Fomapan 400. I think I know why my images are mushy.

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I have a love-hate relationship with Fomapan 400. Sometimes when it works, the images turn out nicely, sometimes it is just plain mushy. Because of that I have concentrated on other brands.

Recently, I have been looking at the Arista Edu 120 film. The low price and packaging + flatness of the negatives made me try it out for a photo shoot last Sunday.

One Roll came out mushy. And I decided to examine the cause of the mushiness. With mushiness, there is a loss of tones and more importantly sharpness.

The issue, thinking it through, is that it works better with certain developers or it is susceptible to "Over-Development" or "Over-exposure".

all the following images are 100% crop.

Problem Exhibit 1, is a result, in my opinion of overexposur/development. This iso 400 film was rated at iso 200 and souped in rodinal 1+100 rodinal for an hour in the tropical climate. In other words, a 400iso film exposed in 200iso and over-developed in 400iso.

fomapan400-1.jpg

Problem Exhibit 2 seem to agree with Exhibit problem 1, as both share the same grain look. Exhibit 2 was developed in Tmax Developer. Most of the photos came out alright except for 3 of this shot which is indoors with a very bright backlit. I think I exposed this as 1/30 at f2.

fomapan400-5.jpg


Exhibit 3 is a bit different, the developer is Microdol-x. The whole roll was mushy. I don't really know why, perhaps it was overexpored or simply Microdol-x doesn't work well with Fomapan 400.

fomapan400-3.jpg


After the mushy roll yesterday, I decided to change developer and method. I decided to use Xtol and not use stand development. The next image is from the 2nd roll yesterday, 400iso but exposed at 200iso. It is developed as a 200iso film.

fomapan-4.jpg

"Ola, Fomapan 400, ei of 200, developed in Xtol 1+1 for 4min at 30C, Medium Format"

The Fomapan pdf says this: "FOMAPAN 400 Action has a nominal speed rating of ISO 400/27o, but due to its wide exposure latitude the film gives good results even when overexposed by 1 EV (exposure value) (as ISO 200/24 o)
or underexposed by 2 EV (as ISO 1600/33o) without any change in processing, i.e. without lengthening the development time or increasing the temperature of the developer used."

I interpret the above as Fomapan 400 doesn't like overexposure.

Anyone with the same conclusions ?

raytoei
 
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Grain -- and Rodinal REALLY gives grain -- can create the impression of more sharpness than is really there.

Fine grain developers such as Perceptol always give less sharpness, so you're comparing extremes here.

God knows what's wrong with the Xtol shot. Underexposure and flare, maybe.

With conventional (non-chromogenic) films, increased exposure always reduces sharpness and increases grain, as does increased development, but with a bigger format, you can live with this.

Cheers,

R.
 
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Euh ... Roger, to me, the Xtol shot looks quite nice .... the best of all four pictures shown, I think.

He uses, as I understood, (in order): Rodinal, Tmax-dev, Microdol and Xtol.

Are we seeing the same images or am I not critical enough ??

Stefan.

Grain -- and Rodinal REALLY gives grain -- can create the impression of more sharpness than is really there.

Fine grain developers such as Perceptol always give less sharpness, so you're comparing extremes here.

God knows what's wrong with the Xtol shot. Underexposure and flare, maybe.

With conventional (non-chromogenic) films, increased exposure always reduces sharpness and increases grain, as does increased development, but with a bigger format, you can live with this.

Cheers,

R.
 
sorry for not being clear... as a result of stand development (over development) and microdol-x,
I decided to use XTOL instead on the fomapan roll resulting, at last, in a decent image (last one).

thanks
 
Euh ... Roger, to me, the Xtol shot looks quite nice .... the best of all four pictures shown, I think.

He uses, as I understood, (in order): Rodinal, Tmax-dev, Microdol and Xtol.

Are we seeing the same images or am I not critical enough ??

Stefan.

Dear Stefan,

Aaargh! Sorry! T-Max. The Xtol one was great.

Cheers,

R.
 
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