Fomapan 100

[Roger Vadim]

It's a classic emulsion. It doesn't rely on sensitizing dyes in order to use less silver and to save money. Because of this, it responds well to changes in development and to the choice of developer. You can easily see grain and sharpness differences between D-76 and Rodinal, for example. You can easily see the effect of shortening or prolonging the development. It responds very well to stand development (tried it myself) and to compensating development in two baths (tried this myself, too). It's a classic film, and all classic theories apply to it.
That doesn't mean it's soft. The emulsion is hardened and isn't more prone to scratching than any other modern emulsion.

It's very strongly affected by the Schwarzschild effect. Some regard this as a bad thing, but I love it. I use the Schwarzschild effect to my advantage, and I just love being able to expose for minutes, or even tens of minutes.

It has a very good base. The base is polyester even in the 120 format, where most other manufacturers use cellulose triacetate. Polyester should age more gracefully, at least in theory. In sheet form the base is clear polyester. No pink tint, no magenta, no gray. Perfectly clear. 120 is blue, though, but that's the color of the polyester itself, it doesn't come from any sensitizing dyes.
The base dries perfectly flat in all formats (well, sheet film doesn't count ), and it has never given me any Newton rings despite using a plain glass carrier in my former enlarger (my current one is glassless). It dries flatter than Tri-X and FP4+, at least in my experience.

The 120 version has a self-adhesive sealing tape, so you don't have to lick it. As far as I now, Fuji is the only other manufacturer that offers this feature.

It doesn't show its price. There's nothing cheap about it. No manufacturing defects, no variations from batch to batch, no flimsy and curly base, no soft and scratchy emulsion. I don't know about other Foma dealers, but our local one also provides the quality certificate of the current batch when you buy film from them, stating batch number, manufacturing date, etc.

It's very well documented. The technical data sheets can be downloaded from Foma, and I find them excellent.

This is what I like about it.

On the minus side: too contrasty, a bit grainier than other films of the same speed (but I shoot mostly 6x7 and 4x5", so I couldn't care less about grain, and even in 35mm the grain doesn't look bad at all - on the contrary, it has an appealing classic look), lousy Schwarzschild characteristics (though I personally regard this as an advantage).

Very nice summary. Thanks!

[Richard Littlewood]

Thanks for that Vlad. I'm going to dev it like I do FP4 - in home brewed ID-11 1+2 in a Jobo.

[ghost]

and best of all- this is a manufacturer who is commited to silver based images. support Foma!

[mikebarger]

Aren't all manufacturers of analog film supporting our habit?

Mike

[Neil Purling]

Clearly Foma 100 can be very good. I had some of it in 120 roll, when I was getting acquainted with a Holga. Things did not go well because with such a simple camera there is no way to bracket exposure, not with a un-modified Holga anyway.
I have not done well with the 4x5 version either. With 4x5 you are usually running a slow exposure to get decent depth, of the order of 1/2 to 1 sec. Apparently the film doesn't like long exposures. that's going to be interesting with my Brass W.A.R's working at f32 if the weather is garbage.
I am after a dev time that you know is effective for Foma 100 in R09, the old Rodinal formula.
I have some 35mm Foma 100 to use to do a clip test and check the speed I ought to rate the 4x5 stuff at. Then any deficiency in exposure is down to that Schwarzchild thingie. At least it won't mean burning through as many sheets before the 4x5 Foma 100 looks the same as the 35mm variant in respect of exposure & developement.

[Vlad Soare]

Indeed, Foma 100 seems to me to be identical in all formats as far as exposure and development are concerned.
In R09 1+40 my normal development time is 6 minutes with LF (Jobo - continuous back-and-forth rotation), and 7 minutes with 120 and 135 (SS tank, five inversions every minute), both at 20°C plus-minus half a degree.
Stand development for two hours (but with pre-wash and then continuous agitation in the first minute) in R09 1+160 works very well with very contrasty subjects, like night city scenes. I've tried it on 4x5" once, and the exposure ranged from 56" (a reading of 8" corrected for Schwarzschild) to 2'15" (from a reading of 15"). I got good shadow detail and well defined highlights, which didn't leak into the surrounding areas. It was exactly what I had expected from stand development.

[Richard Littlewood]

Vlad. How do you find those longer exposures? Just looked at the Foma site, and are they long! Do you find Foma's times pretty near. I would have thought given this films dev/contrast issues and the long exposure times it could spell trouble. Sounds to me you have done a few tests.

[Vlad Soare]

I compiled a small table based on the technical data sheet. I've printed it on a small piece of paper and keep it in my camera bag. I haven't used all the times in that table, just a few of them, I believe 8", 15", 1' and perhaps 10", so I can't comment on the entire chart, but the few correction factors I did use proved to be spot-on. I'll attach the table.

In this picture I didn't want to record any passers-by, so the twelve minutes exposure (corrected from one minute) suited me perfectly. A film with better Schwarzschild characteristics would have recorded people, or at least shadows of people.
The development was shorter than normal to compensate for the increase in contrast caused by the Schwarzschild correction. The negative is quite easily printable, but the contrast is still a bit too high, requiring either split contrast printing or a pre-flash. Next time I take a similar picture I'll shorten the development even further (or, better yet, use either stand or two bath development).

Sometimes I do wish the exposures were shorter. In this picture the exposure of 56 seconds gave me the effect I was after. I would have liked to use a smaller aperture, but that would have given me an unacceptably long exposure. With a film with better Schwarzschild behaviour I could have got the same exposure time with a smaller aperture.
This time I had no problems with the contrast, because I used the stand developing method.
The comments attached to the pictures were meant for a fellow photographer who wanted to know about stand development and to see an example.

So, to answer your questions, yes, so far I find Foma's correction factors pretty near, and yes, the strong Schwarzschild effect and the film's inherent high contrast can spell trouble when you develop normally, unless you shorten the development. However, the few tests I did with stand development were very encouraging. Who knows, maybe this could be the key to managing Fomapan's contrast in long exposures.

[Richard Littlewood]

Vlad. Again thanks for that. I can see there may be times when the long exposures needed may be a little off-putting, say in natural, darkening light (evening). But where the light is pretty constant, yet dim, a long exposure may be less of a problem. Also Forte's times assume an iso of 100, and not (as I have heard) a more true 50-64 speed. I have a few night pics lined up, so when I've established a dev time for this film rated at around iso 64, I think I'll run a few tests, at night, with varying times, rating it nearer 100, and start by reducing the dev time by say 30%. If contrast is too much of an issue, then as you say, the compensating route may be the way to go.

[Richard Littlewood]

Did a few tests myself, and found this film (to my liking) is around 64iso, dev'd in a Jobo, ID-11 1+2, 20c 8.5 mins, for an average. Also did a metered 2min exposure for 5mins that came out pretty well. Maybe Foma's times are for 100iso in this respect, and possibly a bit too generous.
On the whole I find this a good film and not unlike FP4, although I do think it is less forgiving in developing than FP4.