Fuji Neopan 400: A Film Easy to Print

A quick review on a great film, easy to print, almost grainless and with a great exposure latitude. Great to use in cameras without exposure meters or for beginners.

This film is hard to find in my city, but when I found some rolls I quickly bought it, because the moderate contrast and the good exposure latitude allow me to print easily the photos using my Durst enlarger. I never found a 120mm version of this film, so for the requested post of this month I can only explain to you the pro and cons of the 135mm roll.

I tested this film on a winter day, last January. I used a Fed 2 rangefinder camera (without exposure meter, using the F16 rule to set times and aperture). The great exposure latitude of this film allows to forgive some exposure errors, and the moderate contrast allows to obtain a negative easy to print even with a condensed light enlarger.

As you can see, the contrast is never too high, and even this is not the best for scanning the images, you have a negative rich of greytones, without loss of details even in overexposed or underexposed zones.

The film is almost grainless, even if you develop in a high acutance bath as in Rodinal. Here I used a 1+50 solution of R09 (the new name of the Rodinal developer).

The photo above is a 60% crop of the original; let see how the grain size is very small!

The greytones is always pleasant

Note: the emulsion of this film is delicate, manage with care because this film is more subject to scratches and little damages when it is wet after the development process. I lay the wet film after the bathing with the wetting agent without touching it with fingers or with pliers rubber.

written by sirio174 on 2012-11-12 #gear #lake #review #winter #snow #neopan #italy #fuji #neopan-400 #greyscale #como