Fomapan films - suitability for tray development

Not sure how I'd go about smoothing inside the rebate though. Any tips would be much appreciated.
 
I use an artist paint brsh, carefully clean the light-trap area as well, you could use some thin card to clean under the rebates.
Store the clead DDS in a box, I find the 3 litre Really Useful Storage Boxes ideal, they hold around a dozen 5x4 DDS, top to tail.

I always now dust them before loading and then put them in pairs inside re-sealable food bags,.

Foma emulsions, film & paer, are slightly softer, less well hardened compared to other films, but handled carefully this isn't an issue.

Ian
 
For smoothing under the film rail, slide in the very finest emery paper you can find and slide into the groove and slide gently, gently back and forth along the slot. You might mount it on thin card. You’re only trying to remove irregularities, not grind them down so this is something you’d probably do only once in the lifetime of a holder. Clean up thoroughly afterwards of course. Slightly dampened cloth should deal with most dust, after a thorough blowing.
You can certainly clean the light trap, but that won’t affect film scratching.
You might review your own technique, if I may suggest it. When we insert film, we need to bend it upwards, to locate the film into the ends of the film slots. 5x4 film curves quite easily, but 10x8 is much stiffer. Could it be inadvertently scraping on the edge of the locking flap, as it goes in? Hard to tell in the dark.
This wouldn’t account for the invincibility of HP5, of course.
 
Ian Grant said:
Foma emulsions, film & paer, are slightly softer, less well hardened compared to other films, but handled carefully this isn't an issue.

Ian
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Something else came to me after reviewing notes. Pinholes in the fomapan 200 emulsion. I've read about stop baths and not using stop baths and stop baths having nothing to do with it. Any thoughts or experience with this?
 
David M said:
For smoothing under the film rail, slide in the very finest emery paper you can find and slide into the groove and slide gently, gently back and forth along the slot. You might mount it on thin card. You’re only trying to remove irregularities, not grind them down so this is something you’d probably do only once in the lifetime of a holder. Clean up thoroughly afterwards of course. Slightly dampened cloth should deal with most dust, after a thorough blowing.
You can certainly clean the light trap, but that won’t affect film scratching.
You might review your own technique, if I may suggest it. When we insert film, we need to bend it upwards, to locate the film into the ends of the film slots. 5x4 film curves quite easily, but 10x8 is much stiffer. Could it be inadvertently scraping on the edge of the locking flap, as it goes in? Hard to tell in the dark.
This wouldn’t account for the invincibility of HP5, of course.
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All good advice. It's always good to review your techniques even if this issue lies elsewhere.
Thanks
 
Adrian Lambert said:
Something else came to me after reviewing notes. Pinholes in the fomapan 200 emulsion. I've read about stop baths and not using stop baths and stop baths having nothing to do with it. Any thoughts or experience with this?
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The Fomapan sheet film data sheet states not to use stop bath. I didn’t know this until fairly recently. In the past I’ve sometimes experienced random strange processing marks but since using water instead of stop bath I haven’t had any problems. I will be using water from now on with Fomapan films.
 
Nas said:
The Fomapan sheet film data sheet states not to use stop bath.
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I missed this too initially but since discovered it. I also found a number of people sharing experiences of the pinholes not going away when not using a stop bath. I have a feeling I'm going to buy another box then call it quits with Fomapan if it doesn't come up to par. It's such a shame top feel this way as it has such a magical timeless rendering.
 
Adrian Lambert said:
I missed this too initially but since discovered it. I also found a number of people sharing experiences of the pinholes not going away when not using a stop bath. I have a feeling I'm going to buy another box then call it quits with Fomapan if it doesn't come up to par. It's such a shame top feel this way as it has such a magical timeless rendering.
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Which developer are you using? Can you share examples of the pin holes you’re experiencing? Thanks.
 
I was using DDX and Rollei Supergrain. Stop bath was Adox. The pinholes are tiny little areas where there is no silver where clearly there should be. No discernible shape to them. Literally tiny specs - pinholes is a very fair description of them. I'd say with some confidence that they aren't air bubbles at that size. I think there's plenty of examples around. I'm currently archiving recent assignments and it's 9:30pm so I'm not going to dig them out right now. Sorry. I'll try and remember to do it.
 
Adrian Lambert said:
I was using DDX and Rollei Supergrain. Stop bath was Adox. The pinholes are tiny little areas where there is no silver where clearly there should be. No discernible shape to them. Literally tiny specs - pinholes is a very fair description of them. I'd say with some confidence that they aren't air bubbles at that size. I think there's plenty of examples around. I'm currently archiving recent assignments and it's 9:30pm so I'm not going to dig them out right now. Sorry. I'll try and remember to do it.
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That’s fine. No rush. I’ve used HC-110 and Adox XT-3 with Fomapan 100 & 200 and so far so good. I keep my sheets cool but not in the fridge. You may be unlucky with a bad batch or there may be some other factors at play.
 
Kind of got past thinking it's just a bad batch. As per Ian's comment above I too believe that they are softer and requires much more care both chemically and physically.
 
Adrian Lambert said:
Kind of got past thinking it's just a bad batch.
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Adrian,
if you have to be more careful than with other films the Foma may simply be a bit more sensitive but not per se a bad batch.
You could be more careful, you could buy an emulsion hardener - problem solved.

If you have scratches obviciously coming from film loading there is no reason to speak about Foma's weak emulsions.
Just be careful and use clean filmholders.
BTW I have no idea how to scratch the emulsion side while loading to the filmholder?? :)

Since one week I am reading about Foma being bad, Foma being weak, you will quit before starting...
But I haven't seen any bad excamples yet.

Me, I never have had any problems with Foma products except with Fomaspeed paper where the silver shot out of the surface of my prints after some years. Which seemed to be wellknown by experienced and trustful posters.

No scratches, no pinholes with my sheet films.
From tomorrow on I will check two new to me emulsions - Foma 200, and Retro 320.
I will presoaking, developing and acid-stopping as usual - without special developers.
Rodinal or XTol, that's it for me.
I am not interested in making whoodoo while loading and developing, I am fearless concerning ugly surprises but will report any emulsion issues beyond my lousy but somehow successfull techniqes.

Best,
Reginald
 
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