Retrobrom 151 / 152 - Newly released paper from FOMA

[ajsikel]

https://fomaobchod.cz/en/blackwhitephotopapers/retrobrom/

Fresh. just released this week.
FB paper fixed grade (SP - special )
double weight - warmtone yellow greenish tint .
Retro portraiture applications etc..but..also suggested for contact printing..( Fomalux descendant?)
However, not chliride emulsion but bromide-iodide.
Soon will try it out contacting mu 8x10`s.
This paper will be available in the following sizes:

FOMABROM 151, 152 Sp

- 8 x 10 inch (20,3 x 25,4 cm)/25 sheets

- 24 x 30,5 cm/10 sheets

- 30,5 x 40,6 cm/10 sheets

- 16 x 20 inch (40,6 x 50,8 cm)/25 sheets



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[ajsikel]

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[ajsikel]

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[interneg]

Potentially quite an interesting paper, given that it has a fundamentally different formulation (by the sounds of Foma's description) from modern high chloride emulsions - which is likely also the reason it's fixed grade.

[Ray Van Nes]

It is quite exciting to see new products in analog photography. "Ain't ded yet!"

[Drew Wiley]

Wonder if it will be sold in the US? Might there at last be a worthy replacement for venerable ole Portriga? It's at least "Intriga".

[interneg]

Wonder if it will be sold in the US? Might there at last be a worthy replacement for venerable ole Portriga? It's at least "Intriga".

Going by the curves and formulation, the answer is likely no - what I want to know is how susceptible to ferricyanide bleaching it is & if it'll split-tone in strong selenium.

[Drew Wiley]

Nevertheless, it sounds like the kind of thing Freestyle might stock, and will probably tempt me due to curiosity alone. I don't expect graded products to ever again be quite what they were when cadmium was still an allowed ingredient.

[interneg]

Nevertheless, it sounds like the kind of thing Freestyle might stock, and will probably tempt me due to curiosity alone. I don't expect graded products to ever again be quite what they were when cadmium was still an allowed ingredient.

I don't think it was cadmium salts that did them in - they seem to have been largely removed in the 70's/ 80's - rather it seems to me to have been lead salts that were the problem in the warmtone papers - they are seemingly what classically delivers 'warm' tones - and their withdrawal certainly tallies with regulatory efforts in the late 1990's - cadmium seems to be the anachronistic catch-all for 'why papers don't lith' rather than the radical changes in formulation from the 80's onwards to high chloride/ converted chloride emulsions, and especially the heavy ballasting necessary to get multigrade systems to properly function - this latter part is conjecture, but based on the way that MGII etc can lith, but not MGIV or later & on comments made by Adox about the layer build-up on Polywarmtone II & from the way different batches of MCC are known to sometimes radically differ in 'lithability'.

The Foma Retrobrom seems a bit of an oddity - bromoiodide is more usually film emulsion - though given that they seem to have absorbed some knowledge off Neobrom (who apparently made some fairly eccentric papers), or they have found an emulsion growth technique to get a more nominally 'film' type of emulsion to give warmer tones than expected. I do note that they suggest you can use film developers (to reduce contrast) as well as paper developers.

I do have a goodly slab of both Record Rapid & Portriga, but I'm hanging on to them for lith - I've never really checked to see how foggy they are at this stage for regular processing.

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks. In the old industrial sections of cities and military shipyards here, they just encapsulate whole neighborhoods under thick concrete slab before building anew on them. All kinds of lead and cadmium in the soil due to paint factories, and lots of chromium compounds, PCB's, and even radioactive nasties from old military sites. Now everything has to be new techie industries like biochem, pharmaceutical, or electronics, which are contributing their own neo-poisons to effluent, sometimes even worse. I've never been a fan of Foma's dicey quality control, but was willing to put up with a few flawed sheets per box if the paper did something special. I doubt any old Portriga stock would be much good after so many years. I have a few odd sleeves of a variety of old Agfa papers laying around just for nostalgia. Everytime I actually try to fool around with paper that old, I discover I'm just wasting time and chemistry.

[GuillaumeZuili]

This is a great news. Will try it when I fly back to France.
Portriga is amazing in Lith, this is one of my main paper.
Record Rapid as well with some adjustments.

[andreios]

Has anyone tried it yet? I was just checking my stock of foma and realized need to order some, then with a shock found out they no longer sell my favourites - 542 and 532 papers... Could this be a possible replacement?

[interneg]

I'd be wary of Portriga/ RR comparisons - the curve seems rather different - I feel I want to say it seems almost Azo-ish - anyway, I think it's a case of getting some & trying it.

[Jim Noel]

The emphasis on "green" bothers me. A primary reason for selenium toning is not just permanence.but also elimination of the green tone inherent in bromide papers.

[GuillaumeZuili]

Wolfgang Moersch posted some great test on FB.
Lith, Second pass Lith and regular prints. It's a terrific paper.