In Praise Of Fomabrom Variant III 111 VC FB

Well, today I tried 111 with my cold tone MQ formula, and it did cool it a little. There is still a bit of stubborn sepia tone, just like I could never fully neutralize the purplish tone of MCC. And it can't be leveraged as far into the cool as Bergger NB. So this is not a product I'll use for snow scenes; but that's not what I was doing today. And I did get some very nice prints. It's clearly a premium paper, just with its own idiosyncrasies better suited to some images than others.

The paper itself is conspicuously the same as Ilford now uses, but that's no secret. And the contrast does seem to be a full step lower than other VC papers I've used. So on negs I normally would have started out with all zero settings on the color head, in this case I started out with cc 30M. Otherwise, no surprises.

DREW WILEY said:

The paper itself is conspicuously the same as Ilford now uses, but that's no secret.

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Maybe Ilford have changed their paper base, but the direct comparisons I've seen so far (IRL I mean) show a slightly coarser, irregular surface on Fomabrom and a more regular/square pattern to Ilford. The difference was subtle in the side by side comparisons, but it was there alright. I slightly preferred the Ilford, but found it didn't justify the higher cost. I assume both Foma and Harman obtain their paper bases from Schöller, but also note that Schöller offers a wide range of products, so the same source doesn't necessarily mean an identical base.

The batch I just obtained had exactly the same sort of transparent zits or random little splotches when wet as recent Ilford papers, which there was a discussion about a few months ago, and which seemingly never occurred on earlier papers in general, at least in my decades of experience. It was concluded that this effect causes no harm since it disappears when the print is dry. I take it, however, that differences in surface texture rather than internal fiber weave are something post-embossed. I didn't mean to suggest the papers were identical in that respect, which can apparently be customized per product.

It may be that a lot of people are like myself and really crave a heavy paper for several reasons, including the physical safety of the heavy sheet, from tearing, creases, being stained through with unintentional contacts with pens, liquids, etc.

Heavier prints are usually preferred by many people, often without the resources to dry mount or have a print dry mounted for themselves.

In this area, I am in need of verification, but thin papers might have a lesser 'depth' of silver emulsion or light reflection, similar to the depth of light penetration down into a well painted oil paintings made with transparent oils, where viewing light reflections from beneath paints cause the light to appear with greater "luminescence" which brightens colours and the introduced depth of field from a bright ground.

I also like the way heavier papers, especially Fiber Based Papers, lie on the easel and more precisely allows the application of colours, which in traditional photographic (pre-Coloured films) were colorized by, again, by Marshalls Oil Colours.

There are other reasons for my preference, but let others here edify the rest of us on their reasoning and choices.

Cheers.

eli griggs said:

thin papers might have a lesser 'depth' of silver emulsion

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The emulsion lies on top of the paper, so the thickness of the paper support doesn't matter. What does matter, is the surface geometry of the paper base; the baryta layer is coated on top followed by the gelatin emulsion, and both these layers conform to the paper surface for the most part. This means that the texture of the actual paper base 'shines through' in the emulsion layer and that does indeed affect the appearance of the final print; referring to this as a sense of 'depth' is something that sounds fitting to me, even though it's technically perhaps not entirely correct.

John Wiegerink said:

Well, after using it for a while, I must say it's a darn good paper for my purposes. The only thing I had to do was ditch my old safelights and go to all red. Oh, and learn how to deal with its fast speed. With my Ilford 400 multigrade head, my printing times were far too short. Had to use lower wattage halogen bulbs.

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Yes, I have to use an 0.3ND filter, and sometimes an 0.6ND, on top of the Ilford contrast filters in my Omega D3 which has a 75W bulb, just to have the time for some easy dodging and burning.

I finally had to install Lithographic red filters in the Kodak beehive safelights too, the original kodak red filters weren't safe enough, perhaps they lost some of their colour density due to age....