The very first film I developed was Arista EDU Ultra 400. One thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet is that Fomapan and Arista EDU Ultra are the same films.
When I first started developing film, the batch of Arista I was using was slightly expired. I incorrectly concluded that the film lost sensitvity, and that was the reason why the film negatives were so thin.
I’ve been shooting Fomapan 100 and 200, so I decided to pick up some rolls of Fomapan 400 to see if it was any different than my previous experience with Arista. I turns out I had the same problem as with what I started with: the negatives were too thin and there is no shadow detail. The film was fresh, no where near it’s expiration date.
I’ve re-watched The Naked Photographer’s YouTube channel on film reviews for Fomapan 400 (link here). It turns out that his tests revealed that this film is really a 250 ISO film. It all makes sense why I was having problems. (By the way, his video series is very useful if you’re trying a film for the first time. I highly recommend watching his series.)
So, I have three more rolls, so I’ll try a 250 exposure level the next time I use this film.
Development Details
- Film: Fomapan 400
- Camera ISO setting: 400
- Developer: Kodak XTol
- Development Time: 7 Minutes
- Development Agitation: Ilford Style (4x inversions every minute)