from B&H). Another company (Maco, IIRC) has reportedly bought up the remaining Agfa film and paper stock and will be selling it under its own label.

I have some Forte polywarmtone FB plus (pw15) museum weight. I like the feel of it, but the speed (to me) is definitely slower than other brands. Not only in speed, but takes longer to develop as well, being a heavier paper. With Agfa and Ilford, I go with 2-2.5 minutes in the dev, but with this Forte, I usually do 3 minutes minimum.