J11 Loc: Ocean Springs MS

How Y'all. Trying to learn film photography. Saw a guy on YouTube shooting Fomapan film. His images looked pretty good, so I bought a roll of 35mm. Fomapan 100 is a black and white 100 ISO film manufactured in the Czech Republic. According to the manufacture website, the film is high resolution, wide exposure latitude and fine grain. One thing I noticed, when you shoot Fomapan in direct, hard sun light, the images become very grainy. All shot with a vintage lens. Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated. Jim

A storm was coming in so the race had to be postponed. Notice the grain in the pic. Direct sun coming down on the beach.

(Download)

Waiting for the storm to pass

(Download)

Back to racing. See how grainy this pic. is with direct sun light.

(Download)

This was taken at the Biloxi Seafood festival this year. Indirect sun light seems to help the exposure of this film. Got some oysters on the grill.

(Download)

The Menu. Same festival in Biloxi.

(Download)

This was taken in overcast skies with a vintage 180mm lens.

(Download)

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The non grainy pics look great. If direct sunlight is the issue, you might want confirm in another roll in direct sunlight with the same camera. Test an image overexposed by 1/3 stop, one at the camera's meter and one shot under exposed by 1/3 stop. It might be the camera rather than the film.

J11 Loc: Ocean Springs MS

Thanks Paul. I may go one stop both ways and see how it looks. I was using a Nikon F3. Maybe that was my problem, should have been shooting a Canon film camera.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

It's hard to say. Some film gets more grainy when very over exposed, others you need to really underexpose for grain. Of the problem images, the details look over exposed, but the grain structure looks underexposed, like not enough light hit the film. But, some others that seem perfect also seem like bright situations. Keep us posted if you find a rhyme or reason.

J11 Loc: Ocean Springs MS

Will do. I appreciate the helpful advice. This film was shot at box speed. I have only been shooting film for a little over a year. I thought I would try numerous types of film from different manufactures to be able to find the right kind of film I like. The camera I used, according to my notes, has had to rolls shot with it (HP5 and Portra 800). Neither one of these rolls of film showed so much grain in the image. Jim.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

Interesting. It's sort of the opposite of what I would expect!

Tim Stapp Loc: Mid Mitten

Foma films are somewhat grainy. They are "old school films."

I've shot a lot of Foma film, rebadged as Arista EDU. The 100 and 400 films are "old school" and will exhibit grain. The 200 is a hybrid film, both cubic and T grained. Wonderful film. Much less grainy.

I did not see what developer you were using. Foma films are box speed in only a few developers (XTOL being one). Most shoot them a stop or two over exposed.

I shoot the 200 speed almost exclusively in all formats: 135mm, 120 roll film and large format (4x5). I develop on a JOBO processor with a 5 minute presoak, 6 minutes in XTOL, stop and fix. Wash in the JOBO (three cycles) and then a final rinse in photo flo off the reel. Because i have a well with hard water, the photo flo is mixed with distilled water.