[Leica] Jeffery PAW week 23 - Cleanup Man

[jsmith342 at cox.net (Jeffery Smith)]

Strange that the Arista, Paterson, Forte, Classic, and Bergger are all the
same emulsion but have some very different prices. Is the Foma also the same
emulsion as all of these?

Jeffery Smith
New Orleans, LA
http://www.400tx.com
http://400tx.blogspot.com/



-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+jsmith342=cox.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+jsmith342=cox.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Marty
Deveney
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 6:42 AM
To: lug@leica-users.org
Subject: [Leica] Jeffery PAW week 23 - Cleanup Man


Fomapan 'Creative' 200 is the same film as Paterson Acupan 200.  I've had
some mass spec done to verify it.  They both also are distinctive in that
they are numbered as single (half) frames.  A cine film ancestry, maybe.
There also used to be an 800 speed version (of both Foma and Paterson), but
it was discontinued, I heard, because of problems with consistency (I
experienced this myself with both films).  I really like Fomapan films, but
pre-scratched, weirdly spotted, or otherwise curiously anomalous results are
not uncommon (strangest was a cassette that didn't fit - not sure how that
one got out of the factory - and before you ask how they got it into the
can, Fomapan used to come in little plasticized paper and foil packets).

Fomapan Creative 200 is not a T-grain emulsion - Foma got into trouble with
Kodak in the US because the film used to be called Fomapan T200. 
Kodak have a copyright on the T*.  This film is a normal cubic grain
emulsion with monosize crystals and some clever incorporated developers (I
suspect this was where the 800 speed version ran into trouble - the chief
'inconsistency' of tha film was black spots, caused possibly by either
infectious development in the developer solution or from some peculiar type
of auto-development that I never managed to understand chemically).  In this
respect it's actually conceptually closest to Fuji's Acros, also a monosize,
cubic grain, developer-incorporated emulsion.  It places these films about
halfway between a mixed-size old style emulsion and a t-grain or epitaxial
(like Delta) in terms of acutance, grain and fussiness.

The Forte 200 is the same as Classic 200 (and Bergger 200 and Arista 200
EDU).  There is also a Svema or Tasma (anyway, a Russian Federation one)
film of approximately this speed - but I think it's 250 speed.

I've developed all the Foma films in a wide variety of developers.  I've
come to the conclusion that Xtol is the best all-round developer for 35mm,
for these films too.  Any phenidone (and its derivatives)/ascorbate
developer of mildly alkaline pH should perform equivalently.  LuGer John
Black's excellent and innovative JB9, for instance.  Wade Heninger seems to
be using Foma 400 to good advantage recently.  Bohdan Holomicek uses nothing
else and there's nothing wrong with his photos.  Tom A's divided D-76 (check
the archive) works well too, or any staining developer for and old-style
look.  There's a divided catechol develop that Tom A sent me the formula for
that makes the grain in some of these old-style film look horrendous (in his
words "like the Olgas!" that's Kata Tjuta for
Australians): www.citi.umich.edu/ u/provos/australia/olgas.jpg

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