Tasma-FN64 developer. What similar recipe?

removedacct2 · Mar 18, 2022

I have bought a pack of 100 sheets 13x18 Tasma-FN64 exp. 2010, Will have to wait it arrives from Russia before I can start playing with it. Paid 7500RUB ie. (as per today...) ~66EUR/70USD, which is a nice price for 100 sheets.
In the meanwhile I am curious if the recommended developer recipe printed on the box matches a known recipe. It's metol based, but I don't find in my docs a similar one. I have chemicals so will just make this receipe, just curious if it reminds someones of another named one

Tasma mentions a "standart receipe nr. 2"
8g metol
125g sodium sulphite
5,75g sodium carbonate
2,5g potassium bromide

Closest I have in my docs is a Ferrania R11:
5g metol
100g sodium sulphite
5g sodium carbonate
1g potassium bromide

----
developing time, mentioned on front label of the box (from seller's pictures) 5 mn
(btw. notice the bilingual text, russian/tatar, as Tasma is indeed in Kazan).

Donald Qualls · Mar 18, 2022

Looks almost like a fast-working version of D-76H -- carbonate will make it work faster than the borax.

It also resembles BJP Metol-Carbonate developer (but with half the metol). Don't know where you'd find times for that, though.

Looks like the Massive Dev Chart has 12 minutes in Rodinal 1:50, if that's any help.

mohmad khatab · Mar 18, 2022

antonio_b said:
I have bought a pack of 100 sheets 13x18 Tasma-FN64 exp. 2010, Will have to wait it arrives from Russia before I can start playing with it. Paid 7500RUB ie. (as per today...) ~66EUR/70USD, which is a nice price for 100 sheets.
In the meanwhile I am curious if the recommended developer recipe printed on the box matches a known recipe. It's metol based, but I don't find in my docs a similar one. I have chemicals so will just make this receipe, just curious if it reminds someones of another named one

Tasma mentions a "standart receipe nr. 2"
8g metol
125g sodium sulphite
5,75g sodium carbonate
2,5g potassium bromide

View attachment 300923

Closest I have in my docs is a Ferrania R11:
5g metol
100g sodium sulphite
5g sodium carbonate
1g potassium bromide

----
developing time, mentioned on front label of the box (from seller's pictures) 5 mn
(btw. notice the bilingual text, russian/tatar, as Tasma is indeed in Kazan).

View attachment 300924

Greetings to you
I would like to congratulate you on obtaining this precious box.
I have repeatedly sought to buy from you the evil company, but I had no luck because they want to get money in Russian currency and they do not ship goods outside Russia..
I met a Muslim woman from Tatarstan who works there as an e-mail administrator, and she tried to help me in various ways.
But in the end, things did not go well, and I felt that the final cost of the product after shipping, etc., will exceed the value of alternative products such as (FOMA) in stages.
But I have a hidden feeling that I do not know the reason for. It tells me that the emulsions of that company inevitably have a very special flavor that is not available in any other photographic emulsion.

removedacct2 · Mar 20, 2022

Donald Qualls said:
Looks almost like a fast-working version of D-76H -- carbonate will make it work faster than the borax.

It also resembles BJP Metol-Carbonate developer (but with half the metol).

i didn't think of D76H indeed, which is without hydroquinone ... but then I have seen few samples of FN-64 developed in D76 though, like for instance, from
https://club.foto.ru/forum/view_post.php?p_id=13079407 , though age of the film isn't mentioned.

latest FN-64 batches sold to general public are from 2011. This was/is an aerial film otherwise provided in 18cm wide rolls for cartographic and military use. Batches cut as 13x18 were available sometime. That's what I have bought. This film is described on runet as thin (meant for big aerial rolls) easy to scratch, high contrast, high sensibility to red to work around atmospheric layers and with quite some base fog. Hence the potassium bromide of the Tasma recommended formula.

in fact I was curious about any possible existing developer for aerial emulsions. The one found easily for sale is Agfa Aviphot and Afga sells a G74 xxx developer, but I guess the formula is either patent protected or very specific to machine development for this kind of film

it is interesting to find how this FN-64 may compare to Aviphot. Anyway I will just use the formula given by Tasma first.

meantime I found out that ST-2 developer is in fact Agfa-12 or Orwo-12, ie. the ancient standart of BW:
https://d-76.ru/blogs/podrobnoe-opi...istyy-negativnyy-proyavitel?ysclid=l0zwrp3ukc
in that links it is further explained that in order to avoid sediments, a gram of BASF Trilon-B (a form of EDTA) can be added, and increased amount of sodium carbonate to compensate the acidification caused by EDTA.

for 1 liter:
trilon B 1.0g
metol .8,0g
sodium sulphite anhydrous 125g
sodium carbonate anhydrous. 6,0g
potassium bromide 2.5g

I found some thread about this AGFA/ORWO-12 /ST-2, for Svema FN-64 and Orwo NP15:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/agfa-12-st-2-orwo-12-modern-equivalent-developer.112880/

Svema FN64 and Tasma FN64 may then be the same thing, just that in the aftermath of desovietization, former production of Svema in SSR Ukraine was repatriated to Kazan at Tasman .
Available Svema FN64 or ORWO NP15 2nd-hand are now quite old, mostly from the 90's, but Tasma FN64 is probably still in use, despite last general public batches were seen ten years ago.

I checked and Agfa-12 is listed on Massive Chart but only for 2 films: HP5+ and Tmax-400.
I did spot discussions on club-foto-ru I think were indeed some compared Tasma FN64 to HP5+ ...

a relatively recent review of this film I found from 2020. The guy bought a box of exactly what I found on avito.ru the other day. He used as iso 32 and developed in pyro350 1+1+100
He mentions also the thinness of the film, uneasy to load and bend when dry. Reminds of litho thin film...
http://shmigiriloff.com/tasma-fn-64-13x18/?ysclid=l0zy3ohw5d

removedacct2 · Mar 20, 2022

mohmad khatab said:
Greetings to you
I would like to congratulate you on obtaining this precious box.
I have repeatedly sought to buy from you the evil company, but I had no luck because they want to get money in Russian currency and they do not ship goods outside Russia..
.../... I felt that the final cost of the product after shipping, etc., will exceed the value of alternative products such as (FOMA) in stages.
But I have a hidden feeling that I do not know the reason for. It tells me that the emulsions of that company inevitably have a very special flavor that is not available in any other photographic emulsion.

thank you! : -) yes I guess it's worth to experiment a little with this film. But as you say to get it is not easy. Currently Tasma sells to the public 35mm films Typ-25 and Typ-42 but outside Russia it would be difficult to find: I don't think there are big importers and people doing small scale import may be quite expensive. If as your profile says you are in Egypt, postal cost may be even bigger than Russia-EU.
Sheets of FN-64 are no longer sold anyway, only 2nd hand.
Btw, with the current bans frenzy and Russia sailing away from the euro/dollar Swift/Visa/Mastercard ecosystem, not possible to buy in a trivial way, and it means also it can't be imported in the euro-american realm directly because Swift ban. Chinese, indian and turkish markets on the other hand could be providing if things keep going like they are now, there may be a USA+EU block with its own banking system, a BRICS block with its, and bridging solutions.
For the anecdote even the site where I found the film is accessible now only via russian-located VPN in order to circumvent european blocks and network attacks ...
That said i have friend in Russia who can ship me things, and I also know how to buy through cracks in the euroamerican blocus, in a way that it is still cheaper than buying Foma or at least not more expensive.

mohmad khatab · Mar 20, 2022

antonio_b said:
thank you! : -) yes I guess it's worth to experiment a little with this film. But as you say to get it is not easy. Currently Tasma sells to the public 35mm films Typ-25 and Typ-42 but outside Russia it would be difficult to find: I don't think there are big importers and people doing small scale import may be quite expensive. If as your profile says you are in Egypt, postal cost may be even bigger than Russia-EU.
Sheets of FN-64 are no longer sold anyway, only 2nd hand.
Btw, with the current bans frenzy and Russia sailing away from the euro/dollar Swift/Visa/Mastercard ecosystem, not possible to buy in a trivial way, and it means also it can't be imported in the euro-american realm directly because Swift ban. Chinese, indian and turkish markets on the other hand could be providing if things keep going like they are now, there may be a USA+EU block with its own banking system, a BRICS block with its, and bridging solutions.
For the anecdote even the site where I found the film is accessible now only via russian-located VPN in order to circumvent european blocks and network attacks ...
That said i have friend in Russia who can ship me things, and I also know how to buy through cracks in the euroamerican blocus, in a way that it is still cheaper than buying Foma or at least not more expensive.

no dear..
Tasma Factory, is a government factory, and its main objective is to sell air and industrial films to governments in the first place on long-term contracts.
It also manufactures X-ray films.
I have been trying to negotiate with them for about a year. It is not a question of the last vigil imposed on Russia. No.. I think that this factory has a completely different approach. It tells you,,, Either you are a representative of a government or an international body, in which case a long-term supply contract will be concluded.
Russians often prefer to sell using their local currency, the Chinese yuan, and finally the euro.
If you do not represent any government agency, then in that case, you should go to the factory yourself and meet the director of the factory and drink with him a cup of Russian tea, and he will sell you for cash in Russian currency, and you will find the price very excellent.
But in that case, you must obtain a permit to enter the factory, as it is a factory of a special nature similar to (military factories), and this permit is issued to you and sent to you stamped by e-mail. This permit and you go to the factory as I told you.

That Tatar woman who works in this factory issued a permit for me, and she thought I lived in Kazan, but I told her I lived next to the pyramids and she was shocked

- Of course, I thought of assigning one of the Egyptian students studying in Kazan to perform this task, but unfortunately, it turned out that the factory is very far from the city of university students and it is necessary to rent a taxi to cover a distance of more than 100 miles, and this will be expensive Extremely .

- What is all this nonsense,,, I do not want this product .. Thank you, Russian Tatars, I do not want anything from you ..

mohmad khatab · Mar 20, 2022

antonio_b said:
i didn't think of D76H indeed, which is without hydroquinone ... but then I have seen few samples of FN-64 developed in D76 though, like for instance, from
https://club.foto.ru/forum/view_post.php?p_id=13079407 , though age of the film isn't mentioned.

View attachment 301106

latest FN-64 batches sold to general public are from 2011. This was/is an aerial film otherwise provided in 18cm wide rolls for cartographic and military use. Batches cut as 13x18 were available sometime. That's what I have bought. This film is described on runet as thin (meant for big aerial rolls) easy to scratch, high contrast, high sensibility to red to work around atmospheric layers and with quite some base fog. Hence the potassium bromide of the Tasma recommended formula.

in fact I was curious about any possible existing developer for aerial emulsions. The one found easily for sale is Agfa Aviphot and Afga sells a G74 xxx developer, but I guess the formula is either patent protected or very specific to machine development for this kind of film

it is interesting to find how this FN-64 may compare to Aviphot. Anyway I will just use the formula given by Tasma first.

meantime I found out that ST-2 developer is in fact Agfa-12 or Orwo-12, ie. the ancient standart of BW:
https://d-76.ru/blogs/podrobnoe-opi...istyy-negativnyy-proyavitel?ysclid=l0zwrp3ukc
in that links it is further explained that in order to avoid sediments, a gram of BASF Trilon-B (a form of EDTA) can be added, and increased amount of sodium carbonate to compensate the acidification caused by EDTA.

for 1 liter:
trilon B 1.0g
metol .8,0g
sodium sulphite anhydrous 125g
sodium carbonate anhydrous. 6,0g
potassium bromide 2.5g

I found some thread about this AGFA/ORWO-12 /ST-2, for Svema FN-64 and Orwo NP15:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/agfa-12-st-2-orwo-12-modern-equivalent-developer.112880/

Svema FN64 and Tasma FN64 may then be the same thing, just that in the aftermath of desovietization, former production of Svema in SSR Ukraine was repatriated to Kazan at Tasman .
Available Svema FN64 or ORWO NP15 2nd-hand are now quite old, mostly from the 90's, but Tasma FN64 is probably still in use, despite last general public batches were seen ten years ago.

I checked and Agfa-12 is listed on Massive Chart but only for 2 films: HP5+ and Tmax-400.
I did spot discussions on club-foto-ru I think were indeed some compared Tasma FN64 to HP5+ ...

a relatively recent review of this film I found from 2020. The guy bought a box of exactly what I found on avito.ru the other day. He used as iso 32 and developed in pyro350 1+1+100
He mentions also the thinness of the film, uneasy to load and bend when dry. Reminds of litho thin film...
http://shmigiriloff.com/tasma-fn-64-13x18/?ysclid=l0zy3ohw5d

View attachment 301104

View attachment 301105

These are amazing results my dear friend..
I'm very proud of you ..
I hope you continue this great success.
God bless you

removedacct2 · Mar 20, 2022

mohmad khatab said:
no dear..
Tasma Factory, is a government factory, and its main objective is to sell air and industrial films to governments in the first place on long-term contracts.
It also manufactures X-ray films.

yes, but they package sometime emulsions for consumer market. This was the case with 35mm rolls Typ-25 and Typ-42. Or the FN64 13x18 sheets ten years ago. Etc.
Otherwise yes, what you say.

mohmad khatab · Mar 20, 2022

antonio_b said:
yes, but they package sometime emulsions for consumer market. This was the case with 35mm rolls Typ-25 and Typ-42. Or the FN64 13x18 sheets ten years ago. Etc.
Otherwise yes, what you say.

Maybe, but it's too complicated.
There is no direct mail shipping from Kazan to anywhere in the world,, the item must first be shipped to Moscow first, and then from there it is shipped to anywhere in the world, so the shipping cost becomes high and absolutely unfair, so I dismissed my This matter
Anyway, if you want to try again,
This is the number of Mrs. Fatima (I think this is her name as far as I remember), and this Tatar woman is considered the deputy general manager of the factory..
Call her and she speaks good English. But she prefers British English. +79033448624
Tell her that you are an Egyptian friend of Muhammad *, try to understand from her everything you want to know directly. I wish you success .

removedacct2 · Mar 21, 2022

mohmad khatab said:
This is the number of Mrs. Fatima (I think this is her name as far as I remember), and this Tatar woman is considered the deputy general manager of the factory..

thank you Mohmad, this could be useful. Well, maybe phone numbers should be sent with message than put in the open.

By the way, i am very familiar with Russia. as for Kazan i stood there three times, also when on the road with my car. For instance here, sommer 2017, I stopped three days while on the way from/to Ekaterinburg (from my place in Norway). The first car to the right with norwegian plate was my former old Forester. there I parked on the square by the main entrance of the kreml (inside which stands the famous Qolsharif mosque. First stay was in 2007 I think.

ridax · Apr 11, 2022

antonio_b said:
ST-2 developer is in fact Agfa-12 or Orwo-12, ie. the ancient standart of BW

Yes ST-2 is A-12.

'ST' is for 'STandard'. ST-2 was the developer used in the sensitometric control of all the Soviet 35mm and type 120 photographic (but not motion picture) negative films. The ST-1 developer was for negative sheet films and glass plates, as well as for all the photographic papers; it was a fast active developer like the ones we still use for our silver bromide papers. There was another standard developer for 35mm and 70mm negative motion picture films, and still another one for microfilms.

ridax · Apr 11, 2022

antonio_b said:
Svema FN64 and Tasma FN64 may then be the same thing, just that in the aftermath of desovietization, former production of Svema in SSR Ukraine was repatriated to Kazan at Tasman .

No. Both SVEMA and TASMA produced the same types of films back in the USSR for decades. The trademarks belonged to the state, as well as both the production facilities. Though the SVEMA and the TASMA films usually went out to be more or less different (and were packed in differently designed boxes), and different photographers often preferred different manufacturers' films of the same types.

(There was the same situation with photographic papers; all the Unibrom and Bromportrait and Contabrom, etc., etc. trademarks were used by about half a dozen different manufacturers, and the same-named papers made at different places usually differed quite a bit, though they were of the same general types.)

ridax · Apr 11, 2022

antonio_b said:
latest FN-64 batches sold to general public are from 2011. This was/is an aerial film otherwise provided in 18cm wide rolls for cartographic and military use. Batches cut as 13x18 were available sometime. That's what I have bought. This film is described on runet as thin (meant for big aerial rolls) easy to scratch, high contrast, high sensibility to red to work around atmospheric layers and with quite some base fog.

That's definetely quite a different film relabled FN-64 for marketing purposes only.

The real FN-64, previously called Photo-64, was a low contrast consumer panchromatic negative film without any excessive red sensitivity. Its unique feature was its stop-gamma emulsion; the max. everage gamma was fixed at about 0.65, and any extended or high-temperature development never made it grow any more. In the days when anyone taking pictures of their family had to process their films at home, this type of emulsion ensured everyone got negatives of the same standard contrast and had no problems printing them onto normal-contrast graded papers.

(FN is for photo negative; the motion picture negative series of films were called KN for Kino-Negative, and the graphic arts films were labeled FT for phototechnical.)

flavio81 · Apr 11, 2022

ridax said:
That's definetely quite a different film relabled FN-64 for marketing purposes only.

The real FN-64, previously called Photo-64, was a low contrast consumer panchromatic negative film without any excessive red sensitivity. Its unique feature was its stop-gamma emulsion; the max. everage gamma was fixed at about 0.65, and any extended or high-temperature development never made it grow any more. In the days when anyone taking pictures of their family had to process their films at home, this type of emulsion ensured everyone got negatives of the same standard contrast and had no problems printing them onto normal-contrast graded papers.

(FN is for photo negative; the motion picture negative series of films were called KN for Kino-Negative, and the graphic arts films were labeled FT for phototechnical.)

This is amazing, how did they achieve the prevention of more contrast buildup?

Really amazing.

Donald Qualls · Apr 12, 2022

flavio81 said:
how did they achieve the prevention of more contrast buildup?

Just a guess, but they might have designed the emulsion to be developed to completion, like a print emulsion, and published times that would accomplish that.

ridax · Apr 12, 2022

flavio81 said:
This is amazing, how did they achieve the prevention of more contrast buildup?
Really amazing.

As I said, I am not an engineer, and I don't know the technological details, though I've read a bit on the topic. If I remember correctly, some special manipulations had to be undertaken in the process of applying the emulsion to the base to make the microcrystals turn onto their sides.... But it's also possible that I don't remember it correctly at all, and the technology was different.

But stop-gamma films and methods to make them were well known world-wide for decades. Stop-gamma films were not widely used though; the reason is, they are not that wonderful. With overdevelopment, stop-gamma films retain the standard contrast but they get pretty dense and grainy (they gain a lot in speed, too, but their grain gets much bigger than the grain of normal fast films of the same speed). In my early teens I overdeveloped (due to neglecting the temperature control while it was about +28°C around instead of the standard 20°C) a roll of Photo-65 (that was the name of Photo-64 / FN-64 before the ISO standard) to the extent of having 5 minute exposure times under my enlarger. The contrast was normal. But printing was a nightmare. And the grain was outrageous, too.

So back in the USSR, FN-64 was mainly a consumer film. Professional and experienced amateur photographers used to avoid it preferring normal films with their CI dependent on the development stage of the processing.

flavio81 · Apr 12, 2022

ridax said:
With overdevelopment, stop-gamma films retain the standard contrast but they get pretty dense and grainy (they gain a lot in speed, too, but their grain gets much bigger than the grain of normal fast films of the same speed). In my early teens I overdeveloped (due to neglecting the temperature control while it was about +28°C around instead of the standard 20°C) a roll of Photo-65 (that was the name of Photo-64 / FN-64 before the ISO standard) to the extent of having 5 minute exposure times under my enlarger. The contrast was normal. But printing was a nightmare. And the grain was outrageous, too.

So back in the USSR, FN-64 was mainly a consumer film. Professional and experienced amateur photographers used to avoid it preferring normal films with their CI dependent on the development stage of the processing.

Sounds like something that could be respooled with a fancy new name and sold like hotcakes...

Really, a film that can be pushed without contrast buildup? I want.

removedacct2 · Apr 15, 2022

ridax said:
Yes ST-2 is A-12.

'ST' is for 'STandard'. ST-2 was the developer used in the sensitometric control of all the Soviet 35mm and type 120 photographic

yes, some time after my last post here I recalled about some book I spotted sometine but never cared about, and downloaded a copy, Mikulin "Register of photorecipes" (attached PDF).
ST-2 or Nr. 2 mentioned as measuring standard
page 89, recipe 53, as slightly modified (5,75g instead of Agfa 6g anhydrous sodium carbonate) :

МЕТОЛОВЫЙ ПРОЯВИТЕЛЬ (А-12)
мелкозернистый выравнивающий
Бачковое проявление кинопленки, фотопленок, пластинок
Вода (30—45°) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .750 мл
Метол . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8г
Сульфит натрия безводный . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 г
Сода безводная . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6г
Бромистый калий (10% раствор) . . . . . . . . . . . 25 мл
Вода холодная . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . до 1 л

Время проявления при 20° от 9 до 16 минут.
Этот проявитель с уменьшенным до 5,75 г количеством соды под на-
званием «No 2» применяется в качестве стандартного проявителя при
фабричном сенситометрическом испытании отечественных негатив-
ных кинопленок.

---

I was thinking about reasons of disappearance of this in western Europe in ready to dilute kits, relatively to its prevalence in Russia. On Yandex I found it sold at many places, among others under Silberra brand.
I guess it's because like D-23 it is good for whatever kind of emulsion, old style thick single coat ones or newer thin multi-coats, while more recent developers may be better for newer emulsions ???

I found at least one instance of recent consumer film, Fomapan-100, developed it seems with very nice results, in ST-2:
Agfa/Orwo 12- ST 2 developer

removedacct2 · Apr 15, 2022

ridax said:
That's definetely quite a different film relabled FN-64 for marketing purposes only.

I found the forum where the sheets of that batch/period I found on Avito were described as aerial/military:
ФН-64: Свема и Тасма - есть разница?

Весь лист что сейчас продается, что Тасма, что Свема это аэрофотопленка с рулона шириной 18см для фотографирования баз вероятного противника. Отсюда и её свойства: контраст, высокая чувствительность к красному (как у любой аэрофотопленки) для уменьшения влияния атмосферы и тонкая подложка, т.к. это рулонная пленка.

Tasma-FN64 developer. What similar recipe?

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