Budget Sheet Film at Maco Direct

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Nomad Z

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I was having a mooch at Maco and saw that they have Fomapan 100 and Rollei Retro 100 in 5x4 for sensible money. Some reading suggests that the Fomapan has rather bonkers reciprocity and is maybe a bit grainy, while the Rollei may or may not be better in both respects.

Has anyone used the Fomapan in 5x4? Is it any good?

Anyone got any idea what the Rollei is? The original Retro 100 was rebadged Agfa APX100, but that's supposed to have run out ages ago. They later came out with Rollei Retro 100 Tonal, which was supposed to be a close reformulation of Maco PO100C. The photo of the box on the Maco web site shows a label with "Rollei Retro 100 New", and that's it. There's no datasheet and scant other info apart from mentioning that it's panchromatic. I've written to Maco, but no response so far. From web searches, I can't find any mention of this, and most Retro 100 references seem to peter out around 2012. I'm wondering if this is a duff entry on their web site and that the stuff doesn't actually exist.
 
Nomad Z said:
I was having a mooch at Maco and saw that they have Fomapan 100 and Rollei Retro 100 in 5x4 for sensible money. Some reading suggests that the Fomapan has rather bonkers reciprocity and is maybe a bit grainy, while the Rollei may or may not be better in both respects.

Has anyone used the Fomapan in 5x4? Is it any good?

Anyone got any idea what the Rollei is? The original Retro 100 was rebadged Agfa APX100, but that's supposed to have run out ages ago. They later came out with Rollei Retro 100 Tonal, which was supposed to be a close reformulation of Maco PO100C. The photo of the box on the Maco web site shows a label with "Rollei Retro 100 New", and that's it. There's no datasheet and scant other info apart from mentioning that it's panchromatic. I've written to Maco, but no response so far. From web searches, I can't find any mention of this, and most Retro 100 references seem to peter out around 2012. I'm wondering if this is a duff entry on their web site and that the stuff doesn't actually exist.
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I used a fair bit of Foma 100 in sheet, the reciprocity is totally mental getting towards dusk it can easily out run the sunset! I've got some Retro 400 but I've not shot any, my main concern is that its on a very thin material I'd say basically cut from the same master as their 120 so scanning might be a bear.
 
How did you find the Foma for damage when the emulsion was wet? Was it fragile, or decently robust?

If you mean Retro 400S, you can do IR with that. This was done with a 760nm filter...

2_With_IR_Filter.jpg

Needed quite a long exposure. I think it was f11 sunny 16 at box speed on that day, and seem to remember I exposed it for 60 seconds with the IR filter on. Here's the same view with a red filter...

1_With_Red_Filter.jpg
 
I have found the foma to be a very nice emulsion, little grain and I haven't noticed it is in any way fravile when wet.

Andy
 
I've not long ordered a 4x5 camera and the Fomapan 100 looks a good deal at under £35 delivered for 50 sheets, Googling seems to get mixed reviews from users.
 
Nomad Z said:
How did you find the Foma for damage when the emulsion was wet? Was it fragile, or decently robust?
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I can't really remember tbh, I was just getting started with LF so any damanage was as likely to be cack handling as soft emulsion.

Dork Knight said:
I've not long ordered a 4x5 camera and the Fomapan 100 looks a good deal at under £35 delivered for 50 sheets, Googling seems to get mixed reviews from users.
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Its cheap and tbh its fine in LF the grain is basically irrelevent. However the reciprocity is an issue in LF; a not unreasonalble 60 second exposure would take nealry 15 minutes to exopose correctly on foma 100, accoriding to both foma's datasheet and my own testing. I shoot so little at the moment but even when I was shooting more I found paying upto double for FP4 or Delta wasn't unreasonable for the few sheets a month I shot the time saving and the extra trust in Illford was worth it over what was effectively a few quid a month.
 
Cripes, you're right ~ I've got the Reciprocity Timer app on my phone and just had a look at the times.
 
Thanks for the comments, folks. I've managed to get in touch with someone at Maco, and should hopefully learn more about the Retro 100 tomorrow. I think it will be a case of getting the Fomapan for general daylight stuff and maybe some Delta for when reciprocity might be an issue, or getting some of the Retro 100 depending on what its characteristics are. I'll report back when I know more.
 
Nomad Z said:
Some reading suggests that the Fomapan has rather bonkers reciprocity and is maybe a bit grainy
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I have recently been using Fomapan 200 in 120 and don't find it grainy at all. 100 should have even less grain.


Steve.
 
Nomad Z said:
Thanks for the comments, folks. I've managed to get in touch with someone at Maco, and should hopefully learn more about the Retro 100 tomorrow. I think it will be a case of getting the Fomapan for general daylight stuff and maybe some Delta for when reciprocity might be an issue, or getting some of the Retro 100 depending on what its characteristics are. I'll report back when I know more.
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I Meant to say Delta's reciproicty is nothing like as bad as Illfrod would have you belive. I'll try to find my night time shooting charts with the formula for it.
 
Dork Knight said:
It sure would be good to hear what they say about the Retro 100 :)
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Yes, it would. They were supposed to get back to me this morning, but there was nothing. No update on the product page, either. I'm starting to acquire a slightly less than positive disposition towards them (after also having various hassles with their web site, I've been waiting most of this week to try and find out more about this film).
 
Steve Smith said:
I have recently been using Fomapan 200 in 120 and don't find it grainy at all. 100 should have even less grain.
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Interestingly, the datasheets for the 100 and 200 both state 110 lines per mm, which seems a bit odd (the 400 is 90 lpm). Wondering if there's a typo in there.
 
steveo_mcg said:
I Meant to say Delta's reciproicty is nothing like as bad as Illfrod would have you belive. I'll try to find my night time shooting charts with the formula for it.
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Your data would be appreciated.

Even if it was as given by Ilford, it's still a lot better than the Fomapan (about 3x for 10 seconds, compared to 8x for Fomapan).
 
I love Fomapan 100. Last time I bought some it was around 50 pence per sheet, and it was cheap enough that I could use as much as I wanted whilst learning how to use my 5x4, Didn't have to worry too much about messing frames up. The results looks good too, so it's win win really!
 
Still nothing from Maco, and the product page now has "This product is currently not available" added to it. Maybe it never was available. It's starting to look like plan B (Fomapan for daytime, and Delta for low light) is more likely.

Some reading on Fomapan suggests that the highlights can block up during development. I'd be using HC-110 - am I likely to have problems, or would my putative plan of a middling dilution (something weaker than dilution B - aiming for 8-10 minutes dev time), maybe with a bit less agitation, be on the right track? My usual agitation regime is inversions for the first 30 seconds, and then 3 inversions every minute (3 inversions takes about 10 seconds).
 
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