Foma Retropan Soft 320 black and White film is a panchromatically* sensitized special negative black and white film with fine grain, good resolution and contour sharpness. The film is characterised by a wide range of half tones and soft light which makes it suitable for photography and subsequent contact printing or “retro” style enlarging of negatives (photographs of still lives, architecture, experiments, landscapes, portraits, etc.).
This film is available in 35mm and 120mm formats as well as different sizes of photographic papers.
I Brought a 35mm roll of this film from the Lomography shop on Newbourgh Street In Soho London (which is now closed) back in 2017 and it sat in my fridge until last November (2019) when I picked up another roll from the Photographers Gallery on Ramillies Street, Soho, London, at the same time I picked up the development powder kit which is recommend to use with this film as it is a soft grain. Prior to this my plan was to process it in Rodinal but the thought of spending every 30seconds moving the tank of 10 seconds for 20mins seemed a little dull. Whereas the Retropan developer reduced the time to only 4-5 minutes.
The Developer is a power developer that comes in two parts. One small pack and a large pack. (I did keep the packs form them but I currently cannot find them, they are in that safe place where I would not forget were that are).
- First you will need 700ml of water at 40C.
- Add the smaller pack to the water, stir till dissolved
- Then add the larger pack and stir till dissolved
- Then add 300ml of water to the solution to make it the full 1 litre working solution.
- Leave to cool till it is at 20C (or run sealed bottle under tap, checking the temperature intermittently)
I found that the tank I use once it has film in holds an estimated 850ml of solution leaving just enough room for me to then agitate the film using the spindle to rotate the film without risking making a mess each time. Each film was developed for 5 minuets in the developer and 4 minuets in ilford fix.
Both rolls of film were shot with my Olympus trip 35, set at the box speed of 320 ISO on the Auto setting. Which is a little lazy but when I’m shooting a new film for the first time using this camera this why increasing the chances of seeing the full potential of the films results.
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Film #021
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Film #021
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Film #022
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Film #022
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This film creates a soft sharp of depth, which I have only managed with some frames with the Ilford Delta's.
I do love black and photos that have a lot of contrast so with some of the images I could not resist putting them in to photoshop and doing auto contrast. I not one for editing the colours on photos at most in the past I have only straighten images. Every now and then I might edit some.
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Film #022. "Camden Tube" Image on the left is the original scanned photo. On the right is the photoshopped image with auto contrast.
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Film #021."Hanging Plants" Image on the left is the original scanned photo. On the right is the photoshopped image with auto contrast.
 | | Film #022. "Plants" The top image is the original scanned photo. The below image is the photoshopped image with auto contrast. |
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Changing the contrast on this film means losing the some of the details and depth, which you can see in the "Camden Tube" image above. however with the "Plants" it has made the image clearer.The almost creates a vintage movie still look.
I think I need to get another roll and see what the result will be when developed in Rodinal, see if it keeps its softness or weather it becomes more contrasty.
*A panchromatic emulsion produces a realistic reproduction of a scene as it appears to the human eye, although with no colours. Almost all modern photographic film is panchromatic.
