created/modified 2021-03-03
Fomapan 200 B&W Film Profile/Review
This tech page is for Foma Fomapan 200 Film, or FOMAPAN_200. This is a medium speed B&W film that comes in 35mm roll, 120 roll, and various sheet sizes. FOMAPAN_200 is repackaged as Freestyle Photographic’s Arista.EDU Ultra house brand film, so this tech sheet covers both films under this one page. This film is a panchromatically sensitized, black-and-white negative film designed for low granularity, high resolving power and high contour sharpness.
Development
There are many ways to develop FOMAPAN_200. Following Foma’s recommended development in their tech sheet is a good place to start if you want to develop this film yourself. If you send your film in to us here at Simple Film Lab, we develop FOMAPAN_200 with Ilford replenished Ilfotech DD developer with constant rotary agitation as standard practice.
Exposure Guidance
There are many ways to meter and expose FOMAPAN_200. If sending FOMAPAN_200 in to Simple Film Lab to process and scan, we recommend taking an incident light reading of the darkest part of the scene you want to retain details in and subtracting 2 stops of exposure from that reading. For example, if the darkest part of the scene that you want to retain detail in reads 1/125 shutter, f/4.0 at ISO 200, either set the shutter to 1/500 or close down the aperture to f/8.0, or a combination of the two to reduce the exposure by two stops. If you don’t have a light meter, then set your camera exposure compensation to +1 stop, and that will generally result in an acceptable exposure for most situations once scanned in and density corrected.
Characteristic Curve
Using the development described above, here’s the characteristic curve for the standard ISO contrast index of 0.62:
The scale along the bottom is exposure EVs, the scale along the left is density as seen by the film scanner, meaning raw ADC integer values. The EV 0 mark is an 18% exposure card exposed correctly via an incident light reading with a studio strobe and a Sekonic light meter through a T-Stop rated lens. Every dot along the curve is a full stop of light. This is the curve used to linearize the emulsion when scanned in and converted to an Adobe Digital Negative file.
Dynamic Range/Exposure Latitude
FOMAPAN_200 has a fair amount of dynamic range. If exposed and developed as described above, on the shadow side, the toe of FOMAPAN_200 is -4 to -5 EV with the film base plus fog at -5 to -6 EV with film/scanner noise down to about -7 EV. In Adobe Lightroom, this is good black performance as any tone values from -5 to -6 EV will register as less than 1% luminance in the Develop Module with the default contrast and black level. On the highlight side, FOMAPAN_200 is reasonable. We’ve exposed and linearized up to +8 EV with film/scanner noise up to +9 EV. In Adobe Lightroom +7 EV registers as 100% luminance in the Develop Module, so the highlight retention of FOMAPAN_200 is good. With the above information, in Adobe Lightroom, the visible dynamic range of an exposure is +7 EV to -6 EV. FOMAPAN_200 doesn’t provide much under exposure protection and 1-2 stops of over exposure protection while still maintaining acceptable black levels and full highlight retention for the full visible dynamic range in Adobe Lightroom. These over-under limits can be exceeded if you are OK with reduced performance at the extremes of the exposure scale. Through our exposure and development testing we’ve determined that FOMAPAN_200 has a real ISO of 160 if developed to the ISO standard 0.62 contrast, so this means black performance that is better than what is rated here if exposed at EI 160 or 125.
Resolution/Grain
FOMAPAN_200 has good resolution for a 200 speed film. Looking at Foma’s spec sheet, at 50% contrast, FOMAPAN_200 is about 25 line-pairs per mm of film. Looking at a film scan of a 135 frame at 1:1, its grain structure is kind of non-descript, meaning it has grain, but there isn’t really anything objectionable about it. I’d rate it as middle of the road in terms of resolution for a 200 speed film. It has marginally less resolution than Fomapan 100 and about the same as Fomapan 400. In terms of grain, Foma lists it as a granularity of 14.0, so it’s got grain, but it’s not particularly grainy. It’s a pretty pleasant grain. 400TX has a listed granularity of 17, so it’s comparatively finer grained, but not dramatically so.
Sample Images
Here’s a link to a Flickr Album of more images shot on Fomapan 200. I’ve added new images of the film shot at EI 160 with the new film profile based off of that exposure level and indicated as such in the image description. I’ll add more images as I have them available. and as I shoot more rolls, and develop them with replenished XTOL, I’ll provide a download file of some sample DNG files that you can get if you send FOMAPAN_200 into us to develop.
Purchase
If you wish to purchase this film, you can do so on our store located here.
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