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Thread: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

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    Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    I would appreciate any shared experience on Fomatone 532 II paper. In the past I have been using 542 and 542 II, never 532 II which is the only one currently in production, apart from 131, 132, and 133 (at least it seems so). How does the paper base compare? How does it tone in selenium (542 goes chocolate brown), gold and polysulfide direct toners? Thanks.
    Linhof Kardan re

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    532's out of production too at the moment, same issue as 542, unavailability of suitable base. I think Foma bought a quantity of the substrate & gradually used it up. 131/132/133 are all in current production. All the same emulsion, same toner reactions etc. Main thing is that 532 has an only slightly off-white base colour, arguably the whitest base of the Fomatones, & the texture of 542. That's about the sum of the differences. Moersch's carbon toner is very nice on Fomatone too, though my own preference is direct gold until neutral/ a hint of chilliness in the highlights.

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    Thanks. But the emulsion changed somehow, certainly after the introduction of type II, hence my question re toning.
    Linhof Kardan re

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    Quote Originally Posted by interneg View Post
    SNIP though my own preference is direct gold until neutral/ a hint of chilliness in the highlights.
    Good to know.
    Linhof Kardan re

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    Quote Originally Posted by mihag View Post
    Thanks. But the emulsion changed somehow, certainly after the introduction of type II, hence my question re toning.
    I've never used type I, but I have toned both 532 II & 542 II extensively & if they are from the same time period, they should behave nearly identically - there was a formulation change a few years ago that did bad things to the 'lithability' for a while, but that was solved fairly quickly, though I can't remember if that filtered through to the last batches of 542 II.

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    My experience with toning lith prints made on recent batches of Foma 131/132/532:

    • selenium goes from purple-brown --> brown --> reddish brown
    • any toning tends to remove highlight detail, at least for lith prints, so I always try to print a bit dark
    • it will tone in sulfide without prior bleaching
    • I can't find any difference between Moersch Carbon Toner and straight selenium toner

    I just made a bunch of lith prints on 542 this week but I haven't toned them yet to compare.

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    Quote Originally Posted by adelorenzo View Post
    My experience with toning lith prints made on recent batches of Foma 131/132/532:

    • selenium goes from purple-brown --> brown --> reddish brown
    • any toning tends to remove highlight detail, at least for lith prints, so I always try to print a bit dark
    • it will tone in sulfide without prior bleaching
    • I can't find any difference between Moersch Carbon Toner and straight selenium toner

    I just made a bunch of lith prints on 542 this week but I haven't toned them yet to compare.
    Whereas I've experienced the classic effect of gold massively boosting the blacks on lith'd Fomatone to the point of a 'correct' looking print going a bit too dark (recent/ current production Fomatone's) & Moersch Carbon looks significantly different to KRST in my experience, though the dilution used does make a drastic difference here - and bleach then carbon brings the sulfide to the fore very, very fast. Wondering if you don't have some contamination somewhere in your process that's causing the bleaching - have you tested that your prints are adequately fixed? All of Foma's papers need much longer fix times than Ilford's etc - Fomabrom especially so.

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    Quote Originally Posted by interneg View Post
    532's out of production too at the moment,,,
    Main thing is that 532 has an only slightly off-white base colour, arguably the whitest base of the Fomatones
    Comparing my 532 with 131 and Fomabrom I find 131 as white as Fomabrom is.
    Both papers have a white Baryta base.
    532 is what it is - "nature", pure paper; non baryta, and not completely white.
    I bought my batches during last 12 month.

    I don't like the reddish/purple tones of Selenium following thiourea, I may have to dilute selenium further, and more to workwith S. followed by T.

    My 532 is lithing very very colourful, so I want to try something - advice would be helpful to me - for slowing down the extreme colours.


    I don't know about the todays production of Foma, but on their european site they still offer 131 and 532.

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    Quote Originally Posted by plaubel View Post
    Comparing my 532 with 131 and Fomabrom I find 131 as white as Fomabrom is.
    Both papers have a white Baryta base.
    532 is what it is - "nature", pure paper; non baryta, and not completely white.
    I bought my batches during last 12 month.

    I don't like the reddish/purple tones of Selenium following thiourea, I may have to dilute selenium further, and more to workwith S. followed by T.

    My 532 is lithing very very colourful, so I want to try something - advice would be helpful to me - for slowing down the extreme colours.


    I don't know about the todays production of Foma, but on their european site they still offer 131 and 532.
    Indeed 532 is still listed - though I recollect reading somewhere from a trustworthy source that 542 II had definitely gone due to unavailability of the base - it may be that they have greater stock of 532 II's base for now - it's never been entirely clear if the base of 542 is manufactured with the dye in it, or if it is added at Foma.

    The colour of the base does seem to have a lot to do with washing - I found that 542's base tint would often tone down significantly with a longish wash. The difference between 532 & 131 is very small & I suspect might have more to do with the relative colour of the gelatin supercoat when very little in the way of optical brightening is used. 132 & 532 are very close in base colour - & I think I prefer 132 slightly over 532 for some purposes. All are stunning papers, I really like the flexibility that they offer, especially in terms of printing down shadows.

    Lith-wise, if you're using Moersch or similar, usual trick is to bump up B relative to A, or perhaps a reduction in the overexposure might help & not using old brown will help significantly too. I've managed to get lith grain, but not too much colour fairly easily. And a hit of gold toner will kill most of the excessive colour very fast indeed.

  10. #10

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    Re: Fomatone 532 II Nature experience?

    Thanks around the lith-informations.
    Yes, I use Moersch Lith; concerning colours i have him to ask for his Lith additives, too.

    Foma isn't a great "stock" producer; as far as I know, they produce from month to month in not so big batches.
    Approx one or two years ago I have seen them selling out the last batches of 534? the chamois paper , smallsized only, over a longer period. I believe this said something.

    ""132 & 532 are very close in base colour ""

    Regarding the "..2", they should.

    At this time I prefer the unique look of the 532 over the 131; I never used 132 but I
    should compare with 532.

    By the way, I took a while to understand the differences of the numbers.
    Maybe it is helpful to explain

    131 - Baryta, white, glance
    132 " , " , no glance
    532 paper , naturell, no glance

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