Recently I had a sunny day off! Woohoo FINALLY!
I decided to, as they say, kill two birds with one stone, by exercising my Leica M3 and testing the Foma Ortho 400 135-36, a daring feat since lately all of my old cameras seem to be giving me grief. I planned a meandering walk through Kits, as I wanted to include a little casual shopping at White Dwarf Books and 05 Rare Tea Bar into my walk. The day was fabulous! Sunny the whole time I was out! My walk was absolutely delightful, and I am always SO grateful for days like that! I managed to shoot the entire roll and spend a bunch of money on tea!
Foma Ortho 400 is a fairly new release, and I’m happy there is finally an ortho film that’s not just available in 25 ISO and 80 ISO, because those are too slow for me! The Foma Ortho 400 has extended greenish – yellow sensitivity causing any green/yellow subjects in the picture to appear lighter in photos. Ortho film can’t sense red light so a red subject will show up much darker in any photos. I like ortho film because it gives my photos a different look than my usual Ilford FP4 and HP5 black and white film, which is panchromatic.
I had my friend help me develop my roll as it seemed a tad iffy at first. We couldn’t find any solid info in the Foma literature on what Rodinal development times to use and there seemed to be only a scant bit of anecdotal offerings on the internet for the 120 version. So my friend used his own “seat of the pants,” which told him to start with ye old “11 min at 20 degrees,” but he ultimately decided to go with 12 minutes, figuring he’d rather err on over development than under development (since the reds were likely to be quite dark (being Ortho) and might possibly benefit from the slight boost, while the film would probably still have enough latitude to hold detail in the highlights).
I actually really like this film, I definitely think next time I’d shoot it with more intent. After looking at this last roll, as I suspected, my preference for its use was for at night and photos with more minimalist compositions. Perhaps I’ll try some cherry blossoms on my next roll! For fun I took a ‘movie still’ type snap of the 1972 classic Dr. Jekyll And The Werewolf, I really liked the contrast of my TV screen shot.
To order online please clink below:
https://www.beauphoto.com/product/foma-ortho-400/
