Arista EDU 200/Foma 200 thoughts

[Noah B]

Hey gang, I just ordered some of this film after doing a little research and wanted to see if anyone is currently shooting this. My main developer will be XTOL 1:1 (or whatever dilution works best) in a jobo. I'm planning on rating it at box speed like I do with all the films I develop in XTOL. Somewhere down the road I'm going to do some palladium prints with it if anyone is using this for that purpose. I usually shoot hp5+ and wanted to change it up a little and haven't shot this film yet. If anyone has any tips regarding development/exposure I'd appreciate it! Also if you have some photos you've shot with the film that'd be great too.

Cheers

[Drew Wiley]

I'm skeptical you'll get full speed. This film has a reputation for being quite a bit slower. I'd try it at 100, and beware of long exposures. Recip failure is pretty strong.
But it does have a wonderfully long scale to it. It might take awhile to get used to - a very different film from HP5.

[uhner]

I did some BTZS testing on this film a few years ago. As it builds contrast rather quickly I developed it in tubes using D76 1+2 - which captures a SBR from 9 to 4 for an ES of 1,3 - or N-1 to almost N+2 in Zone system nomenclature for contact prints on normal graded papers. As you intend to make palladium prints I suppose that you need a bit more contrast, but I believe that that could easily be handled with a 1+2 dilution of Xtol.

Like Drew I did not get near the listed speed for the film and I use an EI from 40 to 64+ depending on the contrast I’m trying to capture. With these speeds you will oftentimes find yourself in reciprocity territory, but unlike Drew I find that the film has quite normal reciprocity failure characteristics, at least when using these rather low EI’s.

I might add that I like the film although the slow speed oftentimes makes it a bit difficult to use.