I am going to like Fomapan 200 once I get its peculiarities figured out. One of the attractions of the film is the ISO200 rating which potentially provides more flexibility in responding to lighting levels than the Kentmere 100 that I have been using lately. I started off this first roll at our favorite local craft brewery.
I shot the Fomapan 200 at a stop less than the box speed with the idea that I would be processing it in PMK Pyro which with Kentmere requires a shooting speed reduction of around a stop. I did not find any very good guidance on line for the Fomapan/PMK combination, so I took a stab at it with 9 minutes at 23C in PMK 1+2+100.
I was very pleased with the Fomapan's fine grain which compares favorably with the slower Kentmere film. However, most of the outdoor sunny day shots did not achieve my goal regarding tonal depth. Sorting out the many influences on that quality involves many elements including the camera, lens, exposure and processing.
- The Nikon EM appears to be operating well, but there is a faint flare spot appearing intermittently in the images which indicates a probable need for a light seal replacement.
- The 28mm Rokunar lens has good resolution, but the wide-angle often captures a bit too much of the bright sky.
- Giving the film a full extra stop of exposure may have been a bit too much to retain good detail in both shadows and highlights on a bright day.
- My guessed-at time and temperature for the PMK processing may have significantly missed the mark.
I am encouraged to experiment a bit with this film because of the many
good results I have seen posted on line in the
Fomapan 200 Creative Flickr Group. The film seems to respond well to processing with a great variety of developers including a couple of my favorites, Rodinal and HC-110. There are also poor to awful results posted in the same place and some naysayers. My feeling is that the people who denigrate the film have just not taken the time to work through issues of exposure and processing. It is instructive to examine recommendations for processing times and temps suggested by the Massive Dev Chart site for a variety of films using HC-110B:
| Film | Devel | Dil | ASA/ISO | 35mm | 120 | Sheet | Temp |
|---|
| Fomapan 200 | HC-110 | B | 200 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 20C |
| Ilford SFX 200 | HC-110 | B | 200 | 9 | 9 | | 20C |
| Kodak TMax 100 | HC-110 | B | 200 | 7 | 7 | 7.5 | 20C |
So, the very short time recommended for Fomapan clearly shows a significant difference in the film's chemistry. Most people including me would be reluctant to use times under 5 minutes, but the option to use HC-110 dilution H at twice the B dilution gets around that issue.
6 comments:
Interesting! I am right now considering trying one black and white film consistently this year and really learning it well from exposure through development and scan.
I have a lot of Plus-X in the fridge from the last run of the film. It has always been cold stored, so it is probably as close to fresh as I'm going to get with this wonderful old Kodak emulsion, but there is still that variable of expire date.
I could go with Tri-X, a film I've been friends with for over 40 years now, but I'm a fan of fine grain and no matter how close I get to idea, I might still not be satisfied with results.
Acros is a possibility. It is still widely available even after the announcement of discontinuation. But...why pour time and effort into a film that won't be around long.
And finally, I love the Tmax films and always get satisfying results when sending 100 or 400 to the lab. Maybe it'll be Tmax. Hmm.
I've always liked TMAX and will probably include a few rolls in my next order from B&H. I like the film because of its good latitude and consistency. The only problem I have experienced is with the numerals on the 120 which can be very hard to see through the ruby windows on some of my old mf cameras. My favorite was always Acros, so I need to try to find a replacement with similar characteristics.
I've shot a couple rolls of Foma 200 and have liked them. Mild grain, no tendency toward blown highlights (as I've experienced with most other non-Kodak/Ilford bw films), but a good classic bw look. I'd like to experiment more with it and see what tonal range I can get from it.
I saw that nice shot you made of Margaret when I googled the film. I have a roll in the Leica now.
I am not familiar with this film, nor with PMK, but your posted results don't look bad at all when the difficult light conditions are considered. The negatives should tell the whole story. These pictures look like classic B&W.
The times posted in the Massive Development Chart for Fomapan 200 and developers that I know well (i.e. D-76 1:1, Beutler or 1:50 Rodinal) look very close to the film I use all the time, FP4+.
My trial of Foma 200 with HC-110h was a total bust. So, the results with the PMK Pyro are looking better to me at the moment. I don't know what happened with the HC-110, but I will give it another go when I get some more Fomapan. I'll also try it with some other developers that I have seen producing good results. John Carradies gets great results with Fomapan 200 and two bath D-23.
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