What to choose: Fortepan 400 or Fomapan Action 400?

[Evgeny S]

Hello friends,

I need to buy a 60m/180feet roll of bulk b/w film, but I don't know what to choose: Fortepan 400 or Fomapan Action 400? :confused:
The main purpose is to use it as "workhorse" film for daily shooting.
Could anybody give some major pros and contras of these films?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've used a fair amount of Fortepan 400 under the ClassicPan and J&C Classic labels, and I like it. It's a lot like Tri-X tonally, and you can use development times for Tri-X as starting points, but the highlights are a bit more modulated than TXP. I haven't tried the Fomapan 400, though.

 

[eumenius]

Well, can't say much about 35mm versions of those films, but why do you need it so fast? All of those classic-type 400 films are quite grainy (in almost any developers), and another challenge I had with them was some slight fogging even in unexpired state But both films definitely are not bad, they're just "classic". I shoot Forte 400 in 120 format, and think to buy some in 9x12cm. The big drawback, at least for me, was the super-panchro sensibilisation of older 400s, making skin tones and all reddish colours in print look unnaturally bleached, like shot trough a red filter. Do you really need 400 as a daily film?

 

[eumenius]

Yes, I noticed the same as David about Forte - but I also think that these films don't just give full 400 speed, they appear to be overrated at least a stop, so exposing them like 200 gave me better results. Forte 400 gives 400ASA only in tungsten illumination, I suppose.

Zhenya

I've used a fair amount of Fortepan 400 under the ClassicPan and J&C Classic labels, and I like it. It's a lot like Tri-X tonally, and you can use development times for Tri-X as starting points, but the highlights are a bit more modulated than TXP. I haven't tried the Fomapan 400, though.

 

[srs5694]

My experience is exclusively with the Fomapan 400; I've never used Fortepan 400. I'm using the Fomapan 400 as my standard ISO 400 film because I like the character of the grain; in my subjective opinion, it gives a nice moodiness to the photos, which fits well with the sorts of subjects I shoot. It's hard to describe better than this, though; this is a very subjective judgment.

Contrary to what I read everywhere, I don't find Fomapan 400 to be grainier or slower than most other "ISO 400" films, although as just noted, the character of the grain is different. A few months ago I followed this procedure and found that Fomapan 400 produces ISO 320-400 in PC-Glycol. (My camera's meter produced the same shutter speeds and apertures at both ISO 320 and 400, so I'm not sure which is the better speed for the film.) Of course, it could be that PC-Glycol is better at producing (at least close to) the rated film speed than most developers and that you'd get closer to ISO 200 in, say, D-76.