Overexposing Fomapan 400 (ISO 200 & 100)

Fixing a flat tire via a scan should be relegated to the digital half of Photrio, not here. TMax films are impressive once you master them, but they don't forgive exposure carelessness, and require more careful shadow metering than most films. I tried a couple of boxes of Foma 8x10 sheet film. It's the last "straight line" film on the market, so deserved a try, but proved rather disappointing compared to the discontinued Bergger 200 and Kodak Super-XX. The emulsion zits and scratches on the Foma product killed my interest in it.

Prest_400 said:

Strangely I haven't gotten into grip with TMax 100 while having found no difficulty with the Fomas. Might be that I need to tighten my skills printing.

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T-Max 100 can give fantastic image quality. However it does take some mastery in terms of exposure and development. You may find better results from exposing at 50 EI (altering development time accordingly) depending on metering technique and the desired aesthetics.

TMax films are on of the few choices where box speed is the realistic speed in most instances. But since these are also capable of a high gamma contrast level, I don't recommend overexposure in high contrast situations. The trick is to learn to trust the excellent shadow separation inherent to the steep toe of the characteristic curve. But this requires thoughtful metering. It's not a film for machine-gunners or shoot-from-the-hip drunken cowboys. It's more for careful snipers.

I've not had a problem with T-Max 400 in XTOL, exposed at box speed.

TMax films can handle all kinds of developer options, depending on what kind of curve you're after. It also helps that the batch to batch quality control is excellent and predictable. Doubt that's the case with Foma.

Prest_400 said:

... mailorder labs. The issue is that they tend to give magnificient scans that are corrected and that hides a lot of the sins that are rather obvious in the darkroom

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Not really - a lot of the results are pretty entry-level compared to what can be done in the darkroom or with high end scanning. Many minilab results replace one set of technical flaws with a different & equally limiting set.

Prest_400 said:

Strangely I haven't gotten into grip with TMax 100 while having found no difficulty with the Fomas. Might be that I need to tighten my skills printing.

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The TMax films are very well behaved if you stick to something like D-76, Xtol, DDX etc. Unless you really need the specific properties of HC-110 (especially for technical applications), there's no great reason to use it - and even for the technical applications, there are other ways to the same ends.

I've been lucky with QC on Foma products in recent years, though I use a lot more of their papers (Fomatone, graded Fomabrom) than their films.

I must have been lucky because in several years of shooting Fomapan in 120 I've had no reliability issues. The emulsion is delicate, true. Once, I noticed tiny black spots in homogeneous areas of the sky on one of the first rolls of Foma 200 I shot. Longer fixing got rid of that. Another time, tiny scratches were present. Here I (my poor processing technique) was the problem. To be more precise, my use of the squeegee was. I have now dumped the squeegee and dry my negatives without ever touching them. No issues since really - pretty pleased.

I've never had the pleasure of using Tmax 100 in 120, I'm sure it's a good film. Where I live, however, it's quite expensive not to mention hard to find.

On the other hand, having used TMAX 400 in 120 several times, I've now stopped buying the stuff altogether because I've had too many shots hopelessly ruined by the known issue of the backing paper characters ending up printed on my negatives. Truly poor effort from Alaris and nothing like the old Tmax products.

albireo said:

On the other hand, having used TMAX 400 in 120 several times, I've now stopped buying the stuff altogether because I've had too many shots hopelessly ruined by the known issue of the backing paper characters ending up printed on my negatives. Truly poor effort from Alaris and nothing like the old Tmax products.

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The backing paper issue should be solved by the new style glossy paper.

Those suspect backing rolls were identified and removed from the inventory of REPUTABLE dealers long ago. I shot Tmax and Ektar roll films all through that phase and never even once had a bad roll. I checked my freezer inventory too; all good. The film itself is as excellent as ever. But some subcontractor for the backing paper evidently slipped until they caught it. It happens to EVERY manufacturer at some point or another, and no there's sense depriving yourself of a fine film just because of a past brief incident.

DREW WILEY said:

TMax films can handle all kinds of developer options, depending on what kind of curve you're after. It also helps that the batch to batch quality control is excellent and predictable. Doubt that's the case with Foma.

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Lachlan Young said:

The TMax films are very well behaved if you stick to something like D-76, Xtol, DDX etc. Unless you really need the specific properties of HC-110 (especially for technical applications), there's no great reason to use it - and even for the technical applications, there are other ways to the same ends.
I've been lucky with QC on Foma products in recent years, though I use a lot more of their papers (Fomatone, graded Fomabrom) than their films.

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I know and should try a lot more. Of course TMX is not as tolerant to errors as the traditional cubic grain films and I was thinking perhaps I had a mistake on the dilution of HC110. Infact Drew some of your insights around here and LFF have been very interesting for learning. That said, I stick with Ilford HP5 and Delta 100 for medium format but jump around different films in 35mm. That clearly bites me back!

Tom Kershaw said:

T-Max 100 can give fantastic image quality. However it does take some mastery in terms of exposure and development. You may find better results from exposing at 50 EI (altering development time accordingly) depending on metering technique and the desired aesthetics.

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Thanks Tom. I had shot some expired 1996 TMX that was wonderful in a Mju I, so I was surprised to have flat negs now. I also perhaps relied a bit too much on the Nikon F90's matrix meter and should have downrated the film a bit (if it loses speed in HC110). I've stuck with HC110 due to convenience and economy. Dilutions E and H are great but I'm aware that it's not the technically best developer. The prints from some nice frames have some great

However, as to be back on topic and with due relevance I grabbed some Fomadon Excel: Foma's XTOL equivalent, which comes up for mixing 1L and more adequate for smaller batches of film. Foma have an excellent complete range and the price is very attractive in Europe. For 3.5€ a 120 roll, that is the cheapest B&W around. Not even Shanghai GP3 is that cheap.
I make sure to have some, it functions great in the Holga on sunny days... Of which are very rare in this season on Northern latitudes.

An interesting point of Fomapan, in which Drew commented about although concerning Ektachrome, is that the base is Polyester. I wonder why not all rollfilm is on polyester as it seems a good choice for dimensional stability and archival quality.

HC-110 is a superb developer for TMax, although there are other excellent choices. But I suppose acetate base is used for roll film because it's thin and flexible, and probably cheaper too. With sheet film stiffness is an advantage.

@Sean this thread needs to be split, out of topic currently..