Clearance Sale on 8x10 Foma Retropan 320 at Freestyle

[Dugan]

"Public Service Announcement":

Freestyle Photo Supplies in L.A. is having a clearance sale on their stock of expired 8x10 Foma Retropan 320 Soft.
50-sheet boxes are $129.99 (~1/2 price).
Expiration date ~01/2023.

No association, just a customer.

[diversey]

Thanks for the info! Have never used this film before, couldn’t resist the price and purchased 2 boxes. How good is this film?

[paulbarden]

Thanks for the info! Have never used this film before, couldn’t resist the price and purchased 2 boxes. How good is this film?

You can likely get decent results from it, but it has one of the worst characteristic curves of any film on the market: it's got no straight line - it's all toe and a long shoulder, so shadow detail is poor and anything brighter than light grey has very poor separation. Whites are blocked and lacking detail. Take a look at Greg's review
Dreadful characteristic curve and abysmal reciprocity aside, you CAN get good results from the film if you expose and develop carefully, and take care what/how you photograph.

[diversey]

You can likely get decent results from it, but it has one of the worst characteristic curves of any film on the market: it's got no straight line - it's all toe and a long shoulder, so shadow detail is poor and anything brighter than light grey has very poor separation. Whites are blocked and lacking detail. Take a look at Greg's review
Dreadful characteristic curve and abysmal reciprocity aside, you CAN get good results from the film if you expose and develop carefully, and take care what/how you photograph.

Thanks for your input! Watched Greg’s review and this film is not that good. Looked at images from this 8x10 film on Flickr before purchasing, the images are pretty good.

[tokyo_blues]

Thanks for the info! Have never used this film before, couldn’t resist the price and purchased 2 boxes. How good is this film?

It's an exciting film if you like pictorial results. There's nothing else quite like it on the market as far as I know. The spectral response for one, is unusual. Strongly red sensitive.

If exposed correctly (it is often overexposed) it gives results that are reminiscent of certain styles of chalk drawing. Take a look at Flickr, there are some gorgeous medium and large format results.

Make sure you develop it in its dedicated developer for best results.

[ic-racer]

You can likely get decent results from it, but it has one of the worst characteristic curves of any film on the market: it's got no straight line - it's all toe and a long shoulder, so shadow detail is poor and anything brighter than light grey has very poor separation. Whites are blocked and lacking detail. Take a look at Greg's review
Dreadful characteristic curve and abysmal reciprocity aside, you CAN get good results from the film if you expose and develop carefully, and take care what/how you photograph.

So your curves did not look like this? Do you know what you did wrong?

[Greg]

Freestyle describes Foam Retropan as being for contact printing or “retro” style enlarging of negatives. Without their further defining the word "retro", I have resisted buying this film.

[Michael Jones]

So your curves did not look like this? Do you know what you did wrong?

That curve pretty well supports Paul’s observations. There is no straight line anywhere. Compare a Tri-X curve:

[Daniel Unkefer]

Makiflex Rollei Retro Soft 9x12cm 360 Kern Microdol-X by Nokton48, on Flickr

Pacaderm showers in Goodale Park on a soft winter day. Plaubel Makiflex 9x12cm Rollei Retro Soft sheet Film Kern Arau 360mm F9 repro lens Microdol-X Arista 8x10 RC #3 Multigrade dev. Full neg image shown 9x9cm photography on 9x12 sheet film. I used a RADA Normalfalz plate holder with film insert to hold the film.

I like this film in 9x12cm and also in 120. That's a good deal for 8x10.