Status of Fomapan 200

[Aurelien]

Statement from MACO:
"Now I have a new information and decision of the management to the Fomapan 200:
Our supplier of a raw material which is necessary for the production the Fomapan 200
emulsion finished production.
Foma after very intensive negotiations and testing, unfortunately, could not replace this
element so that we can´t supply Fomapan 200 in high quality as is required.
This is the reason why we are forced to close production Fomapan 200 at present.
We regret it very much, but we have to cancel all orders of Fomapan 200 from our clients,
because we are not able to provide this product currently.
Thank you for your understanding."


Its a great loss for me, I loved this film. Time is hard...

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Aurelien,

What are your current impressions of the other Foma films?

Tom

 

[Aurelien]

What do you mean by current impressions?

 

[Tom Kershaw]

What do you mean by current impressions?

What do you think of Fomapan 100 and 400?

Tom

 

[Aurelien]

They are old fashion films, but I love them.
Foma 100, I expose it @ 64 and in rodinal it's exceptional. The closer film to APX 100
Foma 400, a very old style 400 ISO film, whicih I love too... look at the combo rolleiflex/ foma 400/ xtol

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I can see you've achieved subtle tonality and gradation in the image that very much works for the subject. From looking at the skin tone, I take it XTOL & Fomapan 400 are a relatively low contrast option at the development time chosen?

Did you use much APX 100 when it was available?

Tom

 

[Aurelien]

It was not the one I used the more... And when it was available, I shot mostly in 135... When I got inside the world of Medium format, agfa stopped it in 120 .
Stille have some, I could compare if you want.

 

[Ian Grant]

I think that's old news, and the relevant line for optimism is “we are forced to close production Fomapan 200 at present.”


That's very different to saying it's discontinued completely.


Ian

Statement from MACO:
"Now I have a new information and decision of the management to the Fomapan 200:
Our supplier of a raw material which is necessary for the production the Fomapan 200
emulsion finished production.
Foma after very intensive negotiations and testing, unfortunately, could not replace this
element so that we can´t supply Fomapan 200 in high quality as is required.
This is the reason why we are forced to close production Fomapan 200 at present.
We regret it very much, but we have to cancel all orders of Fomapan 200 from our clients,
because we are not able to provide this product currently.
Thank you for your understanding."


Its a great loss for me, I loved this film. Time is hard...

 

[Cainquixote]

I love foma 100 rated at 50 in d76 1:1
how are you souping it in rodinal?

 

[Athiril]

Ive got a box of Arista EDU Ultra 100 in 4x5, never really liked it at all. Might give it another go before getting some Shanghai in 4x5

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Well, I got to try five rolls of it. I'm yet to process them... But the Foma 100 and 400 stuff is so beautiful, and we should be grateful to at least have those.

I use the 100 in medium format, mostly for pinhole, and the 400 for 35mm work. All processed in Xtol. The 400 is really sharp and works very very well with portraiture. Prints very nicely to 11x14 from 35mm, or larger if you can. The grain is very beautiful.

- Thomas

 

[Jeff Kubach]

I hate to see film being drop, but I geuss it is way it is.

Jeff

 

[mikebarger]

Thomas

Have you seen any of the marks issue discussed on other threads concerning the Foma films?

Thanks

Mike

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Hi Mike. No marks. Yet. But I haven't processed the 200 film yet. I'm doing that this week some time. I will subscribe to this thread and post back here.

- Thomas

 

[Willie Jan]

What I read from the adox site is that they are going to start up making the old apx 100 again in this year for all formats until 8x10.
No old stock, but new ones.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I was just shooting the last of mine a couple of days ago. Still have half a roll loaded. It was interesting stuff--supposedly a T-grain film, but it didn't look like one. It was really grainy, so I'm not sure what the advantage of being a T-grain film would have been, but it looked like something from the Pictorialist era or maybe a film by Fritz Lang. Maybe we'll see it again.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I used it extensively (and still do) in large format. It was awesome in Pyrocat HD, rated at 100, processed 1:1:100. I don't know where they came up with the T-grain bit, it never looked like a T-grain film to me, and didn't perform like one, but that was to me irrelevant- it produced exactly the results I wanted. I do hope they come up with a replacement for it.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Scott, I think Foma called it T200 at some point, which may have caused a few people to speculate about the t-grain technology.

I found this link that refers to it as a t-kristall film (in German).

http://www.fotoimpex.de/Technik/FomaT200/fomat200.html

I think Foma has undergone an update since that web site was written, but I seem to remember reading about the Foma 200 film as t-grain in many places, but am yet to read anything from Foma stating so, so I have taken it with a grain of salt.
It doesn't really matter in the long run anyway, does it? If you like how something looks, perhaps the technology of how it's manufactured is less important.

For those that lost a 'good friend' in Foma 200 - I hope you find a good alternative.

- Thomas

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Fotoimpex also states in their 2010 catalog: "Der Fomapan 200 basiert auf Flachkristall Technologie" (page 11).

http://www.fotoimpex.de/catalogus_novus_impexi_germanus.pdf

- Thomas

 

[Barry S]

I agree, it's a beautiful film developed in Pyrocat HD--not grainy at all. David, maybe your developer/time wasn't optimal for it? I had two big issues--quality control and reciprocity. It has the worst reciprocity characteristics of any film ever made, and I used to regularly find emulsion defects. Other than that, the tonality was beautiful and the price was extremely reasonable--especially under the Freestyle Arista EDU Ultra name. It's a big loss for large format shooters if they don't find a way to resume production. It's not a conventional grain film, but maybe not exactly a T-grain either, although the only photomicrograph I've ever seen makes the grains look fairly tabular. See http://www.flickr.com/groups/foma/discuss/72157600068522209/

 

[jglass]

Can anyone compare it with Tri-x for me? Anyone shot it side by side, same developer etc? The Arista Edu Ultra is about the same price as the Arista Premium, which we all understand to be re-packaged Tri-x. There would have to be some real differences, advantages to the Foma for me to try it, but I'm very interested.

 

[Ian Grant]

Have to agree it's not grainy, I used it in Pyrocat at 100 EI, I also tested it's reciprocity with some practical low light level tests last Spring and found it was nothing like as bad as Foma's suggested figures, I think I've run out of 120 but still have two boxes of 5x4 left.

Ian

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

"Can anyone compare it with Tri-x for me? Anyone shot it side by side, same developer etc? The Arista Edu Ultra is about the same price as the Arista Premium, which we all understand to be re-packaged Tri-x. There would have to be some real differences, advantages to the Foma for me to try it, but I'm very interested."

I have heard people say that Foma 200 felt somewhat like the old Tri-X 400 to them.

I'm not sure about that comparison. If I were you, and I wanted to find out, I would try for myself by comparing them side by side, as that is the only opinion that really matters to you anyway.

- Thomas

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Since this seems like there may be no new information here, and the original poster's source is MACO, a redistributor, rather than Foma, the manufacturer, I've updated the title of this thread. If anyone can get more information from Foma, that would be useful.

 

[Ian Grant]

Thank you David.

There was a post recently stating that Foma had stopped production of Fomapan 200 some time ago and hoped to resume with a reformulated emulsion this Spring. That would need testing so it wasn't a quick fix.

Ian