So far, I have been getting good results from the Fomapan. It’s cheap and relatively good. It’s not T-Max or Tri-X, but for the price, it’s rather good. However, I’ve seemed to have been skunked on this roll of Fomapan 200.
There’s noticeable banding on the top of the film around the sprocket holes. I intentionally didn’t crop the edge off this frame so you can see the effect. I suspect it’s a problem with the manufacture of this roll of film, since I haven’t had this problem with the camera or the development tanks. The only other possibility would be the new tool I used to pull the leader out (I’ve been bottle-opening my 35mm cartridges before), but I don’t see how it could make that pattern. The banding shows out throughout the whole role, but the beginning and end of the roll seemed to be the most pronounced.
Anyway before I went on my customary road trip, I took some random pictures during the week. We had quite a bit of cloud cover, and the jet trails made for an interesting scene. I thought to pull out a red filter and snap a few pictures. I’m finding that the yellow filter isn’t making much of a difference when it comes to the contrast of the sky and clouds. The red does a much better job, but it also blocks a lot of light. It also shifts greens, making them darker in addition to the blues.
The banding around the sprocket holes is throughout the film, but some frames are worse than others. This one of Solomons Island is minimally effected, even when the brightness was turned down in digital processing.
My first thought when seeing the film for the first time was that it wasn’t fully fixed, and some of the silver halides may still be on the film. I tried running it again in the fixer, along with a test strip cut off the roll in a clear container of fixer. Nothing happened. The dark spots (which show as light when inverted) remained, indicating that those areas were exposed to light.
Despite the problems, there were some very good shots in here. This roll hasn’t spoiled Fomapan for me yet, but it’s now something I’m going to keep my eye on.
Development Details
- Film: Fomapan 200
- Camera ISO setting: 200
- Developer: Rodinal with 2g Sodium Ascorbate
- Developer Dilution: 1:100
- Development Time: 1 hour
- Development Agitation: Stand (20 inversions first minute only)