Fomapan 400 and FINOL

[Rhodes]

Got some fomapan 400 120 film and want to use finol as developer. But there is no info about the development times and what value to rate the film.
From the developer film sheet, almost all the 400 films (HP5, Tri-X and neopan 400) are rated at 320, should I go also for the same value?
And about the dev time?
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[raytoei@gmail.com]

hi,

i do not use finol. but if i have to guestimate, i would use the average of the times of the 400 film, and expose it at 320.

http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=&Developer=Finol&mdc=Search

so, a good guess would be 11mins to 15mins ?

raytoei

 

[mfogiel]

My guess is, that the results will not be fantastic. I would expose at 200-250 and stay on the short time with development - these developers often cause fog.

 

[skahde]

I used finol but not with fomapan unfortunately and can only recommend to mail Wolfgang Moersch for at least a starting point. He does extensive and reliable testing and I'd trust his oppinion a lot more than digitaltruth' crowd-intelligence which can be less hit than miss at times.

 

[Rhodes]

That's an idea, thanks skahde.
mfogiel, do as tri-x 35mm? Rate the film at 250 and use the same dev time, I have a few films, so can spare one to test.
Thanks!

 

[x-ray]

Shoot a few frames at 400 and clip them an run them at your best guess. If the look ok then good. If not adjust exposure and development, shoot a test and run another clip. Do this till you get the results you want. It doesn't matter how anyone else runs theirs, we all agitate and process differently. Each new film and developer should be done this way as a routine procedure.

 

[DominikDUK]

Fomapan loses a lot of speed in Finol/Tanol type developers and the 400 Version isn't really an Iso 400 film to begin with. The speed of fomapan 400 in Finol is very likely in the 160 ISO range. Fomapan is so cheap tha I advice you to run a testfilm with several different exposures of the same subject + grayscale. Good luck

 

[Rhodes]

Results

Results

Did one film at 160, finol 1+1+100, for 15m, 22ºC. Did get some good results, but the sky were blow in a few of them (I think😱).

 

[DominikDUK]

Are these negative scans or scans from the print, if it is the first you might wanna reduce the contrast of the scan. Except for the sky it looks almost correct. The Foma line of films is unfortunately known for their steep contrast but that's what many people like about them including me. The best developer for Fomapan 400 is Xtol or the Foma Xtol copy it almost reaches it advertised speed of ISO 400 and has great tonality. Another option a grainy one though is Agfa Rodinal 1:100 18°C Stand for around 90mins.

Dominik

 

[Rhodes]

Scans from negatives, I do not have room to do prints (unfortunately). The scanner contrast if off line, I always do some corrections in lightroom and I like contrast. The film could have been overdeveloped since I did not had any information about the times for finol, so I did 15m.
I wanted to develop with a staining developer, the negatives had a nice green cast. The next films I may do with XTOL and rodinal, also my main developers.

 

[DominikDUK]

Rhodes if you live in the US Photographers Formulary sells Pyro/staining developer kits that are more suited to Fomapan than the Moersch line of Chemistry. Moersch does not recommend using his developers with Fomapan. The cheapest one would be caffenol-C which you can mix yourself at home no chemistry degree necessary. Sandy Kings Pyrocat line of staining developers works with Fomapan and is just as good if not sometimes better than Moersch staining developers both are Pyrocatechol based. The Pyrocat line can be bought at Photographer's formulary.

Good Luck
Dominik

 

[DominikDUK]

Nearly forgot what scanner did you use. Turning off the contrast setting is not always the best choice as the manufacturer sets the scanner to a default contrast of his choosing which is rarely the best.

 

[Rhodes]

About the staining devs, I know, but I could not get pyro-md in glycol already mix (in concentrated liquid) here in europe. And to begin with this kind of devs, finol was cheap and avaliable.
My scanner is a V500, and I explain wrong. My contrast/brightness and color settings are all in 0, factory settings.

 

[DominikDUK]

Sorry I thought you were from the US, Caffenol is easy to mix and the ingredients readily available in Europe, Washing Soda, water soluble Coffee and Vitamin C. Look the formula up on the Net. Development times are available on the massive developer chart.

 

[Rhodes]

Nop, Portugal! One day I will try caffenol,we do have so many blends and variaty of coffes! Thanks!