Fomapan 400 in 35mm is known for the classic, bold grain, which can give photos a vintage feel. While some photographers love it for these qualities, others see it as nothing more than a cheap test roll for trying out a new camera. In this post, I’ll share my experience from shooting and developing over 15 rolls of Fomapan 400 in 35mm, and what I’ve learned about getting the best results from it.
When I learned how to develop film at home, I was excited—“Great! The chemistry is so cheap; it only costs me about 50 cents to develop a roll! Now I can shoot more film.” I started taking my film camera for photo walks on weekends more frequently. Back then I thought I needed high-speed film for capturing street scenes, this is how I encountered Fomapan 400. It’s the most affordable ISO 400 film available in Germany. The low price was important to me, as I didn’t want to hesitate over taking a shot just because it might not be perfect and I waste a precious frame. I’ve tried Fomapan 100 before and liked the results, so I had similar expectations. But when I developed my first roll of Fomapan 400 in HC-110, I was quite shocked by how grainy my photos turned out. It had been a while since I’d last shot with ISO 400 film, so I assumed that prominent grain was just typical for this speed, and I decided to order some more rolls.
Reusable canisters 🔗
To cut costs even further, I ordered Fomapan 400 and 100 in sets of six rolls with a single reloadable canister. The set comes with one pre-loaded canister ready to shoot, plus five light-sealed containers holding spools of film. After developing a roll, I’d load the next spool from one of the containers into the empty canister, making it ready for use again.
Reloading is straightforward, but there’s a catch—you can only carry one roll at a time with a single canister, as reloading should be done in a dark room. To get around this, I ordered multiple sets. That way, I could bring a few rolls with me and shoot freely without worrying about running out of film mid-walk. With these sets, each roll costs me just 4.30 euros. It’s not as cheap as bulk loading, but still reasonably affordable by the 2024 standards.
The documentation that comes with the film sets says that reusable canisters can be prone to wear, recommending that you skip the first four frames after shooting a few rolls, as they may be subject to light leaks. To keep track, I put a dot on the canister when I finish shooting it. After I reload the canister with fresh film, I simply cross out the dot to indicate that there’s a new roll inside.
Unfortunately, the reusable canisters are far worse than the documentation states. Some of them leaked light even with the very first factory-loaded roll. This resulted in broad vertical stripes on first photos, which became less prominent on a couple of subsequent shots but still noticeable. The issues worsened with each sequential use. Typically, I only end up with 32-34 clean photos from a roll, even though I could potentially have 38. The most frustrating part isn’t just getting fewer frames for my money, but having good shots ruined by the light leaks. I’ve never experienced this problem with one-off film canisters from other brands.
Real sensitivity 🔗
Another thing I quickly learned about Fomapan 400 is that it’s not actually an ISO 400 film. If you examine the development curves in the official datasheet, it’s visible that it barely reaches ISO 250 with the recommended development times for most developers.
Unlike digital photography, where photographers often underexpose to preserve highlights and recover shadow details during editing, film behaves the opposite way. Unexposed and undeveloped silver ions are permanently removed from the emulsion by the fixer. If you try to brighten dark areas on a scanned negative, you’ll only introduce digital noise because there’s no detail left to recover. On the other hand, you can easily make highlights darker, so with film, it’s always better to overexpose than underexpose.
These photos were taken at Fête de la Musique in the evening, where I shot Fomapan 400 rated at ISO 400. The dark areas turned out completely black.
Keeping the development curve in mind, I set the ISO on my light meter to 250. When shooting without a meter, I calculate exposure using the Sunny 16 rule at ISO 200. Then, it’s important to develop the film using the recommended times for ISO 400 - no need for pulling.
Another thing I realized after shooting Fomapan 400 throughout the summer and autumn is that ISO 200 is more than sufficient for my street photography needs. On sunny or partly cloudy days, I can comfortably keep the aperture between f/8 and f/4 while having a shutter speed of at least 1/250s, which is fast enough to freeze motion. Late in the evening, I usually slow down the shutter to 1/125s to and open up the aperture wider between f/4 and f/2.8. What an insight—I guess I don’t need those heavy f/1.4 lenses after all!
Metering 🔗
Since this film doesn’t have a wide dynamic range, I usually meter for the shadows if a scene is high contrasty and my subject is in the shade. For instance, if a large portion of the scene includes the bright sky, center-weighted metering may expose for the sky, leaving the subject too dark. I use Lightme app as a light meter. Instead of pointing it directly at the scene, I point it at an area mostly covered by shade, such as the ground or a wall. For contrasty landscape scenes, I sometimes use spot metering. I measure the highlights and shadows separately and calculate an average value. This approach helps preserve details in both the highlights and shadows.
To demonstrate the difference between metering approaches, here are two photos taken at the same location on two different sunny days. The first one was exposed for the highlights. You can clearly see the stripes on the top of the tent in the background, and the cobblestone pattern on the ground is visible even under direct sunlight. However, the problem is that the faces of people in the photo are barely visible. It’s hard to understand that the kids on the photo are playing with water. The texture of the jugs is only visible on the highlighted side, while the leaves of the trees in the background appear as indistinguishable black. I attempted to lift the shadows slightly during editing to save the photo, but this introduced visible noise in the darker areas.
In the second photo, the jugs’ texture is fully visible in shadows and highlights, the leaves of the trees are distinguishable, and you can clearly see the people interacting in front. As a trade-off, the stripes on the top of the tent have shifted closer to light gray, making it harder to distinguish them from the white fabric. However, I don’t mind this, as my priority is to show the subject.
Fighting the grain 🔗
While some people may appreciate the prominent grain produced by the older emulsion of Fomapan 400, I personally prefer something finer. Fortunately, in black-and-white film photography, the final results can vary significantly depending on the developer used.
I started with Rodinal because it came with my kit. Rodinal is a high-acutance developer, meaning it accentuates grain to make the appear sharper. However, it’s not typically recommended for high-speed films, as it makes already large grain even more noticeable. Despite this, Rodinal has a loyal fanbase in online forums, claiming it’s the best developer for any film type and the only one they use.
Before developing my first roll of Fomapan 400, I did some research and discovered that Kodak HC-110 is known as one of the most universal developers. It works well with nearly every film stock despite being quite an old formula. Even iconic photographers like Ansel Adams relied on it. On Kodak’s developer chart, HC-110 is positioned as balanced, offering a good compromise between fine grain and shadow detail retention.
I also found it convenient that it’s sold in liquid form, so it’s easy to dilute with water right before development and discard afterward. While I didn’t know any better, I decided to stick with HC-110. Throughout the summer, I developed all my film with it. At first, I only followed the recommended times from datasheets, but at some point I even experimented with pushing and pulling. Although I started getting decent results with Fomapan 400, I still couldn’t bear how grainy my photos were. Since I had already stocked up on several boxes of it, I kept shooting. Occasionally, I even found myself regretting the day I decided to buy so many rolls. That changed when I discovered XTOL!
XTOL is a modern solvent developer, it makes grain finer by dissolving its edges and allowing silver to redistribute during development. It comes in powder form, which you mix with water, and it can either be used diluted as a one-off solution or reused 10-15 times by extending the development time. Since Kodak XTOL is only available in packages that are mixed into 5 liter solution, I decided to try a similar formula produced by ADOX - XT-3. It comes in smaller packages that are mixed into 1 liter of solution. It was straightforward to prepare by following the instructions, and there were no dust or odors.
When I developed my first roll of Fomapan 400 with it, I was surprised! My photos started to look like they’d been shot on modern film. XTOL also resolves more detail in the shadows, which was a pleasant bonus, especially given Fomapan 400’s limited dynamic range. To clarify, in this post, the second photo with the jugs and the following four photos were developed in XTOL, while the others were developed in HC-110.
Looking at these photos, I find Fomapan 400 with XTOL/XT-3 to be a completely usable combo! Will I buy it again? Maybe, but I’d rather stay away from sets with reloadable canisters. For now, a brick of HP5 is waiting for me in the fridge.