Neopan 400: a favorite

It has been discontinued but can still be found here and there, most notably on the auction site. That's where I got mine.
 
I like it too!

Has anyone found that it has an interesting tonal response when the film is overexposed? I think that the highlights become compressed, such that you end up with an interesting effect, with lesser midtones, and a glowy effect to the whole picture. This is even when I adjust the bright and dark points to the extremes of the curve.

Or I could be mistaken. I'm rather new to film, and did think at first that perhaps there was something wrong (haze?) with my lens.
 
Yes, it does not handle overexposure well and give that flat low contrast highlight look. I used to like the film a lot, but it could look more clinical than I wanted under some circumstances.
 
Nice images . . . but I would find it sad to seek out the last lots of a discontinued film. This sentiment, of course, ignores the possibility that all brands will disappear within my life time. But at least others give the illusion of continuity as long as they are in production.
 
I cannot help but wonder if all the folks raving about Neopan 400 now would have kept it in production back when Fuji discontinued it.

I used Neopan 400 almost exclusively for about ten years. But not for the reasons everyone raves about now. It was simply as good as anything else but cost less.

I am using Tri-X now but simply cannot see any difference in my prints, nor can anyone else.
 
I picked up a dozen at Adorama from their last batch. I really don't have a frame of reference, but I really like what I'm getting
 
Tri-X is a pretty good match for Neopan, but Fuji's film was distinctive IMO. It had a razor-sharp grain and snappy tone that I found really appealing -- I bought it and the Freestyle clone for as long as I could get my hands on it.

What really hurts is the axing of Neopan 1600 -- now THAT was a distinctive film. So beautiful, the grain and overall 'look' of it.

Interestingly, I heard (cannot recall where) that Fuji axed its films because it made more profits from turning a lot of the raw materials to the manufacture of cosmetics. Whether or not that's true, it's too bad its expertise in making a quality film wasn't matched by its enthusiasm for continuing it.
 
Colin Corneau said:
..... it's too bad its expertise in making a quality film wasn't matched by its enthusiasm for continuing it.
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"Enthusiasm" seldom works in a for profit business. Fujifilm is a very large, very diversified, and profitable company. Consumer photographic film of all types represents less than 2% of its revenues and is declining. One can only guess how small the black and white film portion is of that small number. I strongly suspect Fujifilm management recognized they were making very little if any profit from b&w film and the situation was getting worse. So they simply dropped a product that was making no profit and had no future. I wish those facts were not true but that is the reality.
 
With respect, I think "had no future" is editorializing, to say the least.

Understandable to have a clear corporate direction, no shame there. Company representatives could say better than I whether or not film was endangering the company or, as is so often the case in the world of business, it just wasn't making **as much** profit as some suit thought it should.

In the corporate world that often is equated with "money losing" even though it does no such thing.

We could go on about this all day but it detracts from the OT - just thought it was a point worth making.
 
I like Neopan 400, especially pushing it to 1600
have 100 35mm rolls in the freezer that should last me a life time but a good alternative is Delta 400.
For 120, I've always been happy with HP5+

here's Neopan 400 pushed to 1600 with red filter, scanned with Pakon f135+
AA009 by earl.dieta, on Flickr
AA019 by earl.dieta, on Flickr
 
Bob, I am surprised none of you see a difference in your prints. Neopan 400 has much higher resolution than TriX and finer grain. I guess on small prints this would be less visible.

I did a 6x7 film filtration test to confirm the best compensation to use on my mamiya 7, using D400, Neopan 400, TriX and Delta 100. The Neopan 400 was much closer to D400 resolution than TriX, D400 and Tri X being very clearly different.

I used to use this film particular in 120, because it gave me speed and detail, without the all too clinical look of Tmax and D400. I did the same as you and used TriX in lieu when it was discontinued. D400 never printed well for me.
 
Turtle said:
Bob, I am surprised none of you see a difference in your prints. Neopan 400 has much higher resolution than TriX and finer grain. I guess on small prints this would be less visible.
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No one has ever seen a difference in my Cuban people series, which was shot over 5 years, about half on 35mm Neopan 400 and half 35mm Tri-X. Normal exhibit of 24-30 prints, each 10 x 12 1/2, has been shown in 7 galleries. All film developed in HC-110, all scanned with a Minolta MultiPro, all printed on Condor BriteWhite with an Epson 2400. Similarly, my book "Vignettes Cubano" which contains 47 prints 6.75 x 7.5 shows no difference.

Trust me, if I saw a real difference between prints from Neopan 400 and Tri-X, I would have never switched to Tri-X a few years ago after shooting Neopan for 10 years.
 
You've said that many times and I'm not surprised you don't see a difference in finished prints, but I certainly notice the difference when I'm printing. The Fuji seems a bit more like TMY to me than TX, but maybe without the highlight contrast of TMY. I'll have to see if I can find some curves for it to see what is actually happening.

I'm used to Tri-X and it works best for me overall, but TMY might be worth a try for Neopan 400 fans. I bought several 100 foot rolls of the Freestyle repackaged Fuji; it is fine but I just don't like working with it as well as with TX. I should probably trade off my last 100 foot to one of the diehard fans.
 
Mark C said:
The Fuji seems a bit more like TMY to me than TX, but maybe without the highlight contrast of TMY. I'll have to see if I can find some curves for it to see what is actually happening.
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I think Neopan has more of a shoulder than TMY (not hard to do). Personally I can usually see the difference between Neopan and Tri-X. The highlights of Neopan have a kind of sparkly look to them, whereas with Tri-X the emphasis is on the mid-tones. I found Neopan is very good with studio flash but it hates over exposure. Tri-X has more latitude.

Of course that could all be garbage but that's what I think I see ;)
 
Bob Michaels said:
Trust me, if I saw a real difference between prints from Neopan 400 and Tri-X, I would have never switched to Tri-X a few years ago after shooting Neopan for 10 years.
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Maybe not in prints, but if you do a modern scan of your negatives today, I am sure you will appreciate the difference.

Even if the grain-difference and resolution-difference "is not visible" in your prints (after all, you manually focus to print anyway, which is a source of error), the devil IS always, has always and will always be in the details.
I do a lot of digital post-processing and when I do things at 300% enlargement, that are normally not visible when you look at the whole picture, it still gets much better after doing it, it's almost weird how that works.

Neo did have the upper hand on Tri-X regarding grain and resolution, there is no denying that, the fact that you could not see any apparent difference in your prints, doesn't necessarily mean that there was no difference.
For the record, my own substitute for Neo is Tri-X and I like it and feel they are very similar, unless you start scanning them and check closely...
 
It's kind of funny, but I was thinking maybe wet prints showed the difference more. I don't know which Bob Michaels does. But I do see your point if you are talking about a very good scanner. Plus many people stop their enlarger lens down to f11, which certainly starts to smooth off the grain.

Oddly, I always see the grain on Neopan as coarser than TX, but that may just be the crispness. It did seem like a nice film, and I'd be perfectly content with it (more so than TMY), but TX fits my needs very well. I have had the feeling that TX has just a touch more speed than Neopan, but have not done any careful testing. Perhaps just the toe slope or something.
 
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