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Jack Lusted
11th January 2009, 05:00 PM
A few months ago I sent a smallish order to Retro, who phoned me back soon after saying that they did not have any FP4+ and would I mind having something else? So I thought I'd give Fomapan 100 a go. Well, I've used the films and they came out quite nicely with, in my view, nice skin tones. On the other hand, on one of my shots there seemed to be some blemishes that look as if they were not due to faulty processing.

So have any members any thoughts on this film - I'm quite tempted to buy more of the stuff as it seems to be quite nice - but I do have the slight niggle about quality control.

Jack

Barry
11th January 2009, 05:18 PM
Jack,

I have yet to try Fomapan 100. However a European on another forum produces some superb images on this film. I'm sure the QC is not anywhere near as good as Ilford/Kodak, but at less than half the price of FP4+ its worth exposing a few more sheets, just in case!

Rob Archer
11th January 2009, 06:11 PM
I've used it a bit. A few years ago I went to the Czech Republic and forgot to take enough film and the only film I could buy locally was Foma. Then (2002) it wasn't easily available here and I was a bit concerned how it would work out. I was very pleasantly surprised. The only major drawback I've found with it is that it curls more than any other film I've used.

Rob

Richard Gould
11th January 2009, 07:36 PM
i've not used fomapan 100 but I have used the 400 with great sucess, yes, the base is thin and it does curl a lot,but I like thetonality of the film,and as for quality, all foma materials are produced international standard en iso 9001 so quality should not be a problem,certainly I have never found quality a problem, if you want to find out more try the foma website foma.cz Richard.

Mike Meal
11th January 2009, 09:37 PM
Jack I've been using Foma 100 as sheet film for about 6 months now. In all that time I have only come across a couple sheets which have had strange blemishes, apart from that I cant really fault it.
Oh their is the reciprocity issues it has, eg 15s metered = 2m 30s actual :eek:

Andrew Bartram
12th January 2009, 09:08 AM
Jack,

I have yet to try Fomapan 100. However a European on another forum produces some superb images on this film. I'm sure the QC is not anywhere near as good as Ilford/Kodak, but at less than half the price of FP4+ its worth exposing a few more sheets, just in case!

FP4 £2.35 in packs of 10 or £2.65 singles from www.7dayshop.com Vs £1.85 for Fomapan 100.
FP4+ is undoubtably a moe consistently produced product and dries flat to boot.

Dave miller
12th January 2009, 09:22 AM
FP4 £2.35 in packs of 10 or £2.65 singles from www.7dayshop.com (http://www.7dayshop.com) Vs £1.85 for Fomapan 100.
FP4+ is undoubtably a moe consistently produced product and dries flat to boot.

Without looking I assume those are 135 prices.
May I make the point that film cost is rarely a good basis for the selection of any particular product over another.

Barry
12th January 2009, 09:55 AM
I should have clarified that my calculations were based on sheet film. Dave makes a good point.

Jack Lusted
12th January 2009, 11:15 AM
Thanks all - I was looking at 120 roll film, at Silverprint the Foma is selling at £1.73 a roll vs. £2.65 for Ilford. A few months back the difference was not so marked so I always went for Ilford as it is always good. But if Foma is pretty near as good as Ilford at 65% the cost.....
BTW I've noticed that Retro ar not doing as many Ilford films as they used to - are they having problems I wonder?

Dave miller
12th January 2009, 11:46 AM
Thanks all - I was looking at 120 roll film, at Silverprint the Foma is selling at £1.73 a roll vs. £2.65 for Ilford. A few months back the difference was not so marked so I always went for Ilford as it is always good. But if Foma is pretty near as good as Ilford at 65% the cost.....
BTW I've noticed that Retro ar not doing as many Ilford films as they used to - are they having problems I wonder?

More lightly that Retro are fed up with trying to compete with the cut price merchants.
I'm not advocating that everyone should buy Ilford films, rather that we should not jump from make to make purely because of price.
It would be of interest to others here to read a comparison test between the two types though.

Jack Lusted
12th January 2009, 11:58 AM
'It would be of interest to others here to read a comparison test between the two types though.'


Yes, indeed, this is the real issue as far as I'm concerned - esp. WRT 120 and 135 where I expect consistent results.
As I'm still learning 4x5 the Fomapan is ideal as I'm still botching more sheets than I expose correctly (actually that's a slight exaggeration - I think my technical botch rate is around 20% - artistic botch rate is more like 95% however!)

Jack