About a year ago I discovered that my favorite camera store had started carrying Fomapan 100 and 400, so I bought a roll of each to try. I quickly shot the roll of Fomapan 400, but set it aside to develop when I had the time. Unfortunately last year was very crazy, and I’ve just gotten around to developing it. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from the film, yet upon scanning I find myself quite pleased with the results. While the film is excessively grainy, it also has a vintage feel to it that I really like.
I’ve highlighted the pains I went through to get some test prints in my last two blog posts Printing Disaster and Printing Success. As I expected, even simple 5×7 prints show quite a bit of grain. I still plan to try the film some more, and find myself really interested in finding some of the Fomapan 400 in 120 roll film. I still need to shoot the roll of Fomapan 100.
For this first shot, it’s a simply indoor scene at a local mall, which resulted in a nice even exposure. I really like the feel of the shot, and the way the light catches the directory sign at the top of the map.
Searching for a store at the Mall
In this next shot the exposure pretty good overall, however, the hair on the top is suffering from blown highlights. I’ve seen the exact same problem with a roll of Adox CHS 50 that I just developed, and I’m not going to blame the film. I think it’s more the scanner, or my scanning, as a print I made of this photo seems to do a better job of handling the hair. Overall I really like the feel of this photograph, especially the hedge in the background. It has good tones, and to me, a bit of a vintage feel.
Hair Troubles
This next shot is interesting, there is definitely some detail of the coat in the negative that was lost when scanning (I’ve not tried printing it yet). In this shot the sun would have been shining in just right to create the bright, blown out portion of the photo. The film definitely doesn’t handle deep shadows and bright light well, but that’s okay.
Bored
No Trespassing
I think for current images the grain may be too much, but for your fort, and civil war re-enactment work it will work quite well.
The images above are quite nice in any case!
P. S. You need “like” button! 🙂
I want to try out their 120 film, that or their Large Format sizes such as 8×10 would tone down the grain. I only intend to do a small handful of shots for my Forts project on film, and those will be shot on 4×5 Fuji Velvia 50 film using a 90mm ultra-wide lens. I doubt it would be that appropriate for Civil War images either. I’m thinking more for street photography.
I hadn’t thought about a “like” button, any recommendations? I’ll have to see what I can find.