My Fomapan 400 is broken

radiant · Jun 10, 2021

As member of Grain Lovers Inc. I tried to go on crusade to search for the "huge" grain from Fomapan 400.

I've tried evertyhing from underexposing and overdeveloping. I mean heavy overdevelopment. I've tried overexposing. I've been using Rodinal 1+25. I've agitated "like crazy" (30sec intervals).

But I suspect my film is broken. There isn't any large grain. The film works surprisingly well.

The only way to get this notorious and really common grain from Fomapan 400 is to heavily underexpose and scan. There is no way to make prints out of those negatives. And making prints is only thing that counts.

So should I return my film? I thought even showing this film to Rodinal bottle makes it have such acne that I could get my respect in Grain Lovers inc. But they just laugh at me ..

TheFlyingCamera · Jun 10, 2021

One thing you could try is developing it in Dektol 1:3, and run it hot (like 26-27C or something - not so hot it's going to melt the gelatin off the film base, but still elevated temperature). Try 4 minutes.

Lachlan Young · Jun 10, 2021

Even at 4-5x, crisp, strong granularity (if you get a suitably dense, overprocessed/ overexposed neg and print at G5 - possibly with a condenser too) is pretty routinely obtainable with 1+25 Rodinal and 135 Tri-X. It sounds more like you have uncontrolled systemic errors at play here than any inherent material fault. Something in the order of 1+25 Rodinal for 9 mins at 20oC, on a set of bracketed exposures, then printing them on to G5 will likely give you an answer. What's not clear is just how big you want the grain to be.

Alex Benjamin · Jun 10, 2021

I hear you.

I spend all my days alone in my darkroom crying, over and over listening either to Pete Seeger's "Where has all the grain gone", John Lennon's "Give Grain a Chance" or Dylan's "The Grains they are A-Changin'"...

gone · Jun 10, 2021

I feel your pain. I too had heard about Foma 400's awful and ugly grain, but my shots came out surprisingly nice. Maybe I didn't try hard enough.

Dektol should do it for you. If not, you may as well buy a DSLR. That way, at least you could crank up the noise, then lie and say it's "electronic grain" :{

Don_ih · Jun 10, 2021

Try Foma's Retropan 320 if you want grain. I think it's actually made of sand.

gone · Jun 10, 2021

Pacific beach sand, or Atlantic beach sand. It makes a difference.

bedrof · Jun 10, 2021

vedostuu said:
As member of Grain Lovers Inc. I tried to go on crusade to search for the "huge" grain from Fomapan 400.

I've tried evertyhing from underexposing and overdeveloping. I mean heavy overdevelopment. I've tried overexposing. I've been using Rodinal 1+25. I've agitated "like crazy" (30sec intervals).

But I suspect my film is broken. There isn't any large grain. The film works surprisingly well.

The only way to get this notorious and really common grain from Fomapan 400 is to heavily underexpose and scan. There is no way to make prints out of those negatives. And making prints is only thing that counts.

So should I return my film? I thought even showing this film to Rodinal bottle makes it have such acne that I could get my respect in Grain Lovers inc. But they just laugh at me ..

You might consider donating it to the "Grain haters" club then.

Don Heisz said:
Try Foma's Retropan 320 if you want grain. I think it's actually made of sand.

Oh, I really wanted to try this in medium format, but couldn't find a roll.

Nicholas Lindan · Jun 10, 2021

Try Kodak TMZ 3200 or the Ilford equivalent.

Try shooting with a 20mm lens and use only the very center of the frame for your subject - then enlarge that center part to fit the paper. Sort of like shooting TMZ in a Minox.

Donald Qualls · Jun 10, 2021

vedostuu said:
So should I return my film?

I have a simple solution: send any Fomapan 400 you feel is defective due to lack of grain to me. I'll dispose of it safely.

Juan Valdenebro · Jun 10, 2021

For grain with F400 you can use diluted Microphen with sodium carbonate added. Better than Dektol in my tests.
Best very present grain with amazing tone I've seen (wet printing) is TMZ at EI1600 in TMaxDev 1+7.

radiant · Jun 10, 2021

TheFlyingCamera said:
One thing you could try is developing it in Dektol 1:3, and run it hot (like 26-27C or something - not so hot it's going to melt the gelatin off the film base, but still elevated temperature). Try 4 minutes.

Ah yes, I didn't yet steer my bandwagon to the paper developer road. Does it really have to be Dektol or does Ilford paper developer or FOMATOL LQN do the job? I have those in my darkroom.

Lachlan Young said:
Even at 4-5x, crisp, strong granularity (if you get a suitably dense, overprocessed/ overexposed neg and print at G5 - possibly with a condenser too) is pretty routinely obtainable with 1+25 Rodinal and 135 Tri-X

Ah yes, I have done this with Tri-X the Mikael Siirilä way and the grain is very beautiful. And also very very dense negatives ..

Alex Benjamin said:
I spend all my days alone in my darkroom crying, over and over listening either to Pete Seeger's "Where has all the grain gone", John Lennon's "Give Grain a Chance" or Dylan's "The Grains they are A-Changin'"...

I watched Monty Python's The Holy Grain where there was this black knight (Foma employee) who was telling it is "just a scratch" ..

Maybe the problem is that currently it is very warm in Finland, so there are no grain from the sky at all ..

Don Heisz said:
Try Foma's Retropan 320 if you want grain. I think it's actually made of sand.

Thank you for this. I was at bar when I read this and laughed out loud.

bedrof said:
Oh, I really wanted to try this in medium format, but couldn't find a roll.

Maybe you didn't dig enough deep?

Nicholas Lindan said:
Try shooting with a 20mm lens and use only the very center of the frame for your subject - then enlarge that center part to fit the paper. Sort of like shooting TMZ in a Minox.

Actually I have thought about this. Also making mask to my viewfinder to help composition.

Juan Valdenebro said:
For grain with F400 you can use diluted Microphen with sodium carbonate added. Better than Dektol in my tests.

Thanks for the tip! Does sodium carbonate work with Rodinal too? How much should I add?

radiant · Jun 10, 2021

bedrof said:
Oh, I really wanted to try this in medium format, but couldn't find a roll.

I found some for you: https://www.nordfoto.de/Analoge-Fot...opan-320-soft-Schwarzweissfilm-120::9177.html

But for 135 I cannot find source.

ciniframe · Jun 10, 2021

The 20mm, enlarge the dickens out of the center is one way, but why waste all that negative area?
When you could go down the rabbit hole of shooting 16mm. There is a keen discussion over at the ‘Lo fi’ subforum. Take a look at the 16mm/110 thread.

Lachlan Young · Jun 10, 2021

vedostuu said:
Does it really have to be Dektol or does Ilford paper developer or FOMATOL LQN do the job? I have those in my darkroom.

The reality is (and inversely opposite to the 'I-read-it-20-30-40-50-years-ago-in-a-magazine-that-you-should-boil-it-in-Dektol-for-big-grain' crowd) that a moderately diluted universal/ paper developer (eg PQ Universal at 1+19 or 1+29) tends to behave largely like a better Rodinal with somewhat finer granularity & often rather sharper low frequency resolution. There's nothing wrong with trying it - and Foma do give times for their Universal developer - these types of developers mostly tend to give an unrelenting straight line character and very very low fog. I think I may even have run some 120 Fomapan 400 in the Foma Retro Special developer - which I recall did the desired contrast expansion job fine.

Foma 320 is out of production in 135 currently - but I'm not sure it's necessarily any better for the look you are after. You can even get pretty intense granularity out of Delta 400 with ID-11/D-76 if you want. For that matter, most of Moriyama's iconic images aren't anything fancier than Tri-X (underexposed a bit) cooked in warm D-76 and printed very hard.

radiant · Jun 10, 2021

Lachlan Young said:
For that matter, most of Moriyama's iconic images aren't anything fancier than Tri-X (underexposed a bit) cooked in warm D-76 and printed very hard.

Moriyama has the good I'm after. So just the normal temperature compensation to the development time? 26-27 degrees celcius?

radiant · Jun 10, 2021

Also I am on purpose destroying the shadows so that is why the underexposure. And for the highlights; I don't know should I develop the hell out to get really dense highlights or not, that is left to seen on G5 print. I bracketed the underexposure so I probably know now my own EI.

I've always followed "expose for the shadows .." mantra so that I've tried to always capture shadows. But on my taste I don't even want shadow details and typically smash them in printing. I only realised it now. Maybe it should be "your preferred shadow taste is adjusted with exposure".

Juan Valdenebro · Jun 10, 2021

vedostuu said:
Thanks for the tip! Does sodium carbonate work with Rodinal too? How much should I add?

Rodinal makes sharp present grain all the time: no sodium carbonate needed... Just agitate every 30 seconds, underexpose one or two stops, and push using higher temperature than usual.
Na2CO3 works with most developers: at 24-26C test 2-5 grams added just before development. It makes the process a lot faster, so use short times to start your tests.
Please comment later what it does with Rodinal, if you do it soon... Thanks!

Lachlan Young · Jun 10, 2021

vedostuu said:
Moriyama has the good I'm after. So just the normal temperature compensation to the development time? 26-27 degrees celcius?

vedostuu said:
But on my taste I don't even want shadow details and typically smash them in printing. I only realised it now. Maybe it should be "your preferred shadow taste is adjusted with exposure".

Basically you'll need to experiment with cutting your exposure back a bit and probably jamming the processing up somewhat - 8 mins at 24oC in stock ID-11 or D-76 maybe? Easy enough to compensate to wherever you want to go temperature wise. Foma's slightly lower shadow speed might help you drop shadows more easily too.

radiant · Jun 10, 2021

Juan Valdenebro said:
Just agitate every 30 seconds, underexpose one or two stops, and push using higher temperature than usual.

I've done the first two so I will develop next rolls on high temperature. If that isn't enough then what is ..

Juan Valdenebro · Jun 10, 2021

I'd also listen to Lachlan's comment on Delta400 for grain: it makes all the sense.

TheFlyingCamera · Jun 10, 2021

vedostuu said:
Ah yes, I didn't yet steer my bandwagon to the paper developer road. Does it really have to be Dektol or does Ilford paper developer or FOMATOL LQN do the job? I have those in my darkroom.

I've only ever tried Dektol for this, so I don't know. You'd have to experiment with the other developers to see.

laingsoft · Jun 10, 2021

Overdevelop with caffenol. You'll get the grain you're looking for.

radiant · Jun 10, 2021

Lachlan Young said:
Basically you'll need to experiment with cutting your exposure back a bit and probably jamming the processing up somewhat - 8 mins at 24oC in stock ID-11 or D-76 maybe? Easy enough to compensate to wherever you want to go temperature wise. Foma's slightly lower shadow speed might help you drop shadows more easily too.

I got the negatives to be at printed at grade 2-3 based on just measuring on enlarger with 1+25 and 12 minutes (30sec agi). Shadows were pretty clear so no overdevelopment there. I will try 15 minutes also to pump the contrast a bit more to be at grade 1-2. Then I have plenty of headroom to smash around.

So 1+25 at 27 degC for 7 and half minutes, 30 sec agi is my next recipe.

I think I will continue on Rodinal, isn't that typically producing more grain than ID-11 ?

radiant · Jun 10, 2021

Juan Valdenebro said:
I'd also listen to Lachlan's comment on Delta400 for grain: it makes all the sense.

Yeah but we have to find out what is problem with my Foma 400 which is always said to be grainy and shouldn't never be developed in Rodinal.

Here is some proof. Shot at 640 and 1280 EI and Rodinal 1+25, 12minutes. Full tonal scan (I know, I know) on Epson V600, no any adjustments.

close up:

The highlights on EI 640 were so dense that the scanner couldn't handle it. I actually don't know if the un-adjusted settings crank the output levels to the max or not. But that is not important..

My Fomapan 400 is broken

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